Suze Orman, the famous female money guru whose advice is specifically tailored to woman, has written many books on managing your finances and improving your financial health. When asked about how women should react in a touch economy, she made it plain what women should be doing.

According to Suze Orman, we need to understand that there is a real financial crisis. Do not ignore it and try to pretend that as long as it does not affect you right now that it will not. According to Businessdictionary.com, a financial crisis is “a situation in which the supply of money is outpaced by the demand for money. This means that liquidity is quickly evaporated because available money is withdrawn from banks (called a run), forcing banks either to sell other investments to make up for the shortfall or to collapse.” Considering the facts that banks are failing left and right, it’s is quite evident that we are in the middle of a financial crisis.

We also need to understand whether or not we are currently making it. This means determine if you are actually living on what you or making, or if you are living beyond your means each month by using credit cards and other forms of debt. If you find that you are living beyond your means, using credit cards and loans to cover the cost of basic living expenses and food, you need make more money by taking a second job and decrease what you are spending. You must make more than you spend every month to be considered to be ‘making it’. The way to determine if you are living within your means is to sit down and figure out a budget. Write down how much income you have within a typical month and figure out how much you spend in a typical month. You should do this for four months in a row, so you are not fooling yourself about intermittent expenses or an irregular income. If the money going out is more than the money coming in, it is just a matter of time before you are in serious trouble.

If you have never built a budget before, MSN Money gives a detailed explanation on how to build your first budget . This tutorial is for post-college adults, but these basics will work for everyone. According to the article, the simplest way to budget may well be "The 60% Solution”. The basic idea is that all your essential spending such as taxes, food, shelter, clothing, and miscellaneous expenses comes out of the first 60% of your total income. The remaining 40% should be split evenly between retirement savings, emergency savings (or debt repayment), short-term savings for irregular expenses (like holidays and car repairs), and fun money. If you have to use credit for holidays, car repairs, and entertainment and you are not currently saving money or paying off debt, you are barely making it.

Suze Orman also insisted that people to make sure their money, such as savings and checking accounts is in a place where it is FDIC insured. To find out if your money is in an FDIC bank, do not trust what the bank tellers say to you. Instead go to http://myfdicinsurance.gov/ and make sure your money is safe yourself. The FDIC also has a search tool for FDIC insured banks here. If the websites indicates that you are using a bank that is not FDIC insured, you need to move your money immediately.

Suze finished the Today Show segment with the following warning. Stop charging, stop spending, stop acting as if nothing is going wrong… stop it now!!! If you have not been using credit cards to meet your expenses, you are one-step ahead of the crowd. This is because even people who have been living on credit for years and have managed to continue making on time credit payments will soon find that their credit lines have been severely cut. Banks are reducing credit lines and recalling lines of credit based on home equity. In the future credit is only going to be issued to people really don’t need it at all. It will be for the convenience of people who are able to pay their accounts in full each month and maintain a 30% debt to income ratio. If this is not you, you will want to get used to living on cash.

This means instead of charging what you want and paying it off over time, you will instead have to put away cash for your purchases and buy them when you have the money.

This means the façade of being well off will have to turn into the truth of having a modest income.

This means that you do not have to or should not try to keep up with the Jones, because they are most likely in the same situation as you.

If you are thinking that it is the end of the world as you know it, cheer up, there is life after credit cards and home equity loans. What you need to understand is that the cost of saving for an item delayed gratification. Meanwhile, the cost of buying an item on credit can mean you are paying for the item long after it is used up and gone.

So whether you believe there is a financial crisis or not, or whether or not it is affecting you right now or not, it would be wise to create a budget based on your actual income and then start putting money away for your purchases and needs instead of relying on a system that as we know it is gone.

Andrea Hermitt is a featured writer for Xomba.com. Read the rest of her work here .