If you do not have any records or if you are drawing up a budget to see if you can afford something in particular, you will have to estimate the figures, to give their monthly cost.

Entering the figures

Once you have collected all your data together, you can start to enter figures against the items on your list. These should be in the form of monthly totals. For some items, such as your rent or monthly mortgage, this will be straightforward. Irregular spending on items such as clothes, holidays, quarterly bills and so on, requires you to estimate how much you spend each year and then divide this figure by 12. In this way you can arrive at a monthly sum for every item.

Using software If you have a computer and spreadsheet software, you will save a lot of time if you enter your figures on a spreadsheet.

This will also help if you need to adjust the figures or if you want to do 'what if?' calculations to see the effect of making various changes to your budget.

Once you have entered all the figures, add up your total essential spending and your total desirable spending. This has the effect of smoothing your spending over the year to give you an average monthly spending figure for each of the two categories.

Working out your average monthly income

Once you have worked out your average monthly spending, you need to work out your average monthly income. To do this:

• add up all sources of regular monthly i
  Online Mentorship Programs: Cash in on Your Expertise
  Whether you're a former retail store owner known for your creativity, a championship bridge player, or a psychotherapist with a long current waiting list for openings, if you possess expertise that makes colleagues and aficionados want your pearls of wisdom, you can create a new income stream with an online mentorship program.Such a program charges a fee for people to sit at your feet and learn from you. The program would have a special focus (not for everyone) and offer information, resources, advice, insider tips and problem solving. While a mentorship program could take place in the "real world," it is especially easy to set it up, promote and run it online.Before I created my online mentorship program, MarketingforMore.com, in the fall of 2003, I did extensive research on fees and features of other programs. I looked most closely at seven examples whose fees ranged from $30 a month to just less than $600 a month.At the lower end of this spectrum, $30 a month didn't give members very much personal access to the expert around whom the program revolved, while at nearly $600 a month, a member received just about unlimited private access to the expert. Likewise, the program with the lowest fee accepted anyone who applied, while the higher fees required application, with no guarantee of acceptance.Features in the online mentorship programs I looked at included some or all of these: * Topical teleclasses or conference calls * Member newsletter * Member-only articles * Feedback and advice from th
  The best way to deal with debt is to nip it in the bud before it gets out of control. This means not being complacent about the warning signs, which can suggest that you are heading for trouble. If you answer yes to some or all of the following questions, you should give serious thought to sorting out your finances.
  • Are you always overdrawn?
  • Do you repay only the minimum amount on your credit card each month?
  • Does the amount you owe on your credit card go up every month?
  • Do you put off paying bills until the final reminder arrives?
  • Have you ever missed a repayment on your mortgage or other loan?
  • Can you afford to buy things only by borrowing?

  Step 1: Gather information

  Collect together every record of everything that you owe, such as unpaid bills, unopened mail, credit card statements, unpaid utility bills, letters from debt collectors, council tax bills, fines, red reminders, final reminders, final final reminders ... the lot.

  Step 2: Make a list

  Take a fresh notepad and a pen. Write down the name of the creditor or the collection agency on the left hand side of the page, and the total amount that you owe each creditor on the right. Do this until you have gone through all your paperwork and you have a long list of all the money that you owe on the sheet in front of you. You should also make a note of each creditor's contact details (address and telephone number) because you need to get in touch and explain that you are in difficulties.

  Step 3: Order your debts

  When you come to add up your debts, you should sort them into two groups: priority debts and non priority debts. Priority debts are those which carry particularly serious consequences if they are not dealt with, such as court action or losing your home and essential services. They include:

  • mortgages and other secured loans
  • rent arrears
  • council tax arrears
  • gas arrears
  • electricity arrears
  • other fuel arrears
  • telephone arrears (if essential e.g. if you work from home)
  • magistrates' court fine arrears
  • maintenance payment arrears
  • income tax arrears
  • National Insurance arrears
  • VAT arrears
  • hire purchase arrears (for essential items e.g. a car for work).

