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For most of us who are struggling with debt, thinking about our finances is the last thing that we want to do. Being in debt cannot only cause emotional stress and physical symptoms but it can also but a strain on your relationships with those you love. All this can be enough to make you want to just look the other way and pretend that your mounting debt doesn't exist. However, this is the absolute worst thing that you can do. The first step to surviving a debt disaster is to own up to what you owe and to really start dissecting how and why you spend. Only then will you be able to devise a customized plan to overcome your bad spending habits and get yourself out of the red.

Start by taking a good, honest look at where you spend your money. Force yourself to keep a spending diary for at least two weeks and some patterns should start to immerge. For me it was food and nights out. No wonder I had a weight problem when the majority of my income that wasn't spent on rent and other bills was being shoved down my throat. What I realized was that my spending was all about the instant gratification and short-lived thrills. I was pretty frugal when it came to shelling out the dough for those big-ticket items and didn't really have a problem with shopping sprees. It was those every-day expenses that add up fast that I had a problem with. What I also found was that while these purchases momentarily lifted my mood, they definitely didn't bring lasting happiness and were actually directly contributing to my discontent.

With that important realization fresh in my mind, I sat down and completed another important step towards financial freedom. I wrote down some realistic goals and created a budget. I filled out a Fixed Expenses Worksheet, which includes things like rent, insurance, utilities, groceries and gas and calculated exactly how much discretionary funding I had left after I subtracted my total monthly expenses from my gross income.

Initially I was shocked by the sum of my monthly expenses when I saw them all added together on one page, so I found a few ways to cut back. I cancelled my cable TV to cut down on utilities and switched to a cheaper cellular plan. Then, seeing as my sporatic trips to the gym weren't making up for all of my discretionary-fund eating and drinking, I cancelled my expensive gym membership in favor of walking outdoors and cheap workout DVDs.

Now that I had brought my total monthly expenses down a bit, it was time to address how I spent my discretionary

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