The ONLY things I can say with certainty in life, as far as productive activities go is something like "workout, eat right, sleep enough, drink enough water." That's literally it.
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/category/mmm-classics/
It is very similar to "workout, eat right, sleep enough, drink enough water", as they are things that "everyone" knows they should do, but few have the will power and self discipline to actually do them.
Budget. Get your expenses under your income. Set aside an emergency fund. Pay off your debts as quickly as possible. Then start investing for retirement, house, kids college, etc. While avoiding new debt.
That's pretty much it. Dave Ramsey and many other advisers say roughly the same thing, including the introduction to Barnum's book:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/money...
Ramsey pretty much says this stuff is simple in his course, and spends most of his time on the emotional and motivational aspects of putting the advice into practice. For example, he advocates paying off your smallest debt first, not the one with the highest interest rate. This is solely for the motivational impact, because seeing a debt disappear completely will inspire you to keep going and attack the next one, even if it's sub-optimal from an economic perspective.
I'm not trying to pick on anyone here, I'm actually describing a good friend of mine.
That being said, I don't know what will, so I don't have any suggestions.
"Budget. Get your expenses under your income. Set aside an emergency fund. Pay off your debts as quickly as possible. Then start investing for retirement, house, kids college, etc. While avoiding new debt."
This is mostly common sense. But I guess so is the workout / sleep / drink enough water comment I made earlier.
Uhh... get a job?