Keeping a budget is easy, so why don’t we sort our finances?

Sharon Ní Chonchúir talks to the experts about managing the purse strings, balancing the bills and extricating ourselves from debt where possible.

YOU’VE done it again. Between Christmas presents and January sales, you’ve blown your budget. You promised yourself you’d spend within your means but you are now dreading the arrival of the credit card bill.

Many of us are beginning 2014 in financial distress. Burdened with debt and with no clear idea of how to repay it, the outlook is gloomy. But if we heed the advice offered by financial trainer Susan Hayes, author of The Savvy Guide to Making More Money (Penguin €16.99), we can get our finances back on track, become debt-free and grow our income in the months to come.