Many people are not naturals when it comes to budgeting well. But is is something that everyone can teach themselves to do. The simplest way to improve your financial situation is to start keeping a record of every single transaction that you make - it doesn't matter if it's a bar of chocolate or a weeks grocery shopping, it needs to be noted down. For people whose finances are already fairly robust, this exercise need only be completed over 4 to 6 weeks to allow them to assess where the money is going and where there is room for improvement. For people who are in a lot of debt and need a way of cutting back to free up more money to clear these debts, these records should be either maintained for several months, until the debts or cleared or even as a life long habit if you are especially bad at managing money.

It is easy to think that a 2 cappuccino here and a 3 magazine there are not going to do any damage to your finances. But what a lot of people who frequently live beyond their means don't realise is that a lot of small transactions are adding up to a big expense each month. For instance, if you buy a cup of coffee at work every day that adds up to around 10 a week. Over the course of a year you may be spending over 500 getting your daily caffeine fix. Take into account other small but regular transactions such as newspapers and snacks and you could be spending hundreds or thousands of pounds on trivial items, when your money instead be going towards clearing debts or making over payments on a mortgage.

While this approach to money will help most people, sometimes the debt mountain can become insurmountable. If your finances in particularly bad shape, seek assistance from the Consumer Credit Counselling Services.