On Surviving A Personal Financial Crisis - And Other Personal Finance Subjects Like Loans, Credit, Debt, Debt Management, And Saving Money

On my way to work one morning, stuck in rush hour traffic, I looked out at the people in the other cars. I was struck by a realization, that although the people around me are all affected one way or another by the recession it was affecting them each in their own individual way. Following that line of thought, I realized that the idea of surviving a recession would probably have a different definition for each person. While some people have been directly affected by the recession, other people only know of the recession in news stories. People that know someone that has been directly affected by the recession, either themselves, friend or family, would look at surviving the recession in a completely different manner than someone that only knows of the recession from reading news articles about the recession or watching the nightly news. So that got me thinking about how surviving a recession would be defined by different people.

Obviously, surviving a recession means different things to different people. Read more »

If you are prepared for a recession then the you should be able to prosper during the recession. Being able to prosper during a recession is where you want to be financially. In my lifetime there have been five recessions; 1973, 1980, 1990, 2001, and 2008. Of the first four how often did you wish you had been in a position to take advantage of cheaper real estate or cheap stocks. If you were old enough to have understood the opportunities, and I guess cared, then you remember thinking about wanting to have been in a position to take advantage of the financial opportunities that a recession can bring. Most recessions in modern history have been very short only lasting a year or two. But, before the 1960s recessions usually lasted for at least five years. Can you imagine an economy so bad that it takes five years for it to recover. The longest recession in U.S. history lasted for twenty-three years. The point is that if you prepare for a recession you can prosper during a recession. many people who are wealthy today became rich because they were in the right place at the right time, and they were prepared. Read more »

Good planning is essential to prepare for a recession. Just because the recession does not seem to be affecting you know does not mean that you should not plan and prepare for the possibility that the recession will inject itself into your life. Preparing for a recession means setting aside funds to cover expenses if a layoff occurs. Preparing for a recession means creating a budget so you are able to make the necessary critical choices. Preparing for a recession means tracking your expenses so that if you have to make budget cuts you can make intelligent decisions that will not affect your financial future or your current lifestyle.

There are three things you need to do to properly prepare for a recession. Read more »

Many times when preparing for a recession people do not think of reducing debt as a strategy. But, if you have sufficient income and are able to save money to be used for surviving a recession and you have a good chunk left over you should really consider paying down your debt as a means of further protecting yourself from a recession.

Every bit of debt that you pay off increases your monthly cash flow. The better your monthly cash flow the better your chances are of surviving a recessions. Over the last thirty or forty years many people have used credit cards, home equity lines of credit, and other debt instruments as a means to live beyond their income capabilities. Read more »

Creating multiple small streams of income is probably one of the best ways to prepare for a recession. It is not just enough to increase you income as a means of surviving a recession. If you loose that single source of income the recession will affect you just the same. By, increasing your income through multiple small streams of income your are protecting that new income by spreading it over multiple sources. This means that if one stream of income dries up it will not affect your strategy for surviving a recession as much as if you had only a single source of income.

Preparing for a recession requires the implementation of two actions. Either reducing expenditures or increasing income; or both. These are the only ways to survive a recession. By creating multiple small streams of income you are hedging against the possibility that any one single income source will disappear. Read more »

Increased income is critical to surviving a recession. Preferably, this new found income should not come from your current job. It should come from alternate sources like a second job, contract work, new small business, or even an online business. If you are someone that has cut their expenditures to the bone but still do not make enough money to save to prepare for a recession or make the critical decisions necessary to survive a recession, then for all intent and purposes preparing for a recession, to you, means increasing your income. By the same token, if you are someone that has enough income to make those critical decisions but your job is in jeopardy then surviving a recession means increasing your income as well. Surviving financially during hard economic times like recessions means maintaining or increasing your income. You want to avoid taping into reserves like retirement accounts and your children’s college funds. Read more »

I guess it is pretty common sense that if you want to survive a recession you need to keep your job. Not everyone is affected by a recession during at the same time. Many people do not even think about the recession until it starts to affect them. Surviving a recession means that you and your family are not financially ruined. It means that you and your family have not only a roof over your head, a place to live, but that you are able to sustain your current life style. Everything else is extraneous expense. Unfortunately, until people have to start making the tough decisions about paying a power bill or making a mortgage payment they never think about surviving a recession. And, most people do not think they have to make those tough decisions until after they loose their jobs. Your best bet to survive a recession is to stay employed. But, that does not mean you should not prepare for a recession. If you prepare for a recession before you loose your job or suffer some other financial set back then you will be able to ride out the bad economy retaining your current life style. Read more »

Surviving a recession will be much easier for you if you are already a frugal person. Frugality is a mind set. Those that have this mind set are, by their very nature, prepared for tough times and are already prepared for the potential recession. A frugal person is a thrifty person. They weigh the prose and cons of spending money and take more time to determine if the money they do spend is going to pay off. It is this thrifty mindset that enables a frugal person to plan for surviving a recession and not even know it.

There is a difference between a frugal person and a cheap person. Being cheap only means that you purchase lower cost items. Being cheap does not necessarily mean that you are capable of preparing for a recession. Read more »

Recessions come and go they are as much a part of the business and economic cycle as breathing is a part of life. Preparing for a recession is as just a fact of life as a recession is a part of the business cycle. But, there is a difference between surviving a recession and prosperously surviving a recession. If you are like me, then you probably do not plan for surviving a recession, you just take the economic and financial times as they come.

People that plan for surviving a recession are able to go beyond just surviving a recession and are actually able to prosper during a recession. Read more »

When thinking about how to prepare for a recession there are drastic steps that nobody wants to take but may be necessary. If you plan ahead, have a clear realistic strategy, then you should not have to take drastic steps to take in order to survive a recession. But, just in case the worst case scenario does occur you need to think about these drastic measures that may be necessary to financially survive a recession. I would do everything possible to avoid implementing these drastic measures. If you have to use any of these measures to survive a recession you will be hurting your financial future. Read more »