Feeling More Urgency to Prepare

Is it just me or is anyone else feeling an urgency to prepare lately?

This past week my husband and I were noticing none of the financial news sounded good.  Today’s report featured a record number of people are raiding their 401k pension plans due to unemployment, foreclosure or just to get by.   I know the country’s financial picture has not been good for a while, but this week seemed worse than before.  Unemployment continues to be high, foreclosures and bankruptcies are also at historic highs and none of the fixes seem to work.  Adding to the unsavory mix is the threat of the double dip recession, with even more jobs being lost, possible inflation, deflation OR both–enough to keep you up at night worrying about the family’s future.  I confessed I was starting to get that insecure feeling that we need to “step up” our emergency supplies.

Then I read Survival Mom’s post, “Prepare Now Like There’s No Time to Waste” http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/08/16/prepare-like-theres-no-time-to-waste/ and FerFal’s “There Will Be Poor…Don’t Be One of Them”  http://ferfal.blogspot.com/ and I felt like these articles were echoing the conversation we just had about increasing our efforts to prepare.

To allow us to buy more emergency supplies, we need to free up additional cash from the already stretched budget so we are taking the following steps this week:

1. Re-evaluating each budget expense to determine if we can lower the expenses further.

During my break at work, I called the cable/internet company and spoke to the representative about needing to lower my bill.  We went over each charge and I was honest and  told her we really needed to cut back but that I would go home, think about it and discuss with my husband.  I did not intend to cancel the service but the rep said, “I can give you $20 off for 6 months to retain your account, would you accept that?”  I asked her, what’s the catch, she said nothing was needed from me.   I was really surprised and pleased with this offer so I took it.   I told her we may still lower the services if we decide to, but she still gave me the discount anyway.  We will also try choosing a lower plan with the cell phone company.  We are locked in for another year and do not intend to cancel, but it doesn’t hurt to ask how we can lower our bill.  We also eliminated a couple of magazine and online subscriptions.

2.    Cutting back on eating out.

Being working parents, there are occasional nights when things get busy and we end up eating out.  Now we will cook several meals in advance during the weekend to have enough to cover week nights.

3.     Clearing up clutter and selling off unused items.

We hope to sell off books, computer games etc. and add to the emergency fund.

4.     Reviewed our 401k statements and moved the funds to “safer” types of investments such as money market funds.  The interest rate in the safer funds is minimal, but I can sleep at night knowing the value will not sink any further.  This is not investment advise, please evaluate your own situations or talk to a trusted financial advisor before making any changes.

5.    Avoiding waste in electricity, water and food consumption.  We unplug “vampire” appliances such as TV, DVD players etc that continue to use power even when turned off.  This should lower our bills and free up more cash for the emergency fund.

Our local paper today reported on the increasing number of homeless children in Houston.   Many of these families lost their homes to foreclosure, stayed with family and friends for a while until they ran out of places of stay.  It breaks my heart to hear about children having to suffer like this and hope to continue or increase our donations.

I’d like to be optimistic by saying “Things will be better soon.”   But saying it will not make it so.  It is my hope that we all prepare now rather than regret doing nothing should things take a turn for the worse.