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The cost of living carries on rising - the average weekly family spend is now a whopping £459. More and more families are being forced to rely on two slaries, putting families at financial risk and also forcing 4.4million mums back to work.

The cost of running a house now requires 47% of households to rely on more than one income so that a comfortable life can be lived. This also means, however, that households are putting themselves at risk if one of the incomes was to be lost, through injury, redundancy etc.

The main reasons for the rise in weekly spending have been named as:

• Transport
• Gas and Electricty costs

Not only this, but the average debt has also risen, particularly in homes with children. The average household with dependant children has £88,500 oustanding on their mortgage, compared with £77,500 for childless households. Short term debt also differs, with averages of £9,359 and £7,223 respectively.

There are two types of people in this world when it comes to money and debt management - those who budget, and those who don't. In good times, both ways can work. In turmoil, the need to budget is vital. Knowing your income/outgoings will help you to plan ahead and avoid the sticky situations that so many people are finding themselves in of late.

The vast majority of financial difficulties in the UK, minus those associated with property, are brought about by lack of planning, such as:

• Allowing credit card debts to increase
• Missing loan payments
• Over-extending your overdraft

Just by doing a simple budget, you can avoid these problems and know how much you will have spare after you have paid these important bits.

It might seem like the easiest option when you are faced with a credit card bill - pay the minimum repayment each month. It barely strips anything off the balance, but it also leaves you with money for other things. Well, that's my way of thinking about it. But when, a year down the line, you only see a small drop in what you owe, you kind of wonder, What's the Point?

A minimum repayment level on a credit card can lead to larger debts and psychologists from the University of Warwick have recently found that customers become fixated on these repayment levels, which act as an "anchor" to lower the actual amount people repay. There research has shown that 35% of consumers make partial payments each month, causing arrears to grow. Only last month, uSwitch slaimed that a balance of £1,384 could take up to 31 years to pay off if the consumer stuck to paying the minimum.

One option to help you out of this mess, and also help with other debts, is opting for any of the secured loans that there are out there. By applying for one of these, you usually get a lower rate of APR than a personal one, and you can use it to consolidate your existing debts as well as anything else you may need to use the money for. That way, you'll pay a fixed payment each month, set over a fixed time period, and all your other debts would be clear.

For those renters out there (that includes me), mydeposits.co.uk are urging us to stick to our contracts to prevent us from losing out on money.

The deposit protection scheme have warned that we could end up seriously out of pocket if we go and break the contracts. Approximately 12% of July disputes ruled in favour of the landlord, meaning collectively, tenants lost about £15,000 a month in deposits. One of the reasons for witholding money is because tenants are falling behind on their payments.