  Non priority debts are those where failure to pay will not result in the loss of your liberty, home or essential goods and services (although creditors may still back their demands for payment with financial and legal sanctions). They include the following:

  • bank overdrafts and unsecured loans
  • credit card arrears
  • store card arrears
  • catalogue arrears (including mail order)
  • hire purchase arrears (non essential goods)
  • benefits overpayments.

  Priority debts come first

  The reason for sorting your debts into these two groups is because, as their name suggests, priority debts have a more urgent claim on available income than non priority debts. This means that you should deal with these first, and then see how much income, if any, is left over to pay non priority creditors. This is sometimes difficult to remember if creditors are particularly persistent or demanding but it is important to maintain the distinction between priority and other debts.

  Step 4: Calculate your income and expenditure

  The next stage in tackling your debts is to work out how much money is available to you each month. List all your sources of income and draw up a detailed breakdown of all your monthly spending. You can do this by following the detailed steps on the next few pages. To find out how much money is left over for paying your debts, subtract your monthly spending from your monthly income. If you are left with a minus figure (that is, your spending exceeds your income) you need to find ways of either increasing your income or cutting back on your spending. It can be difficult deciding what to give up in order to save money. If you can't do it yourself, get help in the form of a debt adviser who will be able to take a dispassionate view of what is essential and what is not.

  Debt advisers

  This article cannot give more than general solutions. For personal advice tailored to your circumstances, and assistance in drawing up a financial statement and initiating negotiations with your creditors, you may want to consider enlisting the help of a debt adviser by contacting the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), a Money Advice Centre, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service or the National Debtline. Getting outside help not only shows your creditors that you are serious about solving your problems, but will ensure that you get advice about any state benefits and tax allowances to which you may be entitled. They will also be able to give you information on how to recognise approved consolidation debt loan uk companies.

  Your budget

  Working out a budget is essential if you are to take control of your money. It will help you identify any changes you need to make to your spending patterns and enable you to draw up a realistic financial statement to show to your creditors.

  Making a list

  The first step in drawing up a budget is to make a list of everything on which you spend money. Writing this down helps to focus your mind and provides you with a permanent record you won't forget. Rather than drawing up one long list, it can be helpful to break it down into different elements, such as:

  • household costs
  • living expenses
  • travel/car
  • personal spending
  • leisure
  • Christmas and birthdays
  • savings
  • children
  • financial costs (including credit card repayments)
  • cash spending

  Establishing priorities

  You should also divide your spending into two categories:

  1. essential, which covers the unavoidable and the necessary, such as your rent or mortgage, your bills, season ticket for getting to work, food, life insurance and so on
  2. desirable, which covers spending that is not strictly necessary (and at a push, you could do without) but which you regard as contributing to your wellbeing, such as non work clothes, CDs and meals out.

  Collecting data

  The next stage is to collect financial data for your list. In most cases, this will be a combination of actual past spending and educated guesses at future spending.

  If you can lay your hands on a year's worth of bank statements, cheque book stubs, credit card and store card statements and other household bills, you already have a lot of the data you need to provide a detailed breakdown of your finances. If your records are less comprehensive, you may still be able to get a reasonable idea of where your money goes from your bank statements and credit card bills.

  If you do not have any records or if you are drawing up a budget to see if you can afford something in particular, you will have to estimate the figures, to give their monthly cost.

  Entering the figures

  Once you have collected all your data together, you can start to enter figures against the items on your list. These should be in the form of monthly totals. For some items, such as your rent or monthly mortgage, this will be straightforward. Irregular spending on items such as clothes, holidays, quarterly bills and so on, requires you to estimate how much you spend each year and then divide this figure by 12. In this way you can arrive at a monthly sum for every item.

  Using software If you have a computer and spreadsheet software, you will save a lot of time if you enter your figures on a spreadsheet.

