Out of the red with finance coach's help

Like many people, Ericka Young approached the idea of a budget reluctantly.

"The word has negative connotations," she says. "People think, 'Oh, these are restrictions.' But that's not the truth. A budget is just a plan to tell your money where to go, so it doesn't tell you where it went."

The budget coach knows debt issues firsthand. Like many young couples, Young, 31, and her husband, Chris, of Mesa, Ariz., found themselves in the red simply by trying to start their lives.

"We both had student loans," she says. "Add in car loans and credit card debt, and we were $60,000 in debt when we got married. I had a decent-paying job. My husband had a decent-paying job. But no one tells you how to handle money once you get it."

A course with budget guru David Ramsey taught them the virtues of financial planning. Young worked up a personalized system that paid off nearly $100,000 of debt.

"When I tell (clients) that, it cheers them up," she says with a laugh. "They say, 'I don't owe nearly as much.'"

Financial clarity opened up other possibilities. Young left her engineering job to run Tailor Made Budgets, and she teaches a personal finance class at a community college. The trick, she says, in embracing the budget: "I ask people to dream a little: What do you want to do? Where do you want to be? If your dreams cost money, a budget is a way of getting you there."

WORKOUT:

Financial fitness isn't all that different from physical fitness. Both require a hard self-assessment, breaking bad habits and establishing better ones. Ericka Young of Tailor Made Budgets pinpoints a few areas we can work on to bring our fiscal selves into fighting shape.

VISION:

Look ahead to what you want. A budget, Young says, is really a dream with numbers attached. "Start with goals. Everybody has a goal: 'I want to put my child through school.' 'I want to retire at 60.' You can't do this without motivation."

HEART:

Stick with it. It can take six months for the rigors of a new budget to become habit. "You have to make a behavior change, and that's the hardest part," says Young, who tells new clients: 'Today may be rocky, but there's a future beyond this.'"

MEMORY:

Remember that it isn't enough to simply rely on your own. "I tell people: Keep a checkbook, use Microsoft Money or Quicken - and really use it," Young says. The daily add-and-subtract makes people more conservative about transactions.

"They don't purchase based on how much money they make. They purchase based on what they have in the bank right now."

Appetite

The deadliest predator to fiscal freedom may be restaurants. "I understand: It's a way working couples reward themselves, a way for families to get out," Young says.

"But people who budget are shocked at how much they spend eating out. They'll guess, say, $400 a month. It'll be $600. And that $600 may be just what they need for reaching their goal or paying down their debt."

DEFERRED DEBT

Debt consolidation or home equity loans may seem to put your problems behind you. But your "behind" can weigh you down. "I'm not a big fan of those," Young says. "They move debt, but they don't change behaviors."

Too much refinancing can also make a mortgage unmanageable. "I get people whose original mortgage was fine, but now they're paying an additional 10 percent of their take-home pay for a home equity line of credit or a refinance."