Stop! Do You Have Savings Set Aside in Your Life
How many times have emergencies come up in our daily lives, and we wished that we had more money? Yet we don’t think about possible emergencies when the tax refund check comes in the door, and we certainly don’t think about them when we receive money from Christmas presents or even that nice promotion at work. There is a time and a place to start saving, and it’s simple: now. Even if you’re only saving a little bit here and there, it’s going to add up. You will need to first rebuild your short term emergency savings account before you can even think about the future. Yes, the future is always there, waiting for you. You might dream about owning your first home. You might dream about getting that new car. But until you can look and realize that you have a few months worth of savings in the bank, you’re not going to get anywhere fast. That’s the trouble that a lot of people are facing, and it’s not going to end until people take true responsibility for their actions. This might sound harsh, and it’s not meant to be that way at all. What you are going to have to do is find the courage.
That’s hard to think about your finances in a culture that wants you to sweep them under the rug. When it comes to our money, we’re notoriously tight lipped about it. Husbands don’t want to tell wives, and wives certainly don’t want to tell husbands. Yet where would we be if we had honest discussions about money.
It’s not just the spouses that need to come clean — they need to be honest for the sake of the children. Children pick up what we think about money. If you raise them up believing that money is hard, that life is impossible and that you’re never going to get ahead, then you’re setting them up for a bad experience. You’re setting them up for a life that they’re going to eventually hate. You’re setting them up for a lifestyle that just doesn’t suit their needs at all. Why would you really want to put them through all of that if you didn’t have to? What about a world where you didn’t have to think about how you were going to pay for everything. A lot of people think that this world doesn’t exist and will never exist, but that’s not the case at all. You will find that this world truly does indeed exist. There’s no need to feel like it can’t be done. You just have to have the right attitude. You have to be willing to take those chances. You have to be willing to fight for something that means the world to you.
Is your future worth it to you? The future, after all, is built on the bricks of today. So if you’re not really willing to fight hard, you’re going to get left behind. That’s all there is to it.
What you have to do from here is simple: start saving. Look at what you’re actually spending and decide if it’s worth it to spend more than just the bare minimums. No, this isn’t going to be a fun life for a while, but nothing worth having is easy. If you really want the type of financial life that makes people envious, then you need to make sure that you’re taking as much action as you possibly can. Doing anything less just isn’t going to give you the ultimate goals that you wish to set. It’s not going to give you the type of life that you ultimately want. Your friends may not like you for a few months, but if they’re true friends…they’ll wait. And more importantly, they’ll be proud that you took a risk to succeed.
Succeeding in life is hard. When you don’t have a safety net, however, it’s even harder. You feel like you’re never going to come out on top. It might be comforting to be miserable if all of your friends are miserable, but it’s certainly not fun. We’ve had times where things have been financially tight, and they’re no picnic at all. What has to happen is a push for more responsibility. There is just no way around it.
Keep in mind that this phase of your life doesn’t have to be permanent. As your savings grow, you’ll be able to save just a little less and divert more towards entertainment. You’ll start paying your bills on time, because if you have temporary setbacks, you can just use the savings account. Keep in mind that if you do have to use your savings, it’s important to put that money back. Pay the loan back quickly, as you would pay back a bank loan. That’s the real path to success!
