Take control of your monthly phone expenses

If you want to take control of your life, the best place to start is your finances. Make a pie chart - a circle divided into slices - of all your expenses. Does your mobile phone bill make up the biggest slice?

Then perhaps it's time to take action. Do you really want all your money to go to a phone company? Changing that is about controlling your phone expenses.

First check that your plan is the right one for you. A phone plan allows you a certain number of minutes for your calls every month. The question is how much is the phone company charging for any extra minutes you use?

If you're finding it difficult to stay within your limits, shop around for another plan. But before you do that calculate how many minutes you actually need in calls every month. Perhaps you are making unnecessary calls.

Clearly, before you go to the trouble of changing plans, the obvious thing to do, if your phone bill is too expensive, is to cut down the amount of time you spend on the phone.

Set yourself a monthly limit, and stick to it. Do you feel like you need more communication with people? Perhaps you need to go out and actually meet people.