In this step, we’re going to do most of the preparatory work for your journey out of debt. This mostly involves preparing a budget and sticking to it, but we’re going to go into a little more detail than that.

We’re going to do three things.

• Draw up a monthly budget that’s sustainable over the longer term
• Calculate how long it will take to work your way out of debt given the budget you’ve chosen
• Choose the methods you’ll use to track your progress and stick to your budget over the duration of your journey

You should have your minimalist budget that you prepared during the first step nearby as you’ll need to refer to it.

Let’s get started.