Re-Prioritize Your Finances
I’m sure you’ve heard someone say, “Oh, I just can’t afford that.” Then, maybe not even a month later, they’re deep into exactly whatever it way they couldn’t afford. Maybe that someone is you. You’ve re-prioritized your finances.
Re-Prioritize Your Finances
In many cases, they reorganized the use of their finances so that they could do or have what they couldn’t afford before. They made their money work for them. If you think about it, under the right circumstances, you, too, would re-prioritize and redirect the funds in your budget to accomplish something you desperately need or (and this happens more often than we’re willing to admit) desperately want…On occasion, we all do.
Are You A Pet Lover?
Let me ask you a question: If your pet was injured or became very ill and required treatment that would cost $500 or more, what would you do if you had no money in savings?
Chances are you would re-prioritize your finances and find a way to come up with the money needed so your pet could be treated. You’d arrange to make payments. You’d cut back on what you spent on groceries or other categories in your budget. Some might take out a loan and have to repay it with interest. If you’re a pet lover, you will find a way to get the treatment. You’d make your money work for you.
Same Question, Different Circumstances.
Your car breaks down. You don’t have an emergency fund or money in other savings. What are you going to do?
While some people are just planning out of luck, many of us will find a way to get the car fixed or replaced—even if it means we’ll face financial hardship for a while. After all, most of us need that car to get to our jobs and earn money—or at least we think we do. When we’re in dire straits, we’ll make any money we can control work for us. You re-prioritized your finances.
Prioritization, Organization
What do the solutions to these two situations have in common? Prioritization. In fact, it’s brutal prioritization. You’ve decided to fix a problem and are willing to commit any money you have or can acquire to doing so.
Earlier this year, an acquaintance told me he’d blown the engine in his car. He was really upset. (I could certainly understand that.) He spent a lot of time going on about how he couldn’t afford another car; he still owed money on the dead one. A couple of weeks later, I saw him again, and guess what??? He was driving a new car—and I mean new.
I asked him how he was able to afford such a nice car. He replied that he’d be working a second job, not taking vacations, and probably skimping by for a couple of years. (At least he had a plan that wouldn’t keep him in hock for 5 or 6 years.)
Two Things Became Apparent.
He found a way to afford the new car. Granted, he had to take on a second job and give up a significant degree of freedom: That’s one reason I don’t like to finance anything, but he was willing to yield it. The second thing was that he re-prioritized his needs and wants and found ways to redirect his time and finances. Sometimes you need to reorganize your finances.
Final Answer
When it became important to him, this guy was able to come up with a workable solution to his problem.
Now I’m Going To Give You May Take On The Situation
Of course, this was not the first time I’ve encountered people with this or a similar dilemma. If not for ourselves, we’ve all known someone in these circumstances. The dialogue goes, “I can’t afford this” or “I don’t have enough money to do that.”Then…not much time goes by, and we see the immediate problem has been solved. Away has been found to “afford” it.
When they first encounter a significant problem, many people really believe they can’t afford to fix it. That, in fact, could be true, or it may be that they just don’t want to accept the cost of affording it. As the situation unfolds and finding a solution becomes imperative, it’s surprising how creative we can become in finding the money to take our sick pet to the vet, fix our car, or pay for almost anything we really want. (Note: I’m sure you know as well as I do that—often—“want” morphs into “need.”)
If it is really important to us, we find ways to do almost anything. Too often, like the guy who replaced his car, we have to give up a lot of life to do it. (What is money besides something for which we trade our time and our lives???) Because owning a car is important to that guy, he will work two jobs for two or possibly three years and live a fairly restricted lifestyle while he does, but he will have his new car or, by the time he’s paid for it, not so new car.
By the way, the guy who decided to replace his car with a new one did so because the one that blew up had been purchased used. In other words, he was going to spend a good bit of his life on a new car because he was afraid of having another disaster. The same can be said in many traumatic situations. We fear something else may happen: Fear is almost always expensive. It can take a lot of time (money/life)to alleviate fear.
My Big Question
When we have to come up with sudden solutions, they’re expensive. Why don’t we put the same effort into becoming debt-free, and staying debt-free, and having money to use in emergencies before we need it?
Since we so often decide to afford what’s important to us, it should be important to be financially ready for disasters. Have a budget that allows for emergencies. Yes, just as emergencies cost us money/time/life, so does saving for them. But…if you prepare ahead of time, you can do it in a series of smaller, consistent payments. You can reduce or eliminate dramatic costs in terms of life/time/money if you prepare for need. Make your money work for you.