Finance Portal

Finance Portal is all about finding ways to put more money in your pocket. Debt management programs and debt management solutions very often fail to deliver, and are too broad to deal with your personal circumstances. After all, we're all different, and we all need different debt prevention and management - which is where Finance Portal comes in.

There are lots of different forms debt relief can take, but the best place to start is before you get into debt. Even if things seem fine now, reorganise and restructure your finances to make sure you're takin advantage of the best deals and the lowest rates. In this way you can start saving money without having to make any lifestyle sacrifices.

If you're already in debt, you'll first want to start by preparing a budget. The only way to solve your debt crisis is by being honest with yourself. Track everything you spend - from that £2 coffee first thing in the morning to your monthly payments on your credit card debt. Without having a good idea of what you're spending or what money you have coming in, you won't be able to start reducing that debt.

Once you have a budget, you need to take a close look at it. Do you really need to buy a Starbucks every day? Why not make some coffee at home before you leave and put it in a flask?

Eating out every day for lunch is nice, but instead of paying £5 a day for lunch, why not spend £5 a week on bread and some nice ingredients? Based on those (average) prices, making your own sandwiches this way could save you £80 a month - that's almost £1000 a year!

By using a budget like this you can easily make little savings that can soon add up to some really large savings over the course of the year. It's only when you've prepared a really thorough budget that you can make these sort of cost savings - which is why your budget is the single most important thing to do when starting to clear your debts.

When you cut back by removing little spends like this, make sure you keep a seperate sheet with your budget, where you record what you've decided to no longer spend money on. This will not only give you a handy checklist, but you can also quickly see at a glance how much money you are saving over a year - and this is very powerful motivational tool to resist those little spending temptations!

Utility companies (gas, electric, phone, mobile, broadband etc.) are all facing fierce competition. Above anything else, they want new business - they want your business!

Next up is to scan through your budget, and check out your existing loan agreements and credit cards. Go through the agreement papers, or your latest credit card statement, and note down:

• the interest rate
• the size of the loan (or credit card balance)
• how long the loan has to run

You should already have your monthly payments factored in to your budget. With all this information in one place, it's easy to see where you're missing out. Has that great signup deal on a credit card expired? Are you now paying a much higher interest rate?

Use price comparison sites (like MoneySupermarket) to see what other credit card companies are offering. Many of them will give you a preferential 0% balance transfer rate. Even if that is only for 6 months, that's half a year you're not paying interest on your credit card debt.

There are always better deals to be had, and by taking advantage of promotional deals you're making sure you are saving the most money possible.

Snowballing is the term given to a technique to quickly pay off credit card debts. Keep on paying the minimum monthly payments, and then single out one card. It should be the one with the highest interest rate (refer back to your budget to keep track of this) but if you want some motivation, you can choose the card with the smallest balance.

I cannot stress that enough. This is not something you do once. You should be revisiting your budget on a montly basis. Keep track of any interest rate changes and any reduction in your payments that your cost savings have given.