  This will also help if you need to adjust the figures or if you want to do 'what if?' calculations to see the effect of making various changes to your budget.

  Once you have entered all the figures, add up your total essential spending and your total desirable spending. This has the effect of smoothing your spending over the year to give you an average monthly spending figure for each of the two categories.

  Working out your average monthly income

  Once you have worked out your average monthly spending, you need to work out your average monthly income. To do this:

  • add up all sources of regular monthly in
    There is Nothing Simple about Customer Service
    Many companies think that Customer Service is simple and indeed it could be argued that good service is simple from the customer's perspective. But a proper customer service strategy is hardly simple. You must take stock of your entire organization and find out all the points where your company interacts with your customers. Where you interact with your vendors and how you can improve all this interaction.Making it easier for customers to do business with you is a key, but so is making it pleasurable. This is why often business are advised to get smart about their customer service and hire a professional. Someone who can literally come in and audit all your customer contact points and see where you need improving. And it is much more than simply asking your customers and doing surveys.Doing surveys of course is important but what you do with that information after you collect it is indeed paramount. Simply collecting information and sitting on it makes no sense. You see there really is nothing simple about customer service. If you wish to improve customer service you have to have a strategy in place which makes sense and it must be comprehensive, no sense in giving good customers service in one aspect of your business only to end up turning customers away in another. Consider all this in 2006.
    riority debts are those which carry particularly serious consequences if they are not dealt with, such as court action or losing your home and essential services. They include:
    • mortgages and other secured loans
    • rent arrears
    • council tax arrears
    • gas arrears
    • electricity arrears
    • other fuel arrears
    • telephone arrears (if essential e.g. if you work from home)
    • magistrates' court fine arrears
    • maintenance payment arrears
    • income tax arrears
    • National Insurance arrears
    • VAT arrears
    • hire purchase arrears (for essential items e.g. a car for work).

    Non priority debts are those where failure to pay will not result in the loss of your liberty, home or essential goods and services (although creditors may still back their demands for payment with financial and legal sanctions). They include the following:

    • bank overdrafts and unsecured loans
    • credit card arrears
    • store card arrears
    • catalogue arrears (including mail order)
    • hire purchase arrears (non essential goods)
    • benefits overpayments.

    Priority debts come first

    The reason for sorting your debts into these two groups is because, as their name suggests, priority debts have a more urgent claim on available income than non priority debts. This means that you should deal with these first, and then see how much income, if any, is left over to pay non priority creditors. This is sometimes difficult to remember if creditors are particularly persistent or demanding but it is important to maintain the distinction between priority and other debts.

    Step 4: Calculate your income and expenditure

    The next stage in tackling your debts is to work out how much money is available to you each month. List all your sources of income and draw up a detailed breakdown of all your monthly spending. You can do this by following the detailed steps on the next few pages. To find out how much money is left over for paying your debts, subtract your monthly spending from your monthly income. If you are left with a minus figure (that is, your spending exceeds your income) you need to find ways of either increasing your income or cutting back on your spending. It can be difficult deciding what to give up in order to save money. If you can't do it yourself, get help in the form of a debt adviser who will be able to take a dispassionate view of what is essential and what is not.

    Debt advisers

    This article cannot give more than general solutions. For personal advice tailored to your circumstances, and assistance in drawing up a financial statement and initiating negotiations with your creditors, you may want to consider enlisting the help of a debt adviser by contacting the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), a Money Advice Centre, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service or the National Debtline. Getting outside help not only shows your creditors that you are serious about solving your problems, but will ensure that you get advice about any state benefits and tax allowances to which you may be entitled. They will also be able to give you information on how to recognise approved consolidation debt loan uk companies.

    Your budget

    Working out a budget is essential if you are to take control of your money. It will help you identify any changes you need to make to your spending patterns and enable you to draw up a realistic financial statement to show to your creditors.

