Dealing with your finances responsibly on top of all the other changes that graduating from college brings can feel overwhelming. Most people do not get a very complete education in personal finance, and this can lead to costly mistakes. The good news is that few of those mistakes can’t be remedied with some knowledge and hard work. The better news is that it might be possible to avoid those mistakes altogether.

Situate Yourself

Ideally, you’ll graduate from college with a job offer in hand or have one shortly after, move to a new place and get started on the rest of your life. This is how it goes for many people, but what if that doesn’t happen? What if your field isn’t hiring right now, or you need to care for a sick parent? Maybe you’ve just had a baby and you have to figure out parenting, child care and financial management with a small family as well as post-college finances. 

It’s important that you don’t let that discourage you from being proactive about your finances. No one’s life follows a perfect trajectory, and you can adapt the steps below to fit your own situation. In the meantime, you might want to take a few steps to improve your situation right away. If you can’t control your spending, destroy your credit cards. If you have several student loans, you might want to see if you can refinance them with a private lender to ease the financial burden. This can lower how much you are paying each month.

Write Down Your Goals

These should be short, medium and long-term goals. For most people, one of your short-term goals should be to build up an emergency fund. If you’ve had to move back home with your parents, one of your short-term goals might be to save up enough to move out. A five-year goal could be saving for a down payment on a house or toward quitting your job and freelancing. A long-term goal could be establishing a college fund for your children or retiring at 50. If you aren’t sure what kind of goals you should be saving toward, the next step can help.

Educate Yourself

There are many blogs, books and podcasts you can read to learn more about personal finance. Reading widely will not only give you a good understanding of the basics but will also demonstrate to you that even among experts, there are different ideas about the best way to go about saving, getting out of debt, investing and more. You don’t have to devote yourself to the study of personal finance to get the information you need to manage your money responsibly. This is something you can dip in and out of from time to time just as you would with your social media feed. Keep in mind you can also hire a financial professional to help you figure all this out although even then finding the right one can require a little research on your part. For example, most but not all professionals recommend a fee-only financial advisor since they do not get commissions or referral fees on the products they sell you.