painless place to start "trimming the fat" is to get a good deal on so-called fixed costs such as utilities. 3. IS YOUR DEBT ON THE DECLINE? Sure, throwing extra money at loans does wonders to clear them early, but there are also easier ways - like getting a better home-loan deal while keeping your repayments the same. For example, move a $300,000 loan from a big bank charging 6.8 per cent to one of the 5.8 per cent lenders and maintain your former repayments and you'll save $54,219 and nearly 4 years. You should be accelerating personal loan payments, too. With credit cards, transfer any outstanding balance to a card offering no or low interest for a period. The best way to attack your debts from a mathematical perspective is from highest to lowest interest - and set a time target (with the aid of a site like infochoice.com.au ) to keep motivation up. 4. ARE YOU GETTING WEALTHIER? I mentioned the financial-fitness equation earlier; if you are managing a money surplus, are your savings or investments growing? And does that mean you have a cash stash that you could access in an emergency? A caveat here: if you still have debt, repaying it is one of the smartest possible financial moves (and house any emergency funds in or alongside a loan too). You earn an effective return equal to your interest rate - which could be 20 per cent or even higher on a credit card - and