My spending's out of control.

To get your spending under control you first need to find out where all your money is going. To do this set up a weekly budget in Cashcow and start tracking your spending.

When setting up a budget you assign categories to your spending like entertainment, mobile phone bill, etc and assign an amount that you can spend to each category. When you're taking your first steps the amount you budget to each category might not be so important since you probably don't know how much you spend anyway. The first few budgets are to get to know your spending habits. After the first few budgets though it is important that you define realistic amounts for the categories and stick to them.

You should aim for a gradual improvement in your spending habits rather than an all-at-once attempt so that the effort is less of a shock and you're more likely to maintain your motivation. For each budget you should try and identify items that you can do without so that you can spend less in your next budget. In this way you will gradually gain more and more control over your spending until you're down to a comfortable level.

The following are some ways Cashcow can help you identify items you can do without:

You can look through your expenses on the spending screen and note down the items that you can cut back on like coffee.

You can look through the top 5 expenses on the overview screen and see if you've been spending money on items you could do without. Make a mental note to skip similar items the next time you encounter them.

You can use the search feature to look for items that you can cut back on.

To recap the main points, to get your spending under control you need to first know where your money is going and then you have to make the choice to cut back on some items.

It's going to be a long road. Best of luck!