Think a million dollars is all you need to fix your problems right now? Think again. According to a recent finding by ABC News, about a third of lottery winners in the US become bankrupts within 5 years of collecting their winnings. Some have even committed suicide.

Meanwhile all over the world consumer bankruptcy figures have reached unprecedented levels. Youngsters especially are getting into debt faster than they can understand the financial disaster that is about to unfold. Spending more than you earn is the root of all evil – not money.

Anyone facing the silent but deadly problem of overspending (Read: all of us!), would do well checking out these applications. With graphs, summaries and charts, it is amazing how simple software like these can put one’s defective spending habits into a whole new perspective.

First up is the Expense Diary 1.5 running on Palm OS? This expense-tracking software helps you keep a log of the money you spent. You can specify the category an expense belongs to, and the account where the money comes from. So once a particular category shows up more often than it should, you know where to make the axe.

Summary reports can be created based on categories and accounts, or give you daily and monthly summaries, including the interest that you will earn on outstanding credit card balances. On top of that, Expense Diary 1.5 also supports multiple currencies and even features a built-in currency converter. The software is available for download at www.tucows.com and a 30-day trial version is available. Full use is available for only US$12.

Should you need an application that specifically monitors your credit, MyCheckbook 5.4 is one title that you will find useful. This software has been designed to give you an overall view of your different credit accounts at one view. Be it a credit card or a bank loan, MyCheckbook will display these facilities in an easy-to-read manner at one glance. But it is missing a very crucial function. Unlike the Expense Diary, the MyCheckbook does not alert you about the accumulated interest in your outstanding balances. But a consolation is that the software will advise you on the recommended credit utilisation. The software is available for download at www.handango.com for US$21.95 and comes with a 30-day trial evaluation.

However if you are just a hard-working chap who does not believe in borrowing money via credit or loans, perhaps the right software would be Ultrasoft Money. Instead of focusing on loans and credit facilities, Ultrasoft is a simple lean application that will keep track of good old cash.

The application will work together with Microsoft Money should you have it installed on your device. A neat module installed is the alarm that will alert you when your bills are due. Just enter the billing cycles for the services that you are subscribed to and Ultrasoft Money will keep bugging you till you make your payment. Another useful function is the budgeting function where you can set a fixed amount on how much you can spend in an entire week. Should you cross the line, the software will let you know via a special alarm.

The software is available for download at www.ultrasoft.com at a premium price of US$39.95. So do give the 30-day evaluation a go before committing.