Do you regularly find yourself with plenty of money to spend after payday, only to be left short half way into the month?

It is all too easy for many people to live day by day, without really looking at their financial position. This is a trap which will often lead to living beyond your means, building up more credit card debt and just making that debt mountain bigger.

Here are some basic tips to help you better deal with your financial situation.

Monitor your spending

A little bit of planning and monitoring can go a long way to solving this and help you on your way to becoming debt free.

The first step is to work out all of your essential outgoings for the month, for example:

• Mortgage/Rent
• Tax
• Existing Loans
• Credit/Store cards
• Expected Bills
• Transport costs (Petrol / other vehicle costs)
• Food
• and anything else which may apply to you.

Take all of that off from your monthly pay, and you know how much at the most you can spend over the period.

It's not a pretty picture is it?

...But it is an essential step to realizing your financial position.

Given this information, you can work out how much you can afford to spend per week, and record this expenditure in order to ensure you are staying within your means.

Watch out for unnecessary expenditure

After monitoring you spending for a month, you can really begin to see where it is all going. At this point you can start to think about what is really necessary, and what can be cut out or cut down.

For example, Do you really need to buy lunch at work every day, when you could bring in something from home?

How much are you spending on luxuries like going out? Could you cut this down?

Keep in mind that you do not need to make a financial plan so extreme that it takes any joy out of life. Allow for occasional treats and luxuries, but plan in how much you will allow.

Cut out the impulse buys

There is no point in being frugal for most of the month, only to blow all of the money on impulse part way through. This is where you need to be strong in sticking to your plan, and avoiding temptation.

Before you buy that item that you just have to have, at least sleep on it and consider it first.

Things may look different by the next day, and you may have saved yourself a lot of wasted money.