Often times, doing things the fast, convenient way costs more money – and is less healthy.

If you are trying to pay off debt, one thing you need to do is plan ahead and watch your spending.

Here are some ways to save money AND be healthier:

Walk or bicycle instead of taking the car – to work, to school, to run errands. If you do this regularly, you can even quit your gym membership and save a fortune on gym fees

Instead of buying frozen meals, or fast food dinners, buy healthy food in bulk, and cook up a week’s worth of meals at a time. Freeze some of the meals for the week ahead.

Pack your lunch and bring it to work. Pack a couple of healthy snacks too. It’s much cheaper than going out to restaurants or constantly buying food from the vending machines.

Enlist the family in getting healthy and saving money. Bring your family on bike rides or long walks instead of spending money on expensive activities; bring a picnic lunch or or make paper planes or play frisbee outdoors.

Stop buying junk food. Prepare healthy snacks and always keep them on hand, for work, school, and home. You’ll feel better, lose weight, and save money that you were spending on empty calories.

Need other people around to stay motivated for your workouts? Join one of the many fund-raising teams that do marathons or triathlons or bike runs for a cause – diabetes research,  breast cancer research, etc. You may have to contribute a small amount of money, but you won’t have to pay a gym or hire a trainer and you will make new friends and improve your health, with a whole team of people to cheer you on while you’re doing it.

When your goal is to get out of debt, paying more up front can save you a LOT of money in the long run.

Here’s how:

Let’s start with a mortage. If you pay off half of your mortgage payment every two weeks, instead of making one payment once a month, you will end up making 13 payments a year instead of 12. You will barely notice the difference, if at all, but the long term effects are huge. You will save tens of of dollars over the life of your mortgage loan and you will end up paying off your loan significantly faster than if you paid the traditional way. So with each paycheck, pay off half of your monthly mortgage payment – have it withdrawn automatically.

Pay off extra towards the credit card bill with the highest balance each month, and as soon as you have that one paid off, pay off the next credit card.

If you owed $5000 on a credit card with a 17 percent balance, and had a minimum payment of 3 percent a month…you would end up paying that off in MONTHS and paying an additional $4030 in interest charges!

So paying off more than the minimum on your credit always makes sense.

If you are buying a new car…first of all, it’s better to buy a USED car rather than a brand new car. But either way,  if you need to take out a car loan, putting a bigger down payment towards the loan – paying more up front – will save you money in the long run.

So whenever you can, pay off more than the minimum, and pay larger down payments, to save big bucks in the long run.

If you’re in debt, of course you want to get out as soon as possible. Of course you want to have money in savings.

But just thinking that is not enough. You need to set a specific plan, with a timeline, to get out of debt and start saving.

First you have to figure out how much you owe. You need to gather all of your bills together and go through them and figure out the grand total. You also need to figure out what your monthly payments are for each bill and add them all up.

If you literally can not pay them, you need to call up the lender and negotiate a lower monthly payment. And as a last resort, if you need to, you may have to turn to a non-profit credit counseling agency to help you get out of debt.

You need to figure out how long it is going to take you to pay off your debt. You may need to change something about your circumstances to pay it off; live in a cheaper house, get a second job until your debt is paid down and more manageable, sell things that you own and put it towards debt, etc.

And you also need to save some money every month, no matter how small the amount. If you set up a savings account, even if you literally are saving only $20 a month, you still are getting ahead rather than behind. And you will find that once you have that savings account set up, you are going to find ways to put more money into savings.

It’s ideal if you can set up a long term retirement savings account and then several shorter term savings accounts. The shorter term ones are your reward accounts – an annual vacation account, a trip to the spa account, a Christmas account, whatever will make you happy and keep you from feeling deprived as you cut back on daily spending.

So start planning today, because every day that you don’t have a master plan in place is a day that you still mired in debt with no way out.

One of the downsides of being in debt is that it tends to trash your credit. Paying bills late, charging your credit cards to the max…can make your credit scores plunge.

But is credit really a necessity of life?

