Every decade has its personal finance challenges. In your 20s, you have an opportunity to lay the groundwork for a great financial future, but if you are like most people your age, you also don't know much about money, investing, saving, and debt. You may also be dealing with a substantial amount of student loans, and you might have credit card debt as well. The tips below can help you manage all of these things and thrive financially throughout your 20s.

Make a Budget
Making a budget is not about deprivation. It is about knowing what money you have and where it is going, and you can think of it as freeing you since you always know what you can spend. Creating a budget is easy with an app, which can track and categorize your spending for you. You can also track your budget manually if you prefer. Creating and sticking to a budget is a good habit to get into and carry throughout your life.

Deal with Your Student Loans
You need to stay on top of your student loan payments. This can be confusing if you have multiple loans, and you might want to consider refinancing them with a private lender. This can give you one monthly payment, which can be less than what you’re currently paying. In the long run, you should have a plan to pay off your student loans to ensure that they do not become a burden for decades.

Deal with Your Credit Cards
You may have graduated from college with credit card debt or built some up shortly after graduating. If so, you need to pay this off as quickly as possible and get into the habit of paying your balance in full monthly after that. You might want to look into getting a zero-balance card and rolling your other balances onto that, but watch out for a jump to a high-interest rate after a certain period of time, such as six months or a year. If you truly cannot control your spending with credit cards, you may want to get rid of them all except for one secured card in case of emergencies.

Savings
There are two types of savings you should be working on at this point. One is emergency savings. With enough in this fund, you will not need to fall back on your credit card. Standard advice says you need three to six months in this account, but you may want to vary this based on your comfort level and personal situation. If your company has a retirement fund, you should be putting money away in this as well, particularly since your workplace may match your contributions.

Set Financial Goals
Whether you want to retire before you're 50, invest in real estate, or build a family fortune that you can leave for your children, this is the time to set goals that you can spend decades or a lifetime on. In particular, you can turn your focus to this once you have your debts under control and are building up savings elsewhere. Write down your goals and make a plan to help you meet them.