This slideshow reveals why getting out of debt does not have to be a complicated process. In fact if you want to become debt-free, it can be boiled down to three simple steps. The toughest of these may be determining the root of the problem or why it is you got into debt in the first place. As this presentation reports, it's virtually impossible to save money to pay off debt until you know where your money is going. It also covers suggestions for creating a team and how to build a better budget.

1. Helpful Financial Information from National Debt Relief …
Three Simple Steps
For Getting Out Of
Debt
1. Add up the damage
There's a thing about we humans that we
sometimes find it easy to ignore problems. In
fact, there's even the old expression about
"turning a blind eye." And make no mistake
about it, being heavily in debt is a bad problem.
But turning a blind eye to it doesn't make the
problem go away. It will just make things worse. If you haven't done this already,
sit down and determine exactly how much you owe and to whom and at what
interest rates.. (Continued)
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2. Helpful Financial Information from National Debt Relief …
You will need to look at everything and not just your credit card debt. This
includes personal loans, student loans, car loans and even your mortgage. You
will then need to do three important calculations and determine:
• What you owe on your consumer loans and credit cards
• The amount that interest costs you each year
• How much of your monthly salary goes towards paying your debts
2. Determine the root of the problem
Before you do anything else, such as using your retirement savings to pay off your
debts, you need to be honest about what got you into trouble in the first place.
What you don't want to do is put a fix in place while ignoring the cause of the
problem. This means you need to determine where your money goes. If you have
not been keeping track of your spending, it's critical that you begin to do this.
This will help you understand those areas where you could cut back. There are
two ways to do this. You could do it the old way by saving your receipts and then
typing the numbers into a spreadsheet program or you could use one of the
numerous financial management programs available like Mint.com or Quicken.
Mint is free and can be used on your computer or on virtually any smart phone.
It’s by far the most popular online tool for managing personal finances and for
good reason. It's sort of the Swiss Army Knife of personal financial management.
3. Create a team
If you’ve followed the first two steps for getting out of debt you now have all the
information you need. You know whom you owe, how much you owe and how
much interest you're paying. You should also have learned your soft spots or
those areas where you could cut back on your spending. But before you decide
where to make those cuts, hold a family team meeting. You’ll get better results
when this is a joint effort. If you have children you should even involve them in
tracking your spending and creating ideas for trimming expenses. As a general
rule, reducing your spending is usually better than cutting out categories. This is
because it's practically pointless to come up with a budget if you can't stick to it.
Of course, you don't have to tell your kids every little detail of how you stand
financially but it's important that they understand why it is that you need to make
changes and what this will require.
While this may not be true for you, most people who have chosen to cut back on
their spending have found it's easiest to do this in categories like clothing, dining
out, entertainment and groceries. Your “team” might even be able to find ways to

3. Helpful Financial Information from National Debt Relief …
cut back on "fixed" expenses such as automobile insurance, utilities and
transportation.
Building a better budget
If you don't already have a budget it’s important that you create one. Whether
you use Quicken, Mint.com or some other app it's critical that you do this in
order to get a fix on your finances. This can also help you stop wasting money on
things such as overdraft penalties and late fees. Plus, it will enable you to
eventually reach the point where you’re spending less money than you earn and
will have money to put into savings. Assuming that you've already added up your
income and tracked your monthly spending, here are four other steps you could
use to build your budget.
Remember the little things. It's easy to group your spending into the big
categories such as food or transportation but you may be spending a lot that's
hard to group into major categories. This could be money you withdraw from an
ATM and use for your day-to-day needs. But it's critical to track where that cash
is going. What this may require is for you to keep a journal of your cash
expenditures for the next four weeks. You would then be able to use that
information to extrapolate the amount of cash you're going to need for a typical
month and then build this into your budget.
Expect unexpected expenses. There are unexpected expenses that you should
expect or they can totally derail your budget. Unexpected expenses you should
expect are things such as holiday gifts for your kids’ teachers or for your trash
pickup guy. Or how about getting hit up with requests that you buy stuff for
fundraisers or chip in for a birthday cake for a fellow employee? You know these
are coming so set aside enough money to handle these recurring one-off
expenses. Then be sure to include them in your budget.
Watch out for items you could cut. As noted above, you should by now have
been able to find places we you can reduce the fat. You might be able to cut
membership in an expensive gym, cancel a monthly subscription to something or
slash those premium cable channels. You should always wait until things go on
sale to buy them. You should turn down your thermostat in cold weather and up
in summer. Also, when you get your car paid off, don't immediately trade it in for
a new one.

4. Helpful Financial Information from National Debt Relief …
Get some high tech help. As mentioned above, personal finance program such
as Quicken or Mint offer built-in tools to help you develop a budget. With almost
all of these services, whenever you make a deposit, pay a credit card bill, write a
check or send off an electronic payment, you will be asked to assign it to a specific
category. If you bank online as we do, you should be able to download those
payments and deposits directly from your bank. This would save you from having
to enter them by hand.
Getting out of debt is certainly not as easy as getting into debt but it's doable. We
know of people who put together debt management plans that helped them
become debt-free in three years or less even though they owed more than
$20,000. If you follow the information in this article, there is no reason that you
also couldn't be debt-free in three years or less. And just think how good it would
feel to be able to open the day's mail or to answer the phone without that awful
feeling in the pit of your stomach.

5. Helpful Financial Information from National Debt Relief …
Does this sound familiar?
• You are tired of worrying about money…
• You are losing sleep due to mounting credit card
debt…
• You are fighting with your partner about the
bills…
• You are living paycheck to paycheck…
• You are falling behind on your debts…
• You are losing hope…
It’s time to talk with National Debt Relief!
Call Toll Free 1-888-703-4948 Now!
Or Go To http://NationalDebtRelief.com