Jane Castro is a journalist and media enthusiast. She graduated from the University of Bacolod in the Philippines. She loves skating, scuba diving, and archery on her free time.

Nearly everyone suffers a money downfall whether from a widespread economic disaster or a personal failure. Not everyone escapes it unscathed and sometimes the end results separate the strong crowd from the bunch who duck and run. Getting out of your money mess, even with minor injuries, means making it a top priority.

Financial survival starts with a motivated mind. First, get the confidence in order to get what you need and want. Devising ways in which you are going to cut down expenses for the coming few months can also be helpful.Next, get the perseverance so you can keep searching when what you wish for is not readily available.

Prior to taking the first step, believe in your personal strengths. You might accomplish a goal that you never knew you could do and come out stronger and prouder for next time. The following financial survival tips provide a better search for that disaster escape route.

  1. Create a daily planner: Set aside a designated work period in your day and follow it faithfully.

If searching for jobs, pick a time in your day when you function at your peak. No matter what you find, never prevent yourself from relieving the stress of finding it: give yourself breaks in between. Open the windows, throw in a few encouraging phrases, or congratulate yourself for finding a new opportunity. The manual labor you do now will prepare you for your job when you get it!

  1. If looking for a job or money to pay for priorities like bills, the more dire your situation is, the more open-minded you should become.

Avoid shortcuts: There are a lot more opportunities around you than you know about so take note of every one. If you miss the bull’s eye on landing that perfect job, open your doors a little wider. You’ll eventually stumble across a big break that would never have happened by peaking through the cracks.

  1. Look for support everywhere, starting with close relatives or friends and extending to national support.

The amount of help that people are willing to lend to those in need is quite large. First, look close to home for family and friends who could lend you a few dollars or offer you a few words of advice. As long as they respect you and you respect them, their help may be just enough for you to get yourself up by the bootstraps. While some support services are available at close reach, others are harder to find, which is why opening your options to all possibilities will work best.

  1. Desperate times call for desperate measures, but how much is too desperate? It depends.

If you’ve got a couple of degrees under your belt, should you lower your standards to earn a barely livable income? This depends on how extreme your needs are and how quickly they must be met. Otherwise, keep calm and wait for the next job offer with better benefits. If you’ve received a phone call for a job interview that deep in your conscience you would rather not work, then keep waiting or send out more applications. Better options always lie in wait if you’ve got the time, patience, and sweat to get to them.

Freeing yourself from financial troubles could turn into a lengthy, tiresome process. Gaining the necessary survival skills will lessen the stress from it. First, be confident enough to take chances as many successes in life do not come without risk. Next, be perseverant in working past your aches as you set one stone after the other to build your stable path to money management.

Open your doors wide and prepare to have some shut in your face. However, in the financial world, it’s better than staying in the dark.