    Making a list

    The first step in drawing up a budget is to make a list of everything on which you spend money. Writing this down helps to focus your mind and provides you with a permanent record you won't forget. Rather than drawing up one long list, it can be helpful to break it down into different elements, such as:

    • household costs
    • living expenses
    • travel/car
    • personal spending
    • leisure
    • Christmas and birthdays
    • savings
    • children
    • financial costs (including credit card repayments)
    • cash spending

    Establishing priorities

    You should also divide your spending into two categories:

    1. essential, which covers the unavoidable and the necessary, such as your rent or mortgage, your bills, season ticket for getting to work, food, life insurance and so on
    2. desirable, which covers spending that is not strictly necessary (and at a push, you could do without) but which you regard as contributing to your wellbeing, such as non work clothes, CDs and meals out.

    Collecting data

    The next stage is to collect financial data for your list. In most cases, this will be a combination of actual past spending and educated guesses at future spending.

    If you can lay your hands on a year's worth of bank statements, cheque book stubs, credit card and store card statements and other household bills, you already have a lot of the data you need to provide a detailed breakdown of your finances. If your records are less comprehensive, you may still be able to get a reasonable idea of where your money goes from your bank statements and credit card bills.

    If you do not have any records or if you are drawing up a budget to see if you can afford something in particular, you will have to estimate the figures, to give their monthly cost.

    Entering the figures

    Once you have collected all your data together, you can start to enter figures against the items on your list. These should be in the form of monthly totals. For some items, such as your rent or monthly mortgage, this will be straightforward. Irregular spending on items such as clothes, holidays, quarterly bills and so on, requires you to estimate how much you spend each year and then divide this figure by 12. In this way you can arrive at a monthly sum for every item.

    Using software If you have a computer and spreadsheet software, you will save a lot of time if you enter your figures on a spreadsheet.

    This will also help if you need to adjust the figures or if you want to do 'what if?' calculations to see the effect of making various changes to your budget.

    Once you have entered all the figures, add up your total essential spending and your total desirable spending. This has the effect of smoothing your spending over the year to give you an average monthly spending figure for each of the two categories.

    Working out your average monthly income

    Once you have worked out your average monthly spending, you need to work out your average monthly income. To do this:

    • add up all sources of regular monthly i
      Epidemic Enthusiasm and Pandemic Pride
      Every businessman knows that the key to turning customers into raving fans is to give exceptional customer service, to provide not only for the customer's needs but for their every want and desire even before they know that they have a want or desire. What eludes many business owners is how to provide that level of customer service. Literally hundreds of books have been written and seminars sold on how to improve customer service. Experts have employees imagining everything from mailboxes to Caribbean beaches all in the hope of improving customer service.Walt Disney World Resorts creates raving fans because they provide a vacation beyond your imagination. They accomplish this not through the miracles of animatronics or the amusement park atmosphere, these things can be found at hundreds of vacation destinations worldwide. Walt Disney World Resorts creates raving fans by infecting their employees (known as cast members) with epidemic enthusiasm and pandemic pride.So how do you start an epidemic in your business?The key to creating an epidemic of enthusiasm is to turn your customer service inward. To create for your employees a career experience beyond their wildest imagination. Epidemic enthusiasm comes from an experience of the relationship between your employees and you. When employees feel that they are truly appreciated as your everyday hero and that by coming to work they leave invigorated and their life is enhanced rather than leaving tired and their life diminished then your employees become infected with enthusi
      bts.

      Step 4: Calculate your income and expenditure

      The next stage in tackling your debts is to work out how much money is available to you each month. List all your sources of income and draw up a detailed breakdown of all your monthly spending. You can do this by following the detailed steps on the next few pages. To find out how much money is left over for paying your debts, subtract your monthly spending from your monthly income. If you are left with a minus figure (that is, your spending exceeds your income) you need to find ways of either increasing your income or cutting back on your spending. It can be difficult deciding what to give up in order to save money. If you can't do it yourself, get help in the form of a debt adviser who will be able to take a dispassionate view of what is essential and what is not.

