Do you sometimes feel you’re falling short of your own standards and expectations when it comes to managing your finances? Everyone — at sometime in their lives has felt that way.

But if you have a healthy account balance or if you understand your overdraft properly, it’s possible to not only cope with these challenges, but becoming a champion at effectively managing them and emerging more fulfilled and in charge. Here’s how:

1. Not being able to save enough

Having enough savings is all about prioritizing your expenses. To begin, take a close look at your bank account and credit card statements or analyse your income-expenditure flow using some free online money management tools like Yodlee or Mint.

Doing this will give you a clear picture of your expenditure flow, and enable you to rank your spending and savings in order of priority.

The secret is to rank first the basics such as housing, food, electricity, security and debt repayments. That usually means you have set aside money for long term objectives such as retirement so you avoid the temptation of spending it.

Once these essential needs have been prioritized and funded, you can pool the remaining money into a separate account or set aside a weekly or monthly allowance for yourself or the family for discretionary spending. Whichever way you decide to spend the remainder, have it at the back of your mind that once it’s exhausted, you’ll just have to wait till the next week or month.

2. Getting overwhelmed with debt

Even whole countries have always struggled with debts. And for individuals, it’s a major obstacle to financial freedom. Applying the money management principle highlighted above can also help you get your way around debt and eventually free yourself from the shackles.

In addition, it will help you cultivate a habit of living within your means, while at the same building an emergency fund to avoid getting into a steeper debt slope.

Also, you should look for ways to cut down on the interests you’re currently paying on debts. One strategy is to do a balance transfer from one credit card to another, or forcing you’re your provider to lower the rate by threatening to move your balance.

3. Letting the money trickle away

It’s not the big buys that drain your pockets and bank balance, it’s the little, regular purchases here and there. So, you need to find the leaky money pipe and fix it, to get the little extra monthly to save, pay off debt or invest.

Examples are the magazines you buy but rarely ever read, premium bouquet satellite tv subscriptions you don’t actually watch or need, the Netflix movies you pay to download but put off to watch , or the extra text message plan for you phone.