Wrong Turn: How to keep life events from ruining ability to save
Posted By: Matt in Saving on 10/23/2015 at 12:54:19
Plenty of things can derail your ability to save money. Some of which have really nothing to do with you.
Those money missteps that belong to you are easy to see, and can be pinpointed easily as to why you're not saving money.
You spend more than you make. You don't budget. Your idea of saving money is canceling HBO, rather than the entire entity that is cable television. Perhaps your propensity to purchase clothing outweighs you wanting to put money aside in your savings account.
Then, you have those, what would be called "life events," that can send you into a financial tailspin, and it has nothing to do with you.
Or does it·
Let's say your roof needs repaired, the car breaks down or one of the kids need braces. These aren't a few hundred dollars on the table but rather thousands that need to be found somewhere to be able to take care of these inarguable items that need tended to one way or another.
So what exactly do you need to do·
Yes, these things will affect your ability to save money, and that point can't be argued. Something of any substance that is going to cost you money is going to pull from what you already have set aside. A friend recently told me he spent one thousand dollars on car repairs and it totally wiped out all of his money he had saved.
That's it· A thousand dollars.
The truth is plenty of people want to blame major repairs and life events for the reason they can't save money, but the reality is they've failed to save money to be able to plan for such things happening, the ultimate financial Catch 22.
If you want to blame unexpected costs for derailing your ability to save, that's fine, but before that happens ask yourself if you've done enough (or anything) to work toward actually saving money. If you can honestly say that you make it a point to budget, save money by not spending or cutting when necessary and set aside a certain percentage of your pay to savings, then large scale repairs should just take a chunk away from what you have already put aside. It should never wipe you out completely.
Those that do "wipe you out" should be a brand new roof, replaced entirely or something of that ilk that is a $10,000 or more job. Otherwise, a few thousand dollars should be peeled off the top of your savings without much trepidation or hesitation, and it certainly shouldn't put you at zero balance once you've paid what you owe.
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