It has probably struck by now: The Finance Fiasco. All those Christmas, birthday, engagement and wedding presents have added up. Your credit card has gone over limit and wheezed its way to death, and your salary is going out as fast as it comes in. You need a rescue plan and you need to implement it NOW!

Don’t Get Ambitious
Formulate your plan when you have time to devote to it completely — don’t do it after you’ve had a couple of drinks and are filled with bravado and gutsy ‘No problemo’ ideas. To work, any financial plan has to be realistic and have ‘meetable’ goals. Make it a short-term plan to begin with. Start by telling yourself it is for three months only. If you give yourself too much time, you may be tempted to revert to spending form in-between.

All That Change Counts
Put a fixed amount of cash into your wallet every morning. You know basically how much it costs to get from your house to the office. Add an extra Rs 20 over that — but not more. Whatever change you bring back at the end of the day should go into a glass jar. Alternatively, the next day, add the difference to your wallet. For example, if you are carrying Rs 150 with you per day, when you get home, you may have Rs 50 left over, so the next morning, only top up your cash with Rs 100, not Rs 150.

Whatever you save goes towards paying off all your spending debts.

Cut Down On Interest
It may not seem like too much in the grand scheme of things, but all the interest you’re paying by revolving credit on your cards tots up to a pretty heavy total.

Pay off as much as you can afford to, in lump sums on your card. This will not only bring down your monthly repayment amount, but will also reduce the interest you will have to pay on a month-to-month basis. Then wrap your credit cards well in plastic and freeze them — think of them as your ‘frozen assets’!! Apart from which, by the time you defrost them, you’ll be over the impulse-spending itch! Or put them in your bank locker. They’re there if you really need them, but are not too accessible.

No More Mad Mobiling
Sad, but true. Your days of endless gossip sessions on the mobile are temporarily over. Let SMS rule — it keeps you in touch, but at a fraction of the cost. Besides, the last thing you need is your best buddy ringing to tell you about a sale. At least with SMS, it won’t necessarily get to you immediately, and by the time it does, you might be stuck in a meeting, or otherwise generally unavailable. Or, check the number on your screen and call back from a land-line. Tough decisions, but they will pay off — literally — in the end.

Eating In Is... IN!
Ok, you love your Italian or your Lebanese or whatever, but the fact is that you cannot afford to eat out anymore — even the price of ‘masala dosas’ and ‘vadas’ has gone up, remember? Unless it’s ‘bhel’, you’re better off eating at home. Get out all those cook- books that you had enthusiastically accumulated, dust them off, put on your apron and innovate! You might find that eating at home can be quite a bit of fun. Just don’t set off the smoke alarm though!

Small steps are sometimes the easiest — and the ones you are most likely to hold to. However you decide to do it, stay with it and don’t give up till you’re over the worst of it. A few months of sacrifices are all it takes to stay out of the debt trap.