If you’re feeling overwhelmed by debt, you’re not alone. In fact, 78% of Americans today are living paycheck to paycheck, which means debt is a thorn in the side of a large swath of the population. There comes a point when you need to take the reins, change your debt habits, and come up with a plan to dig your way out. In this post we explore some practical steps to get your debt under control. All you need to do is begin.

Track Your Spending

You might think you have a good idea of where your money is going, but you’ll be surprised what you learn when you do a deep dive into your spending habits. Starting today, track all of your monthly bills as well as daily spending for at least a month. You can also go through credit card and bank statements from the previous month to get a good idea of your expense commitments and spending history. Whichever way you choose to track your spending, you’ll come away with a clear picture of where your money is going — and where you can make cuts.

Understand Your Debt

Now that you know your spending habits, you need to know your debt. Start by drafting a list of your debts, including credit cards, auto loans, student loans and mortgages. Track each of the following for each loan you owe:

• Interest rate
• What you pay each month
• Payment due date each month
• Target date for a zero balance

Note that for credit card payments, if you’re not paying them in full each month, you’ll want to specify the minimum amount due each month.

Next, figure out how much you owe in total monthly debt payments. This number will be an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to creating your budget.

Establish a Budget

Now that you’ve tracked your expenses and you know your total monthly debt payment amount, you can begin to make adjustments to spending habits. Your budget should be in writing, and it should include financial goals. Your first goal is to get out of debt, but establishing an emergency savings fund should be a priority as well.

In order to meet your debt payoff goal, you might have to make brutal cuts in discretionary spending that could affect the quality of life you’ve become accustomed to, but it’s important to remember that it’s only temporary. You’ll come out the other side debt-free and in a better financial position for your future.

Create a Debt Payoff Plan

If you want to be on a fast track to becoming debt free, you need to get behind a payoff strategy. Two of the most common approaches are:

• Debt snowball: Using this strategy, you allocate a certain amount of money to your debt with the lowest balance. It should be more than the monthly required amount, and you should know from your budget exactly how much you can put toward this debt each month. (If you make extra money one month from a side gig or a garage sale, throw those funds at this debt.) While you are paying off this debt, you make minimum payments on all other debts. When your lowest-balance debt is paid off, take the amount you were paying on it and put it toward the next-largest debt while continuing to make minimum monthly payments on all the rest. Keep the snowball rolling until your final debt is paid off.
• Debt avalanche: This strategy is just like the debt snowball method, except you start with the debt with the highest APR first rather than the debt with the lowest balance. Just as with the debt snowball, you put all you can toward the first debt while making minimum monthly payments on the rest. Keep it going, moving from the highest APR debt to the lowest APR debt, until you’re debt free.

Proponents of the debt snowball method like that small wins keep you motivated, while proponents of the debt avalanche like that you will likely save some money in the long run by prioritizing debts with higher interest rates. Both get the job done, so decide for yourself which method is right for you.

Consider Balance Transfers and Debt Consolidations

If you’re finding that you’re doing all you can to cut back on expenses and bring in extra income, and you’re still barely making a dent in your debt, you might think about a balance transfer or consolidating debt. These can be viable options, but tread carefully. Balance transfer credit cards typically give you a 0% introductory rate for a while, but they often come with transfer fees, and you’ll need to pay the debt in full before the introductory rate period is up.

Debt consolidation loans work by accumulating the balances of existing credit cards into one new credit card or personal loan. This helps to streamline your payments, but without a foundation of real change to your spending habits, your credit cards that now show a zero balance (thanks to the consolidation) could prove to be too tempting, and soon you’re back in the hole with even more debt than you had before. If you’re afraid this could be you, consider a debt management plan instead. A debt management plan is created with a credit counselor. You can still lump all payments into one payment each month, but it doesn’t require taking on any additional lines of credit.