Many Americans these days find themselves in a common situation: the house has been lost, jobs have been lost, and credit card debt is out-of-control. What comes next?

It’s not possible for a blog article to completely answer this question, partly since any number of things can happen. But what follows is a great set of tasks to financially “pick up the pieces” after taking a moment to sit down, breathe, and get ready to move forward with confidence that better days are ahead.

People living through a stressful financial situation often feel overwhelmed by the experience because tight money impacts one’s ability to do a wide variety of things. Likewise, thinking clearly can feel especially difficult. There’s no magic solution, but one possible remedy for this is not confusing, esoteric, or abstract: brainstorm options, collect as much financial information on yourself as possible, think about the information in a systematic way, and choose from amongst the options that best fits your short and long-term financial needs.

Checklists are one the greatest, intuitive, and simplest forms of getting organized immediately. I use them frequently. Consider any of the following actions, and fit them into a handwritten checklist of things to get done. Aggressively check them off one by one as you move through the list.

• Gather all of your personal financial documents into one location/folder
• Use receipts from last month to roughly estimate your expenditures on a monthly basis: tick the discretionary and non-discretionary items separately on the sub-list. Set up a basic budget, without fretting over precise accuracy.
• Find cost-effective housing. Even those with families can rent several rooms in a house for cheaper than renting a new home.
• Be honest with the children about financial concerns and the need for lifestyle adjustments.
• Create a list of monthly costs you can do without. Cut them from your budget for an entire month and see what happens, knowing that if you cannot bear the experience for that month, they can always be added back later on. Especially try and cut the items that represent recurring monthly charges.
• Cut up the credit card plastic and switch to paying for as much as possible with cash. For items that require an account number, use a debit card if cash will not work.
• Call credit card lenders and start discussing options for your outstanding debt. Make clear to them with real numbers from your financial situation your limited ability to repay at least some of the debt and a desire to have interest rates frozen while repaying the balance.
• Refresh your resume, keep your cell phone handy, and practice mock interviews with your spouse or friend. Draft a couple of different cover letter templates for different types of positions. Borrow a friend’s or family member’s computer if you don’t already have one to begin searches for jobs on job aggregator websites — one of the most efficient methods possible. Getting income up and running again has to be a top priority.
• Use your network of friends and family to get into contact with people at organizations that you’re willing and interested in working at. If granted contact with a target of interest, don’t lose hope if they cannot offer you a job; rather, ask them for references to further people in that sector.
• Fill out the paperwork to acquire unemployment income. Having paid into the system while working, you’re in all likelihood entitled to a modest amount of assitance from it now.
• Set up an emergency fund with six months of expenses covered.
• Grocery shop for every meal.

There are many more options than these listed. Share some of your favorites.

Raj Patel writes for DebtGoal.com, a do-it-yourself system for getting out of debt and lowering your interest costs.  DebtGoal.com incorporates all of the techniques discussed in this post and can help users understand and get visibility to and manage their debt finances.