Remember, credit cards haven’t always existed. Before the 1960’s hardly anyone had them and it wasn’t until the 1970’s that their use became widespread.

If you don’t have credit cards or the ability to borrow, what does that mean? It means that you can only buy things that you can truly afford.

Yes, we all WANT a bigger, newer TV, a new wardrobe every season, a visit to the best salon in town, a vacation by the sea every summer and a ski trip every winter, $200 workout shows…but we don’t need them. And if we can’t afford to pay for them, should we borrow money and go into debt to do so?

If you want to buy plane tickets and rent a car…get a debit card. And make sure that you have the money in your account before you try to purchase anything.

Get used to shopping consignment stores, thrift stores, and discount shops like Costco or Sam’s Club.

If you need money and don’t have enough in your bank account…work longer hours, get a second job, or sell off some of your possessions. There is no such thing as free money – any money that you borrow now, you must repay later or your credit will again be ruined.

And if you pay for something yourself, all at once, you are paying the real price for that item. If you pay for something on credit, you may pay two or three times the price of that object over the lifetime of the loan.

So if you’ve trashed your credit, don’t be so quick to try to qualify for new credit cards again. Life without credit can be better than you think. It’s certainly better for your finances.

If you need to buy something RIGHT NOW it is almost always going to cost you more.

The way to save money is to plan ahead and anticipate what your needs are going to be.

Don’t buy clothes when they first hit the racks. Find out when the stores have their big sales, and hit the stores then. Keep an annual calendar of when stores have their sales.

Don’t rush out and buy brand new pricey electronics. Take the time to comparison shop, both online and offline, and get the cheapest deal.

Don’t buy your plane tickets and hotel tickets right before you go on vacation. Do your research, find the cheapest time of year to travel, try to take your vacation then, and whenever you travel – know well in advance where the bargains are. Also, research the least expensive vacation destinations.

Buy gifts all year long to be prepared for birthdays, holidays, and so on.  When you see an item that would make a good gift and is on sale for a really good price, buy that item and stash it, so you have a store of gifts on hand.

Take the time to find out where groceries and gas are the cheapest in your area. Don’t wait until you are almost out of gas and then find yourself forced to gas up at the most expensive station in town.

Buy holiday items the day AFTER the holiday, and save them for next year. Even better, buy them several days after the holiday. The discounts get steeper and steeper.

It’s easy to blame outside circumstances for pushing you into debt- circumstances that seem beyond your control, like a layoff or the housing crash or a medical crisis.

However, if you look deeper, you’ll probably see that some of the blame lies with your priorities, and with spending money on the wrong things.

The top financial priority should be paying bills on time, saving for the future (retirement, kids college, emergencies), and THEN some fun money.

Unfortunately, most people put the “fun money” right after paying the bills.

If you have bought a television set, DVD player, ipod, stereo system, etc., on credit because you couldn’t pay it off right away…

You need to look at your priorities.

If you haven’t worked out exactly how much you can set aside for savings every month, and set up a way to transfer that amount into a savings account…

You need to look at your priorities.

If you spend money on anything that’s not a necessity but don’t save money…

You need to look at your priorities.

If you let what friends or your significant other or your children think influence you into spending money that you can’t afford to spend…

You need to to look at your priorities.

And if you do that, when times are hard, you will always have a savings cushion and you will be less subject to financial disaster because you”ll be well prepared.

When you have heavy debt weighing on you,  you may need to take some drastic measures to dig your way out.

Some options to getting out of debt are:

1.) Cashing in some of your 401k, or borrowing against it. Just keep in mind that cashing it in will cost you penalties, and borrowing against it should only be done in dire emergency, because it’s trading one type of debt for another.

2.) Taking on a second job until your debt is under control. Yes, it will likely be exhausting and stressful, so don’t do it forever. However, if it means saving your credit rating or keeping food on the table or the repo man away from your door, then it’s worth doing until you’ve paid done some of your debt and set aside some savings.

