You Don’t Have to Spend it All

I’ve read numerous stories in the past weeks about people who were living the good life….fancy cars, expensive homes, and dream vacations…only to find themselves homeless, jobless and penniless as a result of this economy.

How does that happen? How does someone go from a million-dollar home and a nice car to no home, divorce and looking for a job…any job?

Here’s a tip for anyone currently doing well financially: you don’t have to spend all of your money all of the time!

Maybe it’s a function of not having the fancy cars and expensive home, but my philosophy is that as good as things are at any given time, they can always get worse. Sounds negative doesn’t it? Well, I also subscribe to the premise that things can always improve, but one doesn’t normally need to prepare for that. If good fortune comes, it comes willingly and often surprisingly. But, unfortunately, a downturn in good fortune presents itself the same way.

It’s tempting to think that if you are doing well financially that you can splurge on the car, the house or the vacation. After all, those are the spoils of often hard work and sacrifice and who doesn’t like to reward themselves? But if I’m reading these news stories correctly, there are former executives who have been out of work as little as six months and finding themselves close to living on the street.

Bad luck can happen to anyone….ANYONE. In the past year, we have been very blessed but also surprised at what can befall a family in a short period of time. Cancer, reduced work hours, and a crashing stock market…all have affected our family.

What has made the difference in how we were able to handle all of those things is that we never had all our eggs in the proverbial basket of conspicuous consumption. Sure, we don’t have iPhones or an SUV, but we have two great cars that get good gas mileage and cell phones that cost us combined for an entire year only $160.00. Not a flashy lifestyle, to be sure but we feel safer that way. Does that mean that we will never have a nice cellphone or larger car? Of course not, and I’m not saying that if you do have those things that you are irresponsible. I just mean that we will have those things in due time and when the expenses are warranted. We don’t need everything now and we don’t need everything new. That’s our new mantra and it’s working for us.

So if you are doing well now, consider that tomorrow everything could change. Save some money, change some of your spending habits and plan for the future now. Because the future is as close as the end of this sentence.