Plan of Attack #1

I have been thinking about how I am going to achieve debt freedom and there are two methods of doing so.

1.) Increase Income
2.) Decrease Expenditure

For this post, I am going to focus solely on the latter as I think that it is pointless finding ways to bring in extra money, if I am not in complete control of my current income and expenses.

In my last post I detailed where my credit card debt had come from; I was shocked by just how debt I had racked up on everyday living expenses such as groceries and petrol. This has shown me just how important a budget is.

Secondly, I clearly have no concept of how much disposable income I have to pay for luxuries and instead have paid for whatever I wanted on the credit card, rather than adopting the sensible attitude of "I want that, I don't need it. Can I afford it? No, then I can't justify it."

So, I am firstly going to take the following steps:

1. Create a monthly budget
2. Calculate my disposable income
3. Start a spending diary
4. Review my fixed expenses and see if there is anyway I can decrease them
5. See if I can minimise my variable expenses ie. Food/Fuel