Maybe you've spent a few hundred dollars on new shoes, or used the plastic to finance your summer vacation, and keeping up with utility bills is getting tougher and tougher. However you get there, it's easy to find yourself in debt and much tougher to climb out. Action 12's Gretchen Bolander takes a look at what that means in the first part of her special report "Digging Out." You can tackle debt on your own, and for some people that works. But others need some outside help, and according to Rick Keller, the right program can make all the difference. Keller says, "You sit there and cut up your credit cards. That's one of his big deals and it was a very emotional time for people." Keller went through Financial Peace University - a project at Villa Heights Christian Church based on get out of debt guru Dave Ramsey. Keller says Ramsey's advice is to take this baby step first, get $500 in an emergency fund, or $1000 in an emergency fund. Then save up to 6 months worth, have 6 months for the unexpected kind of things. Then look at college funding for your children, then look at your retirement and cc - be rid of some of that." Keller wasn't in bad shape - a few hundred dollars on his credit cards, compared to as much as $25,000 worth for others in the class. But he and his wife started giving more thought to planning ahead. "We've got some plans in place so we don't have to use the credit cards when it comes Christmas time or to buy kids clothes, those kinds of things." Of course, admitting there's a problem is the first step. Missouri Southern Professor Brian Nichols says that some people aren't ready to face the music. Nichols says, "Home equity loans have really become, I think, people's next credit cards, or another way to finance things they couldn't do out of regular income." He says there are good points - like tax deductions. He says, "The interest rate tends to be lower than credit card, but still you're, if you take out a $20 - 30,000 loan, you're typically going to be paying 2 to 3 times that amount back over the term of the loan, so something that you're taking out and spending $20,000 on may cost you $60,000." We'll continue looking at how to restore your financial health in the second part of of Gretchen Bolander's series "Digging Out." That's Thursday night on Action 12 News at 10.