Six Awful Truths About Personal Finance

3. Nobody is going to teach you personal finance. In a perfect world, parents or schools would make teaching personal finance knowledge as important as basic reading, writing and arithmetic. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of people, you are entirely on your own to learn personal finance basics. Your parents probably didn't teach you because they were clueless and learning themselves as you were growing up and the school system has done little to address the issue. That means you're going to have to make a concerted effort to actually learn how to get your personal finances in order yourself.

Go to the library and check-out one of the many excellent books (such as Smart and Simple Finances for Busy People by Jane Bryant Quinn, The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey or The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton) that teach the basics about personal finance and begin reading. If you don't, you're going to learn by trial and error, which is going to hurt your finances a lot more than taking the initiative and learning how to take care of them right now.

The longer you delay learning this truth, the worse off your finances will be.

4. You are your own worst enemy. When it comes to personal finances, the state that you find yourself in can't be blamed on outside forces. If you're in terrible debt or your finances simply are not where you wan them to be , walk to the mirror and take a good, long, hard look. The person that's responsible for all the personal finance problems is staring right back at you.

With few exceptions, you have only yourself to blame. So accept what you have done, take responsibility for your previous actions and take the steps needed to make the changes to get your personal finances back into order. These steps include figuring out how to create a budget that works with your current income and identifying where you need to cut spending and ways that you can save more.

Trying to blame others for your situation will only mean that you will not take the needed steps to actually improve your finances and it only prolong the debt you find yourself with.