Having over stepped the comfort zone of most people viewing the live Pay Off Your Mortgage weekly challenge I can understand peoples scepticism on how they too could reach the heights of seeing 91,000 thousand pounds of their money within just 3 years in their bank accounts, or reduced from their credit card and mortgage debt. However unless you are extremely good at income and expenditure control, you will find out if you simply add it up, you tend to spend what you earn.

We hi-light typical everyday scenarios every week on the website and blog about what tend to be the vast majority of peoples spending habits. This is not meant as a criticism, it is all because we tend to do what we see others doing and that is to match our expenditure to our income.

This in no way reflects on the amount of money you earn, there is no rule, or indeed social proof that just because you are on a low income you are closer to bankruptcy than if you are on a higher income. In fact the higher the income homes tend to be the ones with the highest expenditure.

The higher your income, the more money you tend to borrow, and the higher your repayments are per month, so you begin to start the spiral of having to earn more money again to create more surplus money to buy more things. Add to that the peer pressure of success in the eyes of others is having a big house and a flashy car on the drive and you can easily get suckered in to those glittering prizes by using your surplus expenditure on easy monthly payments.

It is the classic buy now, pay later society that we live in today, yet if you asked 95% of the population do they feel better off today than they did a few years ago and they will probably say no.

They may well earn more money than they did, but they have matched, or worse, exceeded that income rise by increasing their expenditure to the point where they are now far less comfortable than they were even a year ago.

The double blow has been the rising costs of oil, food and utilities which are not a choice expenditure, but due to surplus monies being spoken for, they often return to the need to earn more money cycle again and so the spiral increases upwards.

The only way you can stop this life cycle of upward destruction is to:-

1. Stop Adding To The Problem by clearing as much bad debt as possible, including credit cards, loans, mail order and easy monthly payment purchases

2. Learn to get back in control of your expenditure to the point you are freakishly in control of everything that enters and exits your bank accounts

3. Build up a contingency account of at least six to 12 months "Necessities" payments to allow yourself some breathing space

4. Simplify your lifestyle; ask yourself what you really want from life, not just in material possessions because that is what lead you to this point. Life is not about being a Magpie collecting shiny things; get wealthy first, then buy them for cash as a gift for your loved one, if you need a great book on simplifying your life, check out:- Swimming With Piranha Makes You Hungry by Colin Turner

5. Start a part-time business, not only will it focus your attention on building something for your future, it will also focus your attention on creating wealth first, which is the opposite of what most people tend to do.