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After Christmas and New Year celebrations have finished many of us find that we are left feeling tired, drained of energy, and worse still drained of money. The Christmas period can be a very financially demanding one, and once the festive season is over many of us take stock of our finances only to discover that we have spent far more than we originally planned leaving us facing financial difficulties.

In order to ease the financial hangover that can hit many of us at this time of year there are a number of steps that you can take. This include:

1. Check whether you can get a better deal on your credit card. If you have used your credit card to fund Christmas and you are being charged a high rate of interest you may find that one way to save money is to switch your card to another type of card, such as a 0% balance transfer card, which will allow you additional time without being charged interest to repay your balance. This could save you a small fortune in terms of interest.

2. Could consolidation help? If you have accrued a fair amount of debt over the Christmas period with store cards, credit cards, loans, etc. and you already had some debt prior to this you may find that one effective solution is to wrap up all of these debts into one lower rate consolidation loan. This will ease financial management for you and could save you a fortune in interest. It could also help to reduce the amount that you pay out each month.

3. Cut out your unnecessary spending. Most of us splash out more on going out, buying clothes, and treating ourselves over the festive season, but you should avoid continuing this into the New Year. Try making a few cutbacks when it comes to shopping for non-essentials and going out * the money you save could be put towards the debt you have accrued over Christmas or you could put it aside in savings towards next Christmas.

4. Don*t hoard what you don*t need. Let's face it * we all get presents over the Christmas period that we did not really want and will not use. If this is the case why not look at getting rid of some of these gifts rather than hoarding them for prosperity. With portals such as Ebay available, selling your unwanted goods needn't be a hassle, and you could raise a fair amount of cash to put towards repayment of your debts.

5. List where you can make savings. Go through your accounts and make a list of services on which you could save money, such as your car insurance, home insurance, utilities, broadband, etc. Then use the various price comparison sites to see whether you could save money compared to what you are currently paying. If so, make the switch and you could soon be saving a small fortune each month to put towards repayment of your debt.