Thank you CreditRepair.com for sponsoring this post. CreditRepair.com’s team understands that a credit score is not just a number; it’s a lifestyle.

It’s said that your 20s are for making the mistakes and your 30s are for paying the bills. Well, exactly how many bills did I create? All of them! Every. Single. Bill. Imaginable. I was young and dumb, accepting every credit card thrown in my face and constantly living above my means. Honestly, I think I was still 17 when I completed my first credit card application because the company, who shall remain nameless, had reps come to the restaurant at the base of our dorm rooms. If you completed the app you would get a free meal from Quiznos subs. Who was turning down “free food” in college? I’ll wait…

That was just the beginning of my financial demise. I’ve maxed out store cards trying to keep up with the latest trends, I’ve blown financial aid refund checks on everything but school expenses. *pause* Why are they called refunds if you have to pay them back? Hey student loan debt… but let’s back to my tragic financial history. I’ve lost jobs and had to choose between rent or car note and I’ve even been evicted. I’ve failed, time and time again but I recovered. You can recover from poor financial decisions too, with time and effort.

Here are 4 ways you can actively work on recovering from poor financial decisions and improve your credit:

1. Educate Yourself

The reason I made so many mistakes was because of lack of financial literacy. From budgeting to debt to income ratio and everything in-between, it was all foreign to me. In fact, I didn’t even come close to getting my financial life together until James and I got engaged. Thankfully, he is the financially responsible one in the relationship and while it’s still a huge battle for me, I’ve learned so much from him. It’s never too late to learn how to budget, what to say to creditors when trying to negotiate debt pay off or which debts you shouldn’t bother paying off. Your credit score is not written in stone, and you are more than a credit score. But your credit won’t fix itself! You can get help from CreditRepair.com today with a free consultation and kickstart your credit repair efforts.

2. Build a Savings

It is so important to have an emergency fund. If you lost your job today, how long would you be able to afford your monthly expenses? One month, three months ….do you have a cushion to hold you over through the process of finding a new job? It’s a general rule of thumb that you should have $500-$1000 available in savings, in the event of an emergency. However, I would take it a step further than that. You should have 3-6 months of you everyday expenses saved. If that sounds insane to you, start with one and build from there.

I’ve personally always struggled with saving money because if I could see it, that somehow meant it was available to spend. If you’re anything like me, it helps to have a saving account that you cant access at a local bank or ATM. From there set a budget in place that allows for you to allocate money to your savings monthly, which brings me to my next tip…

3. Establish a budget.

For the last few years my motto has been to pay myself then pay bills and by paying myself I mean, put money into my savings. So when you sit to write down your budget, “savings” should be a item on the list. Start by listing out your all of your monthly expenses, from mortgage/rent to every stupid little subscription you’ve signed up for. From there you should be able to analyze whether or not you need to cancel subscriptions you’ve forgotten about/no longer need and you’ll probably see how much you spend on dining out. This was a huge expense for me, I could spend hundreds a month on just dining out alone.

Do you dine out a lot? Consider getting $7 meal for both breakfast and lunch, 5x a week… thats $70 a week; not including weekends or the money you’ve spent on groceries. Add your spouse and/or children to the mix and your basically paying a second mortgage here. Set a limit to the amount you spend on dining out during the week, for both work days and weekends and stick to it! Meal prepping is your friend on this one. Any who, creating the budget is actually the easy part. Sticking to it is the real challenge.

4. Seek professional help.

Trying to figure out where to start can be frustrating and can sometimes cause you to Google search your way into a black hole. Additionally, resources to further your education about credit can be confusing and most solutions are not one size fits all. That’s where seeking help from professional credit repair agencies can be beneficial. CreditRepair.com is a leading provider of credit report repair services in the United States. They are a team of credit professionals who educate and empower individuals to achieve the credit scores they deserve. The process is requires as little as a 10-minute phone consultation to get started.

Once you put one or all of those tips into play you just need patience and consistency. It takes months, maybe years to ruin credit so you can’t expect to fix it overnight. Consider it your credit repair journey and celebrate all of the small wins along the way. CreditRepair.com are trusted leaders in credit repair with over 500,000 clients served. What is bad credit costing you? Getting to know and understand your score allows you to take the necessary steps to repair your history so that you can live your best life.

If you had told me a five years ago that it was possible to restore my credit history and live within a budget I would’ve laughed hysterically. Now, I know that with determination and patience it is indeed possible. As I continue to improve my finances, my goal is to make sure my babies don’t make the same mistakes that I did. Are you currently or have you ever been on a journey to repair your credit? Let me know in the comments…

“This post is sponsored by CreditRepair.com, as always all opinions are my own.”