If your solution to your financial stress is to take a long, hot soak to drown out those pesky calls from creditors, or go on a budget-busting online shopping trip, you may need to think again on your approach. Here are some tips to help you get your financial life on track. Start saving early. Whether you're saving for your kids' college education, a new home in a nice village, or a special out-of-the-country vacation, start saving early. You can add up to your savings by doing little things that can help you: save lunch and coupon money, take advantage of sales, saving your loose change, and being willing to compromise especially when there are other bills that call for your attention and money. Bankruptcy could be your way out if you have exhausted every single option you had. Whatever that is, we can achieve this through budgeting and planning. What to budget on and to plan on: 1. Spending Make a spending plan - Now's the time to change your free-spending ways. To do that, track the money that's coming in and going out. Fortunately, there are easy ways to do that. Go online and search for "free budgeting software. But before you get to setting your objectives, you need to take stock of where you're spending your money today. More than ever, really give financial budgeting a try for it may open your eyes. You might think of a budget as financial handcuffs - meaning you are restricting yourself from spending money on the things you want. In other words, activity based budgeting is budgeting, planning and controlling by activities rather than cost elements of an organization. For users of this budgeting program, they claim that it engages everyone in thinking about how they can better create value for organization. It develops a flexible budget based on activity work load that is not as rigid as ledger of the line item budgeting that pre-identifies costs eventhough that cost may not be of use at all. Research In this phase, you evaluate your revenue position, understand your business' cost structure and research on your competitors' businesses. 2. Analysis There is a need for you to analyze possible revenue and expenses for the next year, and at the same time, decide on one set of revenue and expenses to represent your expectations.