Dealing with debt

What is budgeting? Basically, it's making sure that you're spending less than you're bringing in and planning for both short and long-term costs.

Unfortunately, many people think of budgeting as depriving themselves and they avoid it. However budgeting is just a plan for spending; it's a proactive approach, rather than a reactive one, to managing your money.

Budgeting is an important part of achieving financial stability. It's not difficult to implement, and it's not just for people with a low income. Budgeting makes it easier for people with all sizes of incomes and expenditure to make sensible decisions about how they'd prefer to spend and save their money. It can also help people save for retirement, emergencies, home improvements, a new car or anything else.

For many people, having a solid budget in place, knowing how much money they have and knowing exactly where that money is going makes it easier for them to sleep at night.

You can start to work out a budget by using the Citizen Advice budgeting tool.

If you want further help to understand and use the calculator or would simply like to discuss your budget with someone you can contact Swindon Citizens Advice.