Steps you owe it to yourself to take

1 Assess your position. Whether you are carrying a small credit card balance over from one month to the next or floundering in debt, you can't begin to solve your problems until you know their full extent. List what you owe and to whom, what you spend on a daily, monthly and annual basis and what you are earning. Be honest and detailed. Remember to include one-off payments such as AA membership and pet insurance.

2 Prioritise. Your creditors won't like this, but some ongoing expenses are more important than your debts. If you don't pay your gas and electricity bill or buy food, you and you family could end up cold, hungry and in the dark. If you omit to pay your mortgage or rent, you could end up without a roof over your head, and if you fail to pay your council tax you could, in extreme cases, face a jail sentence. You also need to incorporate the cost of paying for children's clothes and shoes, life, house and motor insur ance, car payments and childcare. Anything left over after the real essentials can be used to pay off unsecured debts - overdrafts, credit cards, personal loans and hire purchase.

3 The boring bit - cut back on your spending. Obvious savings can be made on mobile phone usage, gym membership, spending on clothes, alcohol, cigarettes, satellite TV, eating out, pre-prepared meals from supermarkets - basically anything that makes life easier and more fun.

4 Switch to the cheapest form of debt. If you are trying to pay down credit card debt, make sure you move your balance from one fixed-period 0 per cent deal to another, so that all your monthly payments go to reducing the outstanding amount rather than paying interest. The best places to find out about the deals on offer are www.moneysupermarket.com, www.moneyfacts.co.uk and Cash's Databank page.

5 Consolidate your debts. We don't mean through the paid-for services proffered by commercial debt management companies but by taking out a personal loan and using the cash to pay off all your other debts. This is not the cheapest way to repay debt. Although Liverpool Victoria last week offered loans at 5.9 per cent APR, it's obviously still far more expensive than paying no interest with a 0 per cent credit card. But if you have several debts demanding payments each month and you are not organised enough to switch credit card deals regularly, the payments for one loan may seem more manageable. Again, the best sources of information for the cheapest deals are Money Supermarket and MoneyFacts. A useful calculator on the Alliance & Leicester website can help you work out if you will be better off consolidating your debts into an A&L personal loan. But be warned: do not, under any circumstances, then start using your cleared credit cards again. Take a pair of scissors to them and close your accounts.

6 Remortgage. If the recent interest rate rises haven't been enough to convince you it's time to remortgage, then the expectation that the base rate will rise to 6 per cent next year should. Independent mortgage brokers London & Country (0800 953 0603) do not charge a fee for advice, and, provided your mortgage is for more than £30,000, has not been switched for three years, has no early repayment penalties and your credit history is OK, promise to pay you £50 if they cannot find you a better value mortgage.

7 Seek help. The Consumer Credit Counselling Service (0800 1381111) will help you assess your position, budget, negotiate with creditors and start a repayment plan - all for free. You could also try your local Citizen's Advice Bureau (see Yellow Pages) or the National Debtline (0808 8084000).

8 Take control. Be prepared to negotiate with your creditors. They would rather you paid them a small amount rather than nothing at all, and may be prepared to reduce the interest they charge if you show them you are trying to address your problems. However, it's vital to keep them informed. If you have a large overdraft and your bank is getting shirty, you should consider opening an account with another bank and asking your employer to pay your salary into that new account. This will prevent the bank providing the overdraft from pulling the rug from under your feet by withdrawing the overdraft facility and may enable you to negotiate a lower interest rate. Geeta Varma at the Consumer Credit Counselling Service suggests opening a basic account without overdraft or credit card so that you cannot go further into debt.

9 Don't panic. Even if large, intimidating men turn up at your door demanding to repossess your belongings, they are unlikely to have the legal powers to gain entry. Varma says: 'The big ones which tend to make a lot of noise about their visit are usually debt collectors working on a freelance basis for debt companies. They don't have powers to force entry. Find out if the debts they are trying to collect actually have anything to do with you - they do make mistakes and it could be that you have made an arrangement with the company and they have not told the collector.' Bailiffs, who do have legal power of entry, tend to be more measured in their approach and usually carry forms which, once you have filled one in, allow you to stop them coming around again. Varma says that they are very unwilling to make repossessions, partly because of the hassle and stress incurred and partly because they know they won't realise the value of the debt by selling anything second-hand.