3.) Selling personal possessions. You can do this at a pawn shop, a garage sale, or on eBay. eBay is most likely to get you the best results.

4.) Selling your vehicle and taking public transportation. This also savings you money in car insurance costs and gasoline and repairs. Owning a vehicle takes a big chunk out of your paycheck every month.

5.) Selling blood or participating in medical trials for money, or both. Again, we said “drastic measures”.

But remember, once you have paid down your debt, do not turn around and start running up your charge card again. If you do, eventually you’ll run out of options and risk ruining your credit rating or losing your house or car.

A few years ago when housing prices kept going up and up and up, many homeowners turned their houses into piggy banks. Or so they thought, from the way they kept pulling money out of the houses in the forms of home equity loans.

Every time homeowners wanted something but didn’t have the money to pay for it, they just turned to their cash machine – the bank. Expensive new SUV, jet ski, swimming pool, spa, new furniture, remodel of the house…don’t have the money for it? That’s okay,  borrow against the home equity.

What they found out was that they’d made a terrible mistake. Their homes were not piggy banks. They were credit cards. And now the homeowners still owe the money, on houses which are worth far less these days then the outstanding mortgage and home equity loan.

What can debtors learn from this?

Never borrow unless it’s for an emergency, and don’t spend what you don’t have. A true emergency is when your lights are about to be turned off or you have no money for groceries – and no way to earn money for groceries. Wanting to go on a vacation is not a real emergency.

Borrowing puts you in an extremely vulnerable position, because as we’ve found out these days, nothing is certain. It is not certain that homes will always hold their value, it is not certain that once-steady jobs will always be there, it is not certain that education and the willingness to work will keep you employed.

So learn from all of those who are now losing their their homes because they borrowed against them, and every time you consider putting something on credit, ask yourself if it was worth it.

When should you start taking action about your debt?

The best time to do it is BEFORE you even get in debt, of course. How do you do this?

Several ways:

By setting aside a percentage of your paycheck in an interest earning “rainy day” account EVERY single month, so that when the inevitable emergency strikes – medical issues, layoffs, business folds, etc. – you are prepared.

By only buying what you can afford – and by refusing to run up credit card debt to buy things that you can’t afford. If you can’t afford something right away – save up and pay for it all at once.

By only taking out loans for things that you truly need, like a house (that is affordable for you!) or a car or a student loan. And by shopping around for the best deal, and never taking out an adjustable rate mortgage loan.

By keeping a good credit rating so that if you DO have an unavoidable financial crisis, you can pay for it if necessary. Do this by having at least one credit card, and paying it off on time every single month, with perhaps a VERY small balance carried over every month. Also, make sure that you only charge about 20 or 30 percent of your available credit, monitor your credit report constantly for identity theft, and don’t apply for credit at a whole lot of places at once.

If you do all of these things, you will be prepared when a financial crisis hits. Everyone has one at some point or another – the roof leaks or a tree falls on your roof, or a hurricane sweeps through town and your insurance company doesn’t cover what they should, or you or a loved one become ill and run up huge medical bills…

But the people who come through their crisis relatively unscathed are those who have been preparing for it all along.

You may be afraid to access your credit score out of concern that doing so will lower your score, but this is a myth.

It is true that too many inquiries by creditors will lower your score, but it does not lower your score when you make inquiries yourself.

The reason that it lowers your score when loan companies make inquiries is that it sends a signal to the credit scoring company that you are about to take on more debt.

That’s why it’s not generally a good idea to apply for a department store credit card just to save 10 percent on your purchase – because it will lower your credit score, which may end up costing you more in the long run.

When you check up on your credit score, it is considered a “soft” inquiry which does not affect your credit.

When a prospective employer checks on your credit, or when credit companies check on your credit without checking with you first (say, if they want to offer you a loan, or a free cell phone), that is also a soft inquiry.

When you apply for a loan, for a cell phone plan, for a new car, for a mortgage loan, THAT is a “hard inquiry”.

Sometimes it is necessary to apply to for credit, but never do so casually and try to limit the number of places that you apply for credit with.