Concerned about your lack of knowledge of basic financing and how to save and invest your money wisely? So is the Canadian government. The Feds have already pulled together expert teams to address our illiteracy when it comes to money management, and they're looking for ways to teach Canadians to be savvier about their finances.

School systems across the country are also on the move. They're looking to introduce classes in finance fundamentals to our children as young as grade four and possibly as early as 2011. What both these moves point out is the reality most of us live everyday-that nobody ever taught us how to manage our money, or how to invest it wisely or well.

Good money management does require a few changes in your thinking, almost certainly a few new habits, and some discipline. To develop good money management skills-like any new skill-you have to practice them until they become ingrained into your lifestyle, and monitor yourself to ensure that the old bad habits don't creep back in to your life, and send you back down the money hole.

What are your bad habits?

Before you can change anything, you need to know where your money pits are. Try this 30-day challenge. Monitor all your purchases-every one of them!-and keep the receipts. Carry a small book around with you-something you can easily slip into your pocket or handbag, and enter every single thing you buy and where. That includes the soda pop you might buy while strolling through the mall, or the quickie meal you pick up on Friday night on your way home from the grocery store. Track all of it. At the end of the month, see where and how (credit, debit, cash) you make unneeded purchases. Add those up. Are you surprised at the total?

How can you replace bad habits?

Now that you're aware of your bad habits, start changing them. If you use plastic too much, stop using your credit and debit cards. If cash burns a hole in your pocket, stop carrying it. If walking through the mall on Saturdays always means you spend money needlessly, try going somewhere else-like the park or the library. Only carry your cards or cash when you are making a specific purchase like groceries, or paying a bill. Learn to feel okay about not buying anything, and saying "no" to the kids.

What's next?

If you've stopped those bad habits, you may well feel richer-because you are. But don't let that newly found money go to waste. Take the money you were frittering, and put it towards paying your highest interest bill. Once that bill is paid off, move to the next highest interest bill, and so on, until your debts are paid.

Money basics start with knowing your own spending patterns, changing the ones that cause you to waste money needlessly, and having the discipline to do things differently.