Life is unpredictable. If there’s one predictable thing about life, it is ironically that. And often it’s unpredictable in a way that’s unkind to our finances. But knowing we’re going to get hit by them eventually, we can take steps to recover from them quickly and efficiently so that their long lasting damage is as minimal as possible.

Today we’re here to illustrate the three steps you need to take to turn things around after a financial hit.

Assess

The first step on the road to recovery is assessing the damage done by whatever emergency has entered your life. After all, it’s impossible to fix a problem without understanding it. It may be difficult to do in the midst of an emergency and the distress that inevitably follows it, but it is important.

For example, in the case of a medical emergency you should immediately try to ascertain how serious the injury is, and what level of treatment is necessary. And even once treated, you need to get clear documentation from the hospital or doctor you were treated by: both in terms of what procedures were conducted, but also an itemized receipt. The last thing you want is later down the road to find out that your bill has been handed off to a credit agency who will proceed to hound and harass you about it.

Or for another example, if you’ve suddenly been fired, one of the first things you should do is sit down with a pen and notepad and start listing out your savings and monthly expenses so you know how long you have before your bank account is emptied.

Plan

Once you know and understand the extent of whatever financial emergency has hit you, it’s time to pivot and start to plan for how to recover. Sometimes this can take the shape of a budget (if you’re thinking of creating one try a financial app like Mint to help you) to pay off any debt you’ve accrued or create a road to recovery, or more specific like creating a list of job openings you can apply for.

It’s important for your plan to be specific, concrete, and actionable instead of hazy and indistinct. Too often when we plan we tend to let the details go and focus on broad strokes. While that’s sometimes necessary at the beginning to get the ball rolling, what it can quickly become is a way of rationalizing wishful thinking. You can’t plan for every eventuality, but you can make sure you hit as many specifics as possible to make the next step in recovery attainable and simple.

Implement

The third, and final, step in recovery is to implement whatever plan you made back in the previous step. This is always easier than it sounds, but if you’ve assessed the situation and made a plan properly, then it’ll be doable.

For example, if you have a medical bill to pay that has to be dealt with, this is the step where you save enough money from your budget each month to make the payments. Or if you lost your job, then you start applying and submitting your resume to various new positions. Of all the steps this is the one that will take the longest and most work, but is also potentially the most rewarding.

If you feel like you need financial help to make it through this final phase of recovery, one powerful tool people are using to keep themselves afloat is a title loan. It’s one of the reasons, ‘title loans near me’ is such a popular search term. Title loans are a fast and simple form of short term lending that only requires that you own a car to maybe get as much as $15,000 in cash. If you’re one of those who are wondering, ‘where are title loans near me?’ then we have a simple enough answer: use our online store locator to find the title loan location nearest you.

Wrapping It Up

After health, financial emergencies are the most debilitating emergencies life can throw at you. So long as you follow our three steps though, you’ll be able to bounce back from whatever rocks the boat of your financial livelihood. Just remember to assess, plan, and implement. And if you need a little help, just search ‘where are title loans near me?’ or check out our locations to make sure your recovery is complete and completely successful.

Note: The content provided in this article is only for informational purposes, and you should contact your financial advisor about your specific financial situation.