      Debt advisers

      This article cannot give more than general solutions. For personal advice tailored to your circumstances, and assistance in drawing up a financial statement and initiating negotiations with your creditors, you may want to consider enlisting the help of a debt adviser by contacting the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), a Money Advice Centre, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service or the National Debtline. Getting outside help not only shows your creditors that you are serious about solving your problems, but will ensure that you get advice about any state benefits and tax allowances to which you may be entitled. They will also be able to give you information on how to recognise approved consolidation debt loan uk companies.

      Your budget

      Working out a budget is essential if you are to take control of your money. It will help you identify any changes you need to make to your spending patterns and enable you to draw up a realistic financial statement to show to your creditors.

      Making a list

      The first step in drawing up a budget is to make a list of everything on which you spend money. Writing this down helps to focus your mind and provides you with a permanent record you won't forget. Rather than drawing up one long list, it can be helpful to break it down into different elements, such as:

      • household costs
      • living expenses
      • travel/car
      • personal spending
      • leisure
      • Christmas and birthdays
      • savings
      • children
      • financial costs (including credit card repayments)
      • cash spending

      Establishing priorities

      You should also divide your spending into two categories:

      1. essential, which covers the unavoidable and the necessary, such as your rent or mortgage, your bills, season ticket for getting to work, food, life insurance and so on
      2. desirable, which covers spending that is not strictly necessary (and at a push, you could do without) but which you regard as contributing to your wellbeing, such as non work clothes, CDs and meals out.

      Collecting data

      The next stage is to collect financial data for your list. In most cases, this will be a combination of actual past spending and educated guesses at future spending.

      If you can lay your hands on a year's worth of bank statements, cheque book stubs, credit card and store card statements and other household bills, you already have a lot of the data you need to provide a detailed breakdown of your finances. If your records are less comprehensive, you may still be able to get a reasonable idea of where your money goes from your bank statements and credit card bills.

      If you do not have any records or if you are drawing up a budget to see if you can afford something in particular, you will have to estimate the figures, to give their monthly cost.

      Entering the figures

      Once you have collected all your data together, you can start to enter figures against the items on your list. These should be in the form of monthly totals. For some items, such as your rent or monthly mortgage, this will be straightforward. Irregular spending on items such as clothes, holidays, quarterly bills and so on, requires you to estimate how much you spend each year and then divide this figure by 12. In this way you can arrive at a monthly sum for every item.

      Using software If you have a computer and spreadsheet software, you will save a lot of time if you enter your figures on a spreadsheet.

      This will also help if you need to adjust the figures or if you want to do 'what if?' calculations to see the effect of making various changes to your budget.

      Once you have entered all the figures, add up your total essential spending and your total desirable spending. This has the effect of smoothing your spending over the year to give you an average monthly spending figure for each of the two categories.

      Working out your average monthly income

      Once you have worked out your average monthly spending, you need to work out your average monthly income. To do this:

      • add up all sources of regular monthly i
        How to Evaluate an ISL Uranium Company
        Over the past two years, the common myth circulated among investors has been “pounds in the ground.” How many pounds of U3O8 does a company have in the ground? The more pounds a company claims, and more importantly gets institutions and investors to believe, the higher its market capitalization has run. Bigger is always better in most cases, but recovering uranium through an ISL operation, like any other mining operation, has its quirks.During the early stage of this uranium bull market, pounds-in-the-ground was an important yardstick. But just as one can have a million-ounce gold deposit, with a complexity of metallurgical problems that prohibit a robust economic recovery or offer a paltry grade of gold in the ore, investors may discover the same problems in properly evaluating a company’s uranium claims. Instead of asking a company’s investor relations department how many pounds of uranium they have in the ground, find out how much uranium pounds they can actually recover and produce, and how much it will cost them to mine their property. Ask instead these questions:• How permeable are the ore bodies you plan to mine? • What is your average grade? • Over what area does your rollfront extend? • What is the depth of your ore body?By the time you have finished reading this feature, you should have a better grasp on the economics of ISL mining. You should be better equipped to make a more intelligent decision about your favorite company. First, let’s examine the nature of a uranium mineralized rollfront. Understand
        is essential if you are to take control of your money. It will help you identify any changes you need to make to your spending patterns and enable you to draw up a realistic financial statement to show to your creditors.

