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If you have found yourself among the millions of people who are facing the grim reality of serious debt, do not despair. There is a way out. This is a three step plan that will help you get organized and attack your debt. When you are serious about cleaning up your financial house, this plan will help you on your way to financial recovery.

1. What do I owe, Who do I owe and What did I do to get into debt?

Attack the debt with a plan and the determination to make it go away.

I am not implying that this will be an easy to take process. It will take hard work and the willpower to dig yourself out of a bad place. It doesn't matter how you got there; whether you had a serious illness and you have a pile of medical bills, or maybe you have a habit of buying things that you can't actually afford; the bottom line is the same and you have the power to change it.

You need to ask yourself how you got into debt. Be honest with yourself about how you accumulated so many bills. Whether it was bad financial habits that got you into trouble in the first place, or a job layoff or medical bills, define the problem. Write it down. Look at your credit card bills for the past year and see if there is a common spending pattern that got you here. Make a note of these habits. If any of these habits are within your control, you have to change them.

Now we have a place to start. A famous person once said, "No jackass steps in the same hole twice." So why do we go about making the same financial mistakes over and over again? Now that you've found the problem and you've defined what it was that put you here, you can begin to deal with it. If the damage done to your finances was beyond your control, an illness or job lay-off, you can now fix the damage that was done.

ORGANIZE your bills. Lay them out in front of you and make a concise list of what you owe and to whom. Most people feel so overwhelmed with debt that they don't know where to begin the job of fixing their financial nightmare. This is where you begin; know your enemy so you can begin to eliminate it from your life. Next to each "I owe" figure, note the interest rate, if any, on that account. When you're done, arrange your list in order of interest rate, highest to lowest.

As part of the organization phase, draw out your monthly budget. We all need to live within our means; in other words, if you don't have the money, you can't afford to spend it. That very attitude is a must if you wish to succeed in pulling yourself out of debt.

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