The following is a wrap up of Frugal Dad’s week-long series, The 7-Day Turnaro und: One Week to Change Your Familys Financial Destiny :

• Day 1 Take an Inventory of Your Finances . This step involves taking an inventory of all of your assets and liabilities to create you own personal balance sheet.
• Day 2 Build an Emergency Fund, Quickly . The cornerstone of any solid financial plan is to have a decent emergency fund in place. Start with getting three months of expenses in a high-yield savings account.
• Day 3 Cut Up Those Credit Cards . The easiest of all the steps, mechanically, but one of the hardest to actually do. Forget loyalties, sentiments, just cut. Save one for emergencies until a healthy emergency fund is in place.
• Day 4 Slash Your Expenses . Now that you have slashed credit cards, its time to slash your monthly expenses. Cancel subscriptions, cancel the cable, stop eating out, and basically live ultra-frugal lifestyles until you are debt free.
• Day 5 Start Saving for Retirement . Determine how much you will need in retirement and use that as a minimum target goal. Start investing in your 401k at your employer, up to any matching funds, and then fund the rest in Roth IRAs,
• Day 6 Give the Gift of Education . Start investing in ESAs or 529 plans for your kids. Avoid managed allocation options and direct the fund selections yourself.
• Day 7 Invest for an Early Retirement. After you are maximizing savings in tax-free or tax-deferred retirement plans begin to save outside of retirement accounts in solid, low-turnover growth mutual funds. These funds can be tapped before the traditional retirement age, allowing you to step away from your day job and start doing some work you love.

About the Author

Jason had the foresight to understand that people can’t continue to live beyond their means without unpleasant financial consequences. Jason’s wisdom became apparent several months after the site launched, when the world economy saw its worst downturn in a century.