        Making a list

        The first step in drawing up a budget is to make a list of everything on which you spend money. Writing this down helps to focus your mind and provides you with a permanent record you won't forget. Rather than drawing up one long list, it can be helpful to break it down into different elements, such as:

        • household costs
        • living expenses
        • travel/car
        • personal spending
        • leisure
        • Christmas and birthdays
        • savings
        • children
        • financial costs (including credit card repayments)
        • cash spending

        Establishing priorities

        You should also divide your spending into two categories:

        1. essential, which covers the unavoidable and the necessary, such as your rent or mortgage, your bills, season ticket for getting to work, food, life insurance and so on
        2. desirable, which covers spending that is not strictly necessary (and at a push, you could do without) but which you regard as contributing to your wellbeing, such as non work clothes, CDs and meals out.

        Collecting data

        The next stage is to collect financial data for your list. In most cases, this will be a combination of actual past spending and educated guesses at future spending.

        If you can lay your hands on a year's worth of bank statements, cheque book stubs, credit card and store card statements and other household bills, you already have a lot of the data you need to provide a detailed breakdown of your finances. If your records are less comprehensive, you may still be able to get a reasonable idea of where your money goes from your bank statements and credit card bills.

        If you do not have any records or if you are drawing up a budget to see if you can afford something in particular, you will have to estimate the figures, to give their monthly cost.

        Entering the figures

        Once you have collected all your data together, you can start to enter figures against the items on your list. These should be in the form of monthly totals. For some items, such as your rent or monthly mortgage, this will be straightforward. Irregular spending on items such as clothes, holidays, quarterly bills and so on, requires you to estimate how much you spend each year and then divide this figure by 12. In this way you can arrive at a monthly sum for every item.

        Using software If you have a computer and spreadsheet software, you will save a lot of time if you enter your figures on a spreadsheet.

        This will also help if you need to adjust the figures or if you want to do 'what if?' calculations to see the effect of making various changes to your budget.

        Once you have entered all the figures, add up your total essential spending and your total desirable spending. This has the effect of smoothing your spending over the year to give you an average monthly spending figure for each of the two categories.

        Working out your average monthly income

        Once you have worked out your average monthly spending, you need to work out your average monthly income. To do this:

        • add up all sources of regular monthly i
          Website Promotion for Young Web Sites
          Getting quality traffic is very important for any and every website today. As there is very close competition between websites and businesses which are operating online it is a must that every website owner does his or her best to ensure that his or her website is promoted properly. If the web site is a young one, and has been launched in the recent past, this issue becomes even more critical. The young websites need to promote themselves more aggressively. The website is new and not many people know about the existence of this website. The proper promotion is the only key which can help a website in getting quality traffic. Only quality traffic can ensure that an online business can grow.There are certain steps which young websites can take to promote themselves. Some of the people think that submitting the website to the search engines is a good idea. This makes you search engine favorite and the chances of your website getting searched by the people, who are your prospective customers, increase. You can also place reciprocal links at the right places. These reciprocal links will also help you in getting more traffic.One very important factor in this regard is the content of the young website. If the content is rich and keyword optimized, it will help you in getting noticed. These are few of the tips which a young website needs in order to get promotion properly. There are now many other techniques which are also used to promote websites. Those may be explored later on.
          lot of the data you need to provide a detailed breakdown of your finances. If your records are less comprehensive, you may still be able to get a reasonable idea of where your money goes from your bank statements and credit card bills.

