Your credit matters, so if your finances are in bad shape, it’s time to get serious and give your money situation an overhaul.

But even if you recognize the mistakes you’ve made in the past, you might not know how to improve your financial situation.

If you’re living paycheck to paycheck or you’re behind on bills, creditors might hound you daily. Additionally, you might lie awake at night worrying about your circumstance. Everyone deserves peace of mind. And fortunately, if you don’t have a lot of financial knowledge, there are resources available to help you along the way. Here’s a look at five practical ways to turn your finances around.

1. Recognize your mistakes

If you continue living in denial, you’ll never improve your financial health. Understandably, it’s hard to point the finger at ourselves. We might blame anything and everything for our current situation, and refuse to acknowledge the role we play.

If you want to get ahead and put financial drama behind you, you need to do a self-evaluation and figure out where you went wrong. If necessary, solicit the help of a trusted friend — preferably someone with excellent money and credit management skills. This person can bring bad financial habits to your attention, and help you get to the root of the problem. For example, do you live above your means? Do you have a shopping addiction? Do you have poor organizational skills?

Once you narrow down possible reasons for your financial mess, you’ll be in a better position to resolve the problem and start making smarter choices with your money.

2. Give yourself time to grieve

If you’re in a bad financial situation and nothing seems to be going right, you might be depressed, anxious and frustrated. Your emotions are perfectly normal, and you should give yourself time to grieve, especially if financial ruin occurs due to circumstances beyond your control. But while grieving can be therapeutic, it’s important to pick yourself up and develop a plan to reverse the situation. The problem isn’t going to solve itself. You have to be proactive and maintain a positive outlook in order to succeed.

3. Get inspiration

When dealing with financial problems, it’s easy to think you’re the only person going through a situation. But the truth is, there are thousands of people who understand your circumstances. I’m willing to bet that a quick online search will reveal a ton of personal stories and experiences from people who’ve beat the odds.

For an inspiring and encouraging story, check out Vicki’s credit story featured on Creditrepair.com. Her candid testimonial video explains exactly how she got into a bad financial situation, and what she did to overcome this hurdle. It doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with a terrible credit score, loss of a job or excessive debt, there’s light at the end of the tunnel and there’s a way out of many bad situations. It might take time to improve your financial outlook, but it’ll happen with patience, effort and determination. Soon, you’ll have your own inspiring credit story to share as well.

4. Make sacrifices

If you’re not willing to make sacrifices, you might never turn around your financial situation. For example, if you’re dealing with a mountain of credit card debt, the only way to pay off these balances is to increase your income. How do you do this? Some people have successfully paid off credit card debt by getting a second job or starting a side business to generate extra income. Others have sold personal belongings in order to create additional income for themselves. Unfortunately, the money you earn from work might not be enough to cover your living expenses plus eliminate debt. If you have high monthly expenses, getting out of debt might also require downsizing and moving into a cheaper home and driving a cheaper car so you can free up cash for more important things.

5. Get help

It’s possible to turn your finances around on your own. But if you feel that your debt or financial situation is more than you can handle, don’t be afraid to seek help. There are plenty of financial experts who can guide you through the recovery phase. For example, you can work with a financial planner who can help with all aspects of your personal finances from paying off debt to preparing for retirement. Additionally, working with a debt or credit counseling agency can reorganize your debt, thus reducing your monthly payments and helping you get rid of debt faster.

The odds might seem against you, but you can develop a strong financial foundation. The secret is gaining control of your money, credit and debt. What steps did you take to reverse a bad financial situation?

A baby is a blessing, and having a baby will change your entire life, although hopefully for the better. And even before they arrive, there are lots of things you need to do to prepare for their arrival, including becoming financially stable.

Here are some ways to financially prepare for a baby before its arrival.

Start Saving Money

Having a baby is very expensive! They need a lot of things like a crib, clothes, diapers, and much more. Plus the medical costs of having a baby aren’t cheap either. That’s why you need to start saving up money from the moment you find out you are expecting, if not sooner.

My friend Cat set up a special baby savings fund when she found out she was expecting twins. She and her hubby were able to save $10,000 in their fund and they did end up using every penny on their babies.

Earn More Money

Not only is having a baby expensive, but the costs don’t stop after the child is born. Kids cost you money for the rest of their lives. Your grocery bills, energy bills, and more will forever be increased because you have a child. Before you decide to have a baby, you need to make sure you earn enough money to pay for these on-going costs of raising a child.

Sure you can be as frugal as possible when raising your kid(s), but you still need to make sure you earn enough. If aren’t earning enough right now, you’ll need to find some ways to earn more money. One way to do this is by taking up a side hustle, like freelance writing.

Get Out of Debt

If you are in debt, you need to work hard to get out of debt as soon as possible no matter what your life and family situation is. Being out of debt gives you more choices for what to do with your money. But if you are planning to have a baby, you need to think even harder about getting out of debt before the arrival of your child. It is possible to have a baby and pay off debt, but it’s much easier to pay off debt before having kids.

To get out of debt you should consider every possibility that can help you out, including taking out a lower interest rate loan with an unsecured guarantor loan broker. This can help you consolidate your payments and waste less money on interest if you go about it in the correct way.

