Newbie here: need help with gold

So in my most recent game, I'm playing Crimea. I'm ~40 years in, and so far the only real threat to me is Nuscavy, but in got some solid alliances to defend from them. My real problem is gold. I can never seem to get into the positives, even when I mothball everything and take down my army maintenance I'm still in the red. Ive only been able to sustain myself by declaring war on smaller neighbors and bullying them into taking out loans to pay me off. What am I doing wrong here?

Ps: I don't get provincial improvements because they don't seem worth it, am I wrong?