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Are you worried about a job loss? Do you have money saved up in case you lose your job or fall ill and miss out on a lot of work? We tend to think of prepping as an end of the world type of event, but that isn’t always the case. Have you thought about a personal disaster preparedness event?
Here within the last few month’s I have come down with some health issue’s, vehicle’s breaking down and missing out on work for due to the health issue’s. I thought I was prepared financially, but it turn’s out, I wasn’t. Well, I wasn’t as prepared as I thought.
What happened?
Well, I have saved up some money for emergency situation’s, I thought it was enough for anything I thought could happen, but it wasn’t.
A few month’s ago I had started dozing off at work. I decided to get checked for sleep apnea. Turn’s out I have it. Right around that time, I was missing a lot of work, I’m a feed hauler, so anytime that I’m not 100%, I don’t get behind the wheel. So needless to say my income had gone down a bit.
Well, before I started to miss work, I had two major vehicle repair bill’s. I had money saved up for that. I knew that eventually something would go wrong that I couldn’t fix myself, so I had planned ahead for that.
That ended up wiping out the money I had saved for such an event. Well, that was all I had put back, I figured one vehicle going down, but not both at the same time.
What I did not plan ahead for was any kind of medical issue’s affecting my ability to work, I just turned 28 last month.
So with the medical issue’s, the major repair bill’s, Dr bill’s and the cost of living. My nice little nest egg went bye-bye.
How did we manage?
Well if we had not stocked up on food and other household supplies, we would have been in a bad situation.
We were okay on gasoline because we put money on a Wal-Mart gift card every week for using at the pump’s. We will put around $10 more on the card than we had used the week before. Doing this allowed us to be able to eventually get a decent amount saved up to hold us over in the event that something were to happen.
We also have a 15 month old boy, so we go through a lot of diaper’s and wipe’s. We would always buy in bulk with the diaper’s and wipe’s. Starting out we knew we needed to have a decent supply of them just in case something came up. We would buy an extra case of diaper’s and wipe’s a month. This allowed us to be able to stock up on them a little at a time.
If you have little one’s you know it isn’t cheap. So getting a little extra each month will be better on your budget than going out and buying a 6 month supply of diaper’s and wipe’s all in one day.
What did we learn?
Save, Save, Save! If we were to have saved more money, we would have been better off. When you think you have saved enough, chances are you might be wrong. I know that for a lot of us, it is hard to save money. We all have bill’s to pay.
You should start saving today!
Now I am not a financial advisor, and I don’t know all there is to know about financial planning, but I will give you some helpful advice.
If you a hard time saving money up, look at your finances. Do you keep track of everything you buy, every time you swipe the card? Do you split your expenses between categories?
I use Quicken to log every bank transaction. It has helped me get a closer look at everything that we buy. Now you don’t have to use Quicken, there are other software program’s out there that will do the same thing. I went with Quicken because it was a spur of the moment purchase.
Are you living paycheck to paycheck? If so, you are not alone! In order to break that cycle you need to know what your expense’s look like. Once you determine what you spend money on month to month, you can look at way’s to cut those cost’s down.
Are there monthly charges to your account that you no longer have a use for? Call and get it canceled. Are you spending a lot of money on fast food? Try and cut back on that. I was surprised at how much money we were wasting each month just on fast food.
As far as monthly bill’s go, If you have loan’s or any type of long-term contract payment’s you should look into getting them paid down. Now if you’re worried about it affecting your credit, then I would talk with the company you have the loan through.
If you are able to make extra payment’s or pay a little bit more each month and it won’t hurt your credit, then I would definitely try to get the debt paid off. A lot of people think that it is best to pay extra on the most expensive monthly payment that they have.
I would suggest that you find out what bill will be paid off in the earliest amount of time, whether it is the most expensive or the cheapest, and pay extra on it each month. Once you are able to get one bill paid off, you will feel better about yourself.
Now like I had said before, I am no financial advisor, so I can’t tell you what you should do. Every situation is different. But if you find yourself in a bind, then I hope that this article can give you some insight on what might help your situation.
Why prep for a personal Disaster?
Well, simply put, it is the most likely event that you will face at one point in your life. If you were to get sick, or lose your job, how would you survive? Would you have enough food and supplies stocked up to get you through until you can find another job opening?
Have you thought about your medical insurance? What if you were to lose that? Would you still be covered through your spouse? What if you have some life altering medical condition?
None of us know what is in store for us as we go on about our day-to-day lives. Some of us will walk out the front door and never make it back home. I don’t like being a downer, but it can happen.
Do you have life insurance? You shouldn’t wait until you retire to look into getting life insurance. I got life insurance for my family shortly after my son was born. It does seem to be cheaper to get when you are younger, so be sure to look into that.
Robbed?
What would you do if you came home and found your door open and all of your expensive item’s were stolen? How would you be able to replace them? Do you have homeowner’s insurance or renter’s insurance?
One thing I have thought about, but not yet set up, is renter’s insurance. Where we live we rent, so we have decided that we need to get renter’s insurance. We know where to get it from, but we just have not made that last little jump to get it started.
I know, procrastination gets the best of us. Will we ever need to file a claim? I don’t know, but would it be nice to have for that off-chance that we get all of our stuff stolen, you’re darn right it would!
I’m not sure if renter’s insurance is allowed in all of the state’s that is something that you will need to look further into if you have thought about it. Have there been any neighbor’s that got broke into?
These are just some of the thing’s that have been on my mind for a while, I hope that you do find this information helpful to your situation and life. Also if you are new to preparedness, then check out the article How we stock up on stuff I’m sure you’ll find it useful!