          If you do not have any records or if you are drawing up a budget to see if you can afford something in particular, you will have to estimate the figures, to give their monthly cost.

          Entering the figures

          Once you have collected all your data together, you can start to enter figures against the items on your list. These should be in the form of monthly totals. For some items, such as your rent or monthly mortgage, this will be straightforward. Irregular spending on items such as clothes, holidays, quarterly bills and so on, requires you to estimate how much you spend each year and then divide this figure by 12. In this way you can arrive at a monthly sum for every item.

          Using software If you have a computer and spreadsheet software, you will save a lot of time if you enter your figures on a spreadsheet.

          This will also help if you need to adjust the figures or if you want to do 'what if?' calculations to see the effect of making various changes to your budget.

          Once you have entered all the figures, add up your total essential spending and your total desirable spending. This has the effect of smoothing your spending over the year to give you an average monthly spending figure for each of the two categories.

          Working out your average monthly income

          Once you have worked out your average monthly spending, you need to work out your average monthly income. To do this:

          • add up all sources of regular monthly income
          • If you are paid weekly or you get other weekly income (such as child benefit or state pension), multiply the weekly amount by four.
          • calculate a monthly average for any irregular income you receive, together with lump sums you withdraw from savings, by adding up an annual total and dividing this by 12.

          The total of all these figures is your average monthly income.

          If your total is zero or negative (and you can't cut down on spending) you need to negotiate with your creditors in order to reduce your monthly repayments to a level you can afford to meet.

          The ultimate aim of budgeting is to balance your income and expenditure. Failure to do this will lead to increasing indebtedness as you have to borrow more and more to make up for the fact that your spending exceeds your income. There are several ways to accomplish equilibrium mainly by decreasing your expenditure or increasing your income. The following actions can help you improve your position:

          • cutting back spending on inessentials
          • working out a monthly budget for your essential bills
          • checking that your overdraft is authorised and that you are not paying over the odds for it
          • transferring all your credit card debts to a lower charging card
          • diverting any savings you may have towards paying off your debts finding a cheaper way to borrow for your other loans but be wary of transferring loans which carry a penalty for early repayment ensuring that you keep up repayments on your mortgage and other existing loans paying off the most expensive of the debts that you can clear first.

          Re-mortgaging

          One way to reduce your outgoings is to cut the cost of your borrowing. If you are a home owner, and have some equity in your property, you might be able to do this by re-mortgaging. By simply switching to a different mortgage provider, you may be able to obtain a lower rate of interest. You might also be able to replace expensive borrowing with a loan secured on your property at a much lower rate of interest. This may bring your monthly repayments down to a manageable level. Although re-mortgaging can be an attractive option, there are several points you need to bear in mind:

          1. Failing to keep up repayments on your mortgage means that your house could be repossessed. Unsecured borrowing doesn't carry this risk.
          2. Always check whether you will be charged an early repayment charge (or redemption penalty) if you change to another mortgage, and find out what fees (such as solicitor's and valuation fees) you will be charged, These costs may wipe out any benefit to getting a lower rate.
          3. You will only make a significant reduction in your outgoings if you change substantial high interest borrowings to a lower rate.
          4. Only re mortgage with a licensed mortgage provider.

          Step 5: Prepare a financial statement

          Drawing up a financial statement not only helps you to plan but it will also show your creditors what your financial position is and how much money is available for repaying your debts. If your creditors can see that you do not have money available to repay them in full, they may realise that it is not worth taking you to court to recover the money. A financial statement can also help persuade creditors to freeze interest and to accept token payments while you concentrate on repaying your priority debts.

          Negotiating with your creditors

          Once you have drawn up a financial statement you will be in a position to negotiate a realistic repayment plan with your creditors, concentrating on your priority debts first. A copy of your financial statement should be sent with any offer of repayment to demonstrate that, given your financial circumstances, it is a reasonable amount, however small it may appear.