When trying to assess the state of your finances and attempting to work out where to start dealing with personal financial problems. The first thing you need to do is to know is exactly what your income is, you should add your salary, your commission, and if you have any, additional income together.

After this, you will need to analyze your costs which are mandatory; they can include your food, rent or mortgage, your transportation, insurances, loan repayments and so on. Once you have done this, you will have to look at what is the balance that you have left when you deduct these essential expenses from your income.

There are usually two outcomes and you may find that you are spending way more than you earn. It is unlikely that in the short term at least you will be able to reduce those fixed costs such as rent or repaying your credit cards.

You may want to contact companies that would be willing to give you a deal on your monthly fees or reduce the money you own them.

You may find that some companies are more interested in keeping hold of a good player at a lower rate than having them slowly become a bad payer. You will need to then look very carefully at all your other expenditures.

Be very thorough when you are doing this as there are many small debts that people often forget. Can you reduce transportation costs by using public transport, or perhaps sharing on expenses of running a car with someone you work with.

Smaller expenses can really hurt your finances – things such as alcohol, movies, take out, and cigarettes.

If you have serious income problems another alternative is to increase the amount that you have coming in every month by finding ways to start producing some more cash. This can be done by getting a part time job or selling off things that you don’t really need.

Realistically the best way to deal with a shortage of available cash is to combine both these options. Reducing your outgoings and increasing your incoming cash will obviously result in the most changes to your monthly financial situation.

It’s not always easy but take a serious look at your finance. In this way somewhere in the middle you will find that your books will start to balance out and your income will begin to better match your outgoings.