The recession was difficult and hard for many and was long lasting, having started during the first part of 2007 and lasted until the beginning of this year.

The majority of people in the UK suffered to a greater or lesser extent due to the fall in economic growth and many tightened their belts financially.

There were various ways in which they tried to economise such as shopping in the less expensive super markets such as Aldi and Lidl which was not much of a sacrifice, as although the prices of groceries is less, there is no compromise in quality.

Many choose to buy frozen food instead of fresh, and companies such as Farm Foods and Iceland recorded healthy profits, as per the old adage that one man’s loss is another man’s gain.

People, who had in the past enjoyed a meal out once a week or so to the local expensive Italian restaurant and tucked into seafood antipasti with a lobster ravioli second course,juicy steak with all the trimmings as a main course and their favourite panna cotta for desert, all washed down by a crisp chilled bottle of Orvieto or Chianti, were reduced to ordering take away pizza from companies such as Dominos who saw their profits soar.

The cut backs were due to many having been asked to accept a pay cut at work as their firms struggled to survive the credit crunch.

Others were made redundant but managed to secure different employment at a lesser salary, but considered themselves fortunate to be in any sort of employment at all.

The least fortunate lost their jobs and had no success in finding any other position.

However, many were of the opinion, that almost the very minute the recession ended everything would become exactly as it had been before, and that not only the economy of the UK, but also their personal financial situation would revert back to the better times of before the credit crunch.

This was in their wildest dreams because as every one should know it takes a long time to recover from such a recession, and as we have all now been made aware, the recovery is fragile and another credit crunch could be on the cards.

Therefore, although they altered their grocery shopping habits, very few, over the last three years did much about rearranging their finances, as they expected everything to go back to normal almost as soon as the end of the recession was announced.

Now that this is patently not the case, people with finances to sort out should do so now.

The only fast financial miracle that anyone will experience is the miracle that can be obtained by debt consolidation.

For those struggling to cope with too many debts but hoping for a quick return to normal, there should be no further delay and debt consolidation should now be considered, as there can be no other quick debt fix.

Debt consolidation combines all oustanding debts on credit cards, personal loans, etc. into the one, meaning that instead of a number of high interest repayments each month there will be one single low interest payment.

For tenants, that is people who only rent their homes, the only way to obtain debt consolidation is by debt consolidation loans arranged through their own bank.

However, for homeowners there is the choice of whole of the market remortgages or secured loans meaning that they are not limited to only their own bank or mortgage lender but have all mortgage and secured loan products available from which to choose the best debt consolidation deal.

Lower rates can always be obtained when there is a vast selection of lenders for remortgages and secured homeowner loans.

Both remortgages and secured loans combine and replace all the other debts and in place of high interest loans and credit card there is a remortgage at from 1.84% or a secured loan at from about 9%.