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Are you concerned about your personal economic situation? Worried about how you’ll survive if things continue to go downhill? Do you work in an industry that is shutting doors at an alarming rate? Inching closer to retirement? You need a financial survival plan.
Why A Financial Survival Plan?
There are huge issues brewing for those looking to retire on pensions. This is where my husband and I find ourselves. A projected FY17 $1.8 trillion dollar deficit is nervous making for Baby Boomers wanting to retire. Take, for example, the Dallas cops who chose to take their pensions in one lump sum, fearing the money will soon be gone.
You may be facing a job loss, or another situation where your monthly income will be drastically cut. Regardless of the reason, now is the time to prepare for your family’s financial survival.
Know What You Have Coming In. Know What Is Going Out.
Begin with a resolution to cut your expenses to an all time low. This not only saves money, but insures that when there is less coming in, you’ll still meet your needs.
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Your first step will be to write down how much money you have coming in each month. Next write down how much money is going out each month. This gives you not only something concrete to refer to, but also a way to track your progress. On her website, and in her book,*this post contains affiliate links Survival Mom, Lisa Bedford offers an excellent and non-intimidating worksheet to help you create a financial survival plan.
Once you understand where your money is going you can begin to create your unique blueprint for financial survival.
Cut Expenses
Do you still need that premium cable package? Downgrade your cable plan. (Hello Netflix!)
Don’t use all your phone minutes? Go with a less expensive plan. Life was good even before smart phones.
What are you paying for that you no longer use? The gym membership? An online service that you could easily go without?
Change out those light bulbs to energy efficient bulbs.
Trade in your gas guzzling SUV for something that costs much less to get you where you’re going. And remember to batch your errands!
One of the best resources I’ve ever found on cutting expenses and preparing for a strong financial future costs less than a fast food dinner out. Take a look.
Create a Stock Pile
I’m a firm believer that having at least a 3 month supply of what you use on a daily basis. Purchased in bulk, on sale and with coupons, it’s the same as money in the bank. How nice to have the knowledge that in an emergency you won’t need to worry about going to the store for at least 3 months?
Sell It!
Look around your home. What do you have that you don’t use?
Sell it!
Have a garage sale. List it on a Facebook yard sale page. Simply type in the name of your city and ‘yard sale’ into the Facebook search bar, and you’ll find several pages to sell on, without having to ship or pay for ads.
Be brutal. If you don’t use it on a regular basis, make some money off of it.
Find A Side Gig
Sometimes, there simply isn’t enough coming in to meet the bills, much less to create a successful financial survival plan. This is when a totally new stream of revenue needs to be found.
What your skills and passions? I’ve always had a heart for emergency preparedness and self sufficiency. So it’s natural for me to blog about it with a goal to turn my knowledge into a work at home job.
Food storage is a big part of being prepared for an emergency. Because of my desire to have a deep pantry, I became a consultant for Thrive Life. I’m not a host a party kind of girl, I do everything online. It’s a win-win for me, and might be just what you’ve been looking for.
Do You Have Skills Others Don’t?
Do you sew? Quilt? (Totally jealous if you do!) How about selling via craft shows and local expos?
A neighbor with mad cake making and decorating skills creates and sells her master pieces from home. Her work beats the socks off anything I’ve seen in the bakery.
Are you a gardener? Are you great at fixing stuff? You could start a new business using those skills.
Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, Or Do Without
One of the biggest hurdles in creating a financial survival plan is the idea that more is always better. Assigning meaning to stuff, at the cost of our self worth, or our health, vastly limits our ability to prepare for an uncertain future. It’s time to change our perspective.
What are you doing as part of your financial survival plan?
Excellent advice. We are doing everything we can to get this debt paid off, just “in case of.”