Suppose you get off track. You get so tired of living like a monk that you put your credit card back in your wallet, drive to your local shopping mall, and under the guise of “it's on sale,” buy a few hundred dollars worth of clothes or electronic equipment. Yet you don't have any way to pay for these purchases, except by taking money out of savings, or worse, by paying your credit card company until it's paid off.

If this happens, stay calm. Nobody's perfect, and after you've come this far on your financial journey, this small setback won't kill you!

You can, however, take some steps toward minimizing the effects of your shopping spree:

• Don't remove tags or open boxes from any purchases for one week.

• One week after you buy any item, see how you feel about returning it for a refund.

• If a refund isn't possible, either because the store won't accept returned merchandise or because you ripped the tags off the minute you got home, see whether a friend or relative wants to buy the item from you at full price.

• If a refund or sale isn't possible, revisit your budget to see how you can pay for this item.

You may find that, in order to pay for your splurge, you have to cut back your expenses even further than before or get a part-time job to pay off the debt. If that's the case, do it. Whatever you do, don't go back into debt because of one small slip-up.