Making your financial life resilient can take some work and effort. It takes action, they say the knowledge is power. You can harness this power to take control of you financial situation and make the move toward Making Life Resilient. This Blog post is education on money management and programs to educate interested consumers through financial awareness. Here are some steps that you can take to take control of your finances.
- Get real. Sit down and look at what you really owe, create a working budget! Most people hide it from themselves, they don’t know the actual amount of their credit debit. The average person may carry seven to 10 credit cards, it’s easy to overlook something.
- Change your life. Asses your financial standing. List reoccurring living expenses (mortgage, rent, utilities etc.) and non-essential expenses that can be reduced or eliminated. Discuss your financial standing with your spouse and other household members. People inspire one another to reassess their living expenses and find smart ways to downsize. You can change your cell-phone plan, downsize cable services to get $$$ extra to put toward debt.
- Brace yourself. The minute you make that conscious decision to pay your debt, the car breaks or something else happens to get in your way. This is life’s way of testing your resolve. Don’t panic, that will just add to stress in your life. Handling these unexpected situations with wisdom and resolve, proves that you really want to pay off this debt. Which leads to the next step in the process.
- Create a cushion. In order to be resilient when life puts you to the test, you will be more successful when you set aside small emergency funds of $500 to $1,000 for life’s financial curve balls. This starts with having a working budget!
- Snowball your debt. You will have had more stamina when you used a popular debt buster approach. Pay off your smallest debt first, then use the momentum and confidence to tackle the others. People who used the snowball method seem to have the best grip on their debt. Which can help you build on and strengthen your resilience factor.
- Dedicate whatever you can to debt. If you can dedicate bonus money or tax refunds toward creating a cushion, you can put yourself on a course toward financial resilience! It is harder for those living closer to the budget line. But the amount you pay is less important than staying the course. Even paying the minimum is good, if that’s what you can do. Pat yourself on the back. I try to pay interest plus $100 when possible. Most importantly is to NOT keep using your credit cards and try to move toward a cash basis for essentials such as groceries and gasoline. It is not wise to charge consumables.
Share your stores of how your life has been Resilient and what you do to remain strong through your adversities. Let me know if you start using these tips if you have success. You can share them on this Blog or my Twitter account.
BLOG https://makingliferesilienthome.wordpress.com
makingliferesilient.com
Twitter @getresilience
Myresilience@comcast.net
Making Life Resilient 