"Batten down the hatches—quick, men."

The origin of this phrase came from crewman on ships at sea to prepare for bad weather. I do believe this is appropriate for the environment we are in today.

I am sure if you are reading this you know someone, or even maybe you yourself, are out of work. So how does financial advice apply to those who are in the red zone of a financial crisis? What a great question. I believe it is never too late to learn even if the application may be different in scope.

Here are some tips on creating a spending plan that will allow you to get out of debt quicker:

* First you want to start with an excel spreadsheet. I know I just lost half of you right there. Wait! This is very important. Putting you debts and bills and investments on one page with specific information regarding those items is the most important step. Unless you know what you have, you will never know what you can accomplish. Think of this step as giving yourself the key from which you can unlock a treasure; an easy way to do this is by going to the spreadsheet every time you get a bill in the mail. Take the information from these bills and list them by due date so that you are always aware what bills have been paid and what bills are due.

I need to stress this issue for most, due to the fact that many people struggle with finances because of late fees and the feeling surrounding the issue of not being organized and on time.

* Once you have your financial information listed, start to group them together. For example, mortgages, student loans, car loans, credit cards, bills and investments can all be put onto one spreadsheet. Now you will be able to "sum" and "total" each group and then find the total sum of all of your finances. If you accomplish this step you are on your way to mastering your finances.

Once you enter all this information, you will want to build different columns to empower yourself as to what needs to be done regarding a specific debt, bill or investment. This now transforms you from reacting to your finances to managing them. I know it sounds simple, right? Try it for three months and you will own the process—if you need help, I will even send you a sample template, just send me an e-mail request. Now that you have your information listed and you are analyzing the data (staring at the spreadsheet for hours) I will leave you with the most important debt-eliminating step.

* List them from lowest balance (at the bottom) to the highest balance credit card (at the top). Now pay the smallest one off first and work your way up the debt ladder. If you have high interest card balances, try to consolidate to a teaser rate offer until you can get to them.

Brian D. Brogan of Brogan Group Investment Services, LLC can be reached at bdb@signalreport.com or 610-896-8823.