I'm a 35 year old grown adult, but I basically need the services that a child would need.

I grew up poor. Poor as dirt, so there just wasn't really any opportunity to learn about money. My father was very ashamed at how little we had, so finances were something not discussed in my home. I had a loving childhood, so I don't want to sound like I'm whining about being poor growing up.

I moved out at 18, despite not being able to afford it, while already being behind on bills doing a low paying job. I always scraped by, found a way to make it work, and some days just didn't have very much to eat.

Now, for the last decade my annual income has been $84kish at it lowest, and $114kish at the highest. My base salary is $68,000, but there are bonuses for working evening/weekend shifts (which we all have to do, we are on a 6 days on 3 days off rotation).

In ten years I have still not managed to catch myself up, and there is absolutely no excuse for the fact that a $1000 emergency destroys me for a couple months. There is no excuse for how little I have, and there is no excuse for me to be running out of food, or having my power shut off. I only have one debt, and it's about $9000, and is being paid off $170 at a time every month.

I know that I have all the "pieces" to make this work, but I'm surrendering to the fact that I don't know what I'm doing(that may sound really dumb), and I need to find some help. I'm struggling GREATLY to find out who I should be reaching out to. Financial Advisors at my bank don't have anything for people that aren't looking to manage wealth, and all of the "lower level" help seem to double as bankruptcy/insolvency assistance, and they're really "fluffy" and trying to sell Consumer Debt Proposal services vs helping people get out on their own without any of these drastic measures. So my question is, what type of service would I employ to receive help in this?? I don't wish to spend a ton of money, but I am also fully understanding that somebody's time requires money, and I'm not trying to shrug that off either.