Did this past furlough give you a rude awakening, that you
are unprepared for an emergency? Were you stuck putting food or other expenses
on a credit card? Were you collecting furlough letters, to give to your
creditors in hopes that they will allow you to delay your payment until you
received a check again? Were you shopping banks for interest free loans based
on your paychecks or looking to dump your bank because they didn’t offer this
feature? Well what can you do to prepare yourself for the next furlough?
Well the small steps you can take are simple. First, start
increasing your emergency fund. I like using financial allotments to help
achieve this. If you had just a three month emergency fund to cover expenses,
including gas for your car and food, yes that should be included too, you would
have been one of the people shrugging their shoulders at the furlough without a
care in the world. Because as soon as you receive your paychecks again you
would have been able to automatically put the money back in your emergency fund.
This is where having a budget can come into play. Now I know that budgeting
seems like a dirty word because you think I’m trying to tell you to limit your
spending and that you can’t have fun. But no, doing a budget actually tells you
where your money is going. You may be the type to set up auto pay on many of
your bills or just pay bills as they come in but never actually calculate the
total amount of money you spend per month. Knowing this number beforehand can
make going into an emergency situation easier with knowledge that you have the
money sitting in a bank account and easily accessible at a moment’s notice.
Next look at the food you keep on hand. I like to go to the
grocery store early in the mornings when they mark down meats that are slighted
to expire in the next few days. I try to purchase family packs and separate
them into quart size zip lock freezer bags. When you freeze meats like this it
is easier to remove only the portions you plan to cook for that day while
leaving the rest of the meats safely frozen and undisturbed until you are ready
to cook them. Then I always keep can goods and dry goods on hand. Things such
as pasta, rice and dry beans have a long expiration date like can goods. Just
keeping staples like this on hand can be a tremendous help when money is short
or you are just trying to scale back your expenses. So when thereis even talk
of a possible furlough, food is one thing you may not have to worry about. Yes,
you may be craving lobster and steak while you are on furlough but if it is not
in your freezer, you may have to make changes to your meal plan during that
time. The point is that you will not be going hungry or trying to stand in long
lines asking for food donations.
Just making these small changes in your normal routine can
make even the smallest of emergencies easier to handle, where you are not going
into panic when an unexpected medical bill or car repair comes up.
Ms. Smart
