Emergencies Happen...

No matter how careful you are about your spending and regardless of how well you kept to your budget, something always comes up that will throw a wrench into your plans.  Emergencies can come in many forms, but one thing is for sure, it's going to throw your budget into a tail spin. 

Be it a broken appliance, a car problem, a health issue, or any of the other unpredictable, cash sucking issues that can pop up, it's going to cost you money and you probably don't have money to spend on it.  So what do you do when emergencies happen?

Well, first of all, analyze whether or not it's a true emergency.  Ask yourself a series of questions, and determine whether this emergency is a life or death situation.  If you can still live, perhaps it's not an emergency after all.  Perhaps there is a chance you can hold off on fixing or replacing your problem until you can afford it. (NOTE: If your emergency is health related ALWAYS assume it is life or death, and take care of it IMMEDIATELY.  Delaying health issues can only result in MORE health issues down the road.)

Decide how essential the broken thing is to your daily routine.  Is it something you can not function without?  For instance if your shower is broken and you only have one or if your toilet is flooding or your roof is leaking, you probably need to take care of the issue pretty fast.  Is it something that is costing you money by being broken?  Like if your sink is leaking, you're paying for that wasted water, or if your fridge is broken, you're paying for the food that goes bad.  These are things you want to take care of sooner rather than later, because they are just going to keep costing you while you put them off.  Will it being broken effect your job?  For instance, if your car no longer runs and you can't get to work, you can't get paid.  Not a good situation for anyone.

If your issue doesn't fall under one of these categories, consider whether it's really an emergency.  If your dishwasher is broken, could you just do the dishes by hand for a while?  If the washer or dryer is broken, is there somewhere else you could do your laundry?  If you can find another solution and it isn't too inconvenient, then perhaps your emergency is not really an emergency after all.  This might not make your life a lot easier, but it will keep you from having to drop several hundred dollars you don't have.

However, if you can find no other solution, or your issue is truly life or death, then you have no other option than to spend the money you don't have.  So how do you go about doing that?  Well the object is not to put yourself into any more debt than you are already in. 

If something is broken, consider trading for services to fix it.  If you know a neighbor or friend who is in this area of expertise, perhaps offer him a trade.  Make sure your trade is actually reasonable.  For instance, if your neighbor is a mechanic and you've noticed he hates mowing his lawn and pulling weeds, offer him your landscaping skills if he would replace the brakes on your car.  This wont work for everyone, but for some this might be the cheapest and best way to solve your problems.  Just remember, if the person agrees, make sure you hold up your end of the bargain and don't slack off.  Also, if someone is voluntarily doing manual labor for you around your house or car, make sure you offer them a drink or a snack.  Be courteous, they're doing you a favor!

If trading services isn't something that is going to work for you, you're going to have to fix your emergency the old fashion way.  So start by taking money from more flexible parts of your budget.  You might have to completely eliminate your entertainment section of your budget and forgo any nights out for the next month or two, but you'll be glad you gave these up when you realize you saved yourself a lot of hassle.  Try to scrape a few dollars out other areas, like your food budget or your transportation budget.  I'm not saying starve yourself, but perhaps you can pass up your favorite cookies this month, or take your bike to work instead of buying gas for a week.

Next, cash in any 'emergency piggy banks', seeing as this qualifies as an emergency.  For instance, if you've been saving coins in a coin jar for months, this might be the time to use them.  I know you were saving them for a vacation, but your vacation is never going to happen if you just keep piling on more to your debt. 

Next, consider finally selling those things you have laying around the house.  Throw them up on eBay or craigslist and see if you can get a few dollars for them.  Any little bit will help.  Do anything you can to pay for as much of your emergency in cash as possible.  If you can avoid charging your emergency, you've done a good job.  The last resort is to put your emergency on a credit card.  If you can at least pay for half your emergency in cash, you should. 

If you have to charge it, you have to charge it.  But get it paid off as soon as possible.  Unfortunately, debt never disappears.  The faster you pay it off, the less it can haunt you.

The Student Debt Relief Bill

Okay, we need to talk about something that I'm noticing is coming up a lot with my peers.  The Student Debt Relief Bill.  I feel like every social media that I look at there are a hundred kids my age posting about how we have to pass this bill because they can't afford their college loans and what not. 

I need to make something perfectly clear.  This bill would do absolutely nothing for most of you.  It is not a magic wand that is waved over your debt and it all magically goes away.  It would make absolutely no sense for the government to just forgive millions upon millions of dollars in loans.  As awesome as it sounds for us individuals struggling with debt, when you think about the over all effect of something like that...it just doesn't make sense.

Luckily, the people who have written this bill have taken that into account.  They realize that no one is going to magically make their debt go away.  So they have factored this in, in an attempt to make a bill that seems more logical.  This is the part that I know most of you haven't read.  I can tell by the way you are all posting about how we have to pass this right now so that you can quit your second job or afford a new car or something like that.  The relief would only go into effect after you had paid off the equivalent of 10 years worth of payments.  Or 120 months worth of 10% of your income. For a lot of people, especially those with 15 year loans, that's still most of your loan.  Basically, you would still have to pay for your education.  The relief really comes in the interest.

So for all you recent graduates who think that passing this bill (which I don't exactly have high hopes for) will magically make all your money problems go away, you're wrong (and you're also an idiot for not doing some research before you signed your name on the thing).  You still have to work for it.  They aren't just going to reward you for sitting on your ass and missing payments. 

So I wouldn't skip payments assuming that all the online petitions that you're signing are going to take care of your loan debt.  And I don't think you need to keep posting the same petition on your facebook wall over and over and over.  We all know the petition exists, and honestly, if it has 1,000 signatures or a 1,000,000 signatures, I still don't think the bill will pass.  However, I'll join you in being hopeful, because if it does pass, I'm a hell of a lot closer to having my debt relieved than you are!

AYQFNEHP8AMN

Decisions, Decisions

So I have a huge decision to make.  My tax refund is on the way, and I need to decide what to do with it.  Part of me, the busting-my-ass-to-pay-of-the-loan part, wants to put the whole amount directly towards my loan.  This seems logical for a few reasons.  I didn't have this money before, so I wont miss it when it's put towards the loan.  It's a significant amount of money, it could essentially be another 5 months worth of payments.  And finally, I'll end up putting the same amount of money and then some towards the loan, I might as well do it before I think of other ways to spend it.
However, the 22-year-old part of me wants to spend the money on things I want.  I've had my eye on a few camera accessories and a new laptop for a while, and this money could very easily make me a very happy girl.  I mean, this money is extra gift money, why shouldn't I spend it on myself?
The new-home-owner in me thinks that that money would buy an awful lot of much needed stuff for our new house.  There are lots of things (like a new dishwasher) that we're pretty desperate for but just can't afford right now.  Perhaps this is the money that would get us those things.
And then, there's the little Scrooge in me that just wants to put the money in my Savings Account and save it for a rainy day. 

This is such a difficult decision.  I feel like I'm fighting with myself every minute of the day.  I feel like if I haven't made up my mind by the time the money actually hits my account I may impulse spend it on something completely random that I might regret.  A lot of my budgeting has to do with having plans, because one of my biggest down falls is my impulse spending.  I spend a lot of time trying to convince myself not to impulse buy.  I also utilize a lot of the tricks they talk