Four easy steps to become debt free:

The road back from insolvency is potholed and perilous. But with a battle-proven map, you can make it. This may sound like Pollyannaish talk, but thousands of people in financial circumstances worse than yours have made it back from deep debt.

Here are some smart steps to take:

Without a roadmap, you may expend tremendous amounts of energy, resources, and money to little or no avail. Most of us live our lives in a perpetual state of Brownian Motion: i.e., we work extremely hard only to find that, at the end of the day, we’re back where we started.

To correct this problem, isolate specific actions to take. The smaller and more specific the tasks you outline, the easier you’ll achieve them. For instance, a task like “make a budget” may seem overwhelming. So break it down into smaller steps. For instance, try saving all your receipts for one month. Or resolve to sign up for online bill-paying for your cell-phone bill. These baby steps can give you confidence and push you in the right direction.

Do you need to go to Starbucks three times a day to get that double-tall latte? Do you need your super deluxe cable package, or could you get by with a more barebones plan? Do you need to buy expensive baby gifts for your second cousin, or could you get by with a lovely handwritten note and a visit? By focusing on what you need as opposed to what you want, you’ll make more effective decisions about where to put your money.

Social scientists have demonstrated time and again that people measure their worth based on what their friends and neighbors value. This is a fact of human nature, and it’s hard to get around.

That being said, while most of us know that “keeping up with the Joneses” is a dead-end and dangerous philosophy, most of us fall victim to it more times than we realize. Observe your thoughts whenever you get the impulse to buy. Let go of the desire to acquire more “stuff” and take time to appreciate what you already have.

Studies also show that people are extremely bad at guessing how long certain activities will take or how much money they’ll be likely to spend in given situations. To compensate for this tendency, build in “ultra-realistic” assessments of your spending habits. If, for instance, you think you’ll spend $600 (on average) a month for travel, budget $800 a month for travel! On the lucky chance that your original estimate was correct, you’ll generate a “bonus” of $200 per month. If, on the other hand, your travel expenses end up closer to $800 a month, you will have planned accordingly and accommodated for your spending in your budget.