Forgo Unnecessary Purchases

I’ve been in the baby section at Walmart quite a few times lately and I’m always shocked at how expensive everything is, and this is at Walmart! I can’t imagine how much money people spend on decorating their nurseries and buying every baby gadget known to man-kind when I see photos on Pinterest. Don’t let this type of consumerism get to you. Sure, babies need quite a bit of stuff, and it’s expensive enough if you stick to the basics. I’m sure it’s hard, but your bank account will thank you if you forgo some of the unnecessary purchases that some people buy for their babies.

Do you have any other tips for how to financially prepare for a baby?

Source: Free Digital Photos

Managing personal finances can be difficult. Proper management requires an investment of your time. While getting paid more would certainly help, there are other ways to get on track and stay there. In fact, even a payroll company can provide resources to keep your financial situation moving in the right direction.

Steps to Manage Finances

To make smart decisions about personal finances, consider using these three steps:

• Create a personal budget
• Use a disciplined approach to save money and pay down debt
• Monitor your progress

If you follow this process, you can make better decisions about your finances.

Creating a Realistic Budget

One great resource for creating a personal budget is the book, The Richest Man in Babylon. The book provides timeless advice for money management. One of the tips is to “Pay Yourself First.” When you create a budget, your first priority should be to set aside money to save.

Your budget needs to be realistic. That means that you need to think carefully about the portion of your budget that is flexible. Some of your spending is fixed. You may have set amount to pay for housing, your car and certain forms of debt. Those payments are locked in. However, you do have some choices about spending that can vary.

You can find money to save by cutting your variable spending. Think about the money you spend on entertainment, for example. Say that you spend $300 a month on seeing movies and going out to dinner. If you change your spending habits, you can use some of that entertainment money for savings. Maybe you decide to cut out a few dinners and save $100 each month.

Your budget does not have to be sophisticated. You can simply write down the money you receive from your paycheck and all of your spending categories in a notebook. If you’re interested in budgeting software, there are some great choices that are not expensive.

A Disciplined Approach

Even if you plan to save that $100, it may be difficult to actually move the money into a savings account. One way to apply some self-discipline is to use technology. ADP Electronic Payment Systems & Services explains that payroll companies are making electronic payment more accessible for workers.

Many payroll firms can now issue pay cards. These cards allow the employee to access their payroll dollars without needing a bank account. The pay amount is posted to the card, which the worker can use to withdraw funds.

If you have your payroll processed electronically, you can also set up an automatic deposit of part or all of your pay into a savings account. By making the process automatic, you’re not tempted to spend the money for some other purpose.

Paying Down Debt

Technology can also help you set up a system to pay down debt at a faster rate. Assume that you have three credit card balances. If you can pay each balance online, you can discipline yourself to pay more than the minimum payment.

Let’s assume that one of your credit cards requires a $100 minimum payment for the month. In your budgeting process, you set aside $50 to make higher payments on your card balances. By paying more than the minimum payment, you reduce the principal balance on the debt faster.

Don’t hesitate to use technology to help you with your finances. To monitor your progress, check your credit card use and bank account activity online. That step will help you stay on track.

There are almost too many finance options around today when it comes to buying a new car, or even a used one – so much so that you can spend almost as long researching these as you would your choice of car itself. As long as you match the way you pay to your current finances, you should be able to find the best deal using these considerations, no matter where you plan to buy a car, be it Plymouth, Birmingham, even in Newcastle.

Don’t rely on a dealer’s offers

While the dealer’s finance options may be pretty competitive, there’s likely to be something even better for you out there, so don’t just plump for what’s on offer at the place you’re hoping to buy from.

Use some of your savings

If you have any cash saved up, it’s always better to use a portion of this to buy a new car than using a loan or finance deal outright. You’ll save on interest and if you can pay cash outright under your own steam, you won’t be tied down to monthly payments.

Consider a loan from the bank rather than the dealer

While it may be tied in with a particular deal on a car, you may find that taking out a personal loan from your bank means cheaper payments in the long run. Something else to bear in mind is that a personal loan would not be secured against your purchase, so if you were to fall into arrears, your car wouldn’t be taken away. However, it may be tough to get a loan if your credit score is patchy.

Hire Purchase could be an option

Very similar to a personal loan: you make set monthly payments, and once you’ve completed these, the car is then yours. While only some dealers will offer personal loans, most will offer some form of HP plan. You may even be able to snap up a contribution to your deposit courtesy of frequent manufacturer deals. The downsides though are that your car could be repossessed if you get into trouble with your monthly payments, and those monthly payments would likely be more expensive than other finance methods.

Your credit card might be an option

Provided the dealer you plan to buy from accepts credit cards, you could feasibly use yours to buy your car. Plus, of course, you need a credit limit high enough to cover the cost of the car. The benefits of this are that, should anything go wrong, you’re covered by Section 75 – that is, your credit card company will step in and help you to get it rectified, even if you only used your credit card for part payment.

The down-side of this is that credit card interest rates are usually much higher than the other forms of financing we’ve discussed.

How should you pay the car dealer?

As Honest John points out on Telegraph.co.uk, paying in cash, either from savings or a personal loan, has one major benefit – it cannot be revoked after you drive away in your new car. Many dealers won’t take cheques, but you may find that a bank transfer will be acceptable.

MoneySavingExpert.com has plenty more advice on how to pay for your car.

Are you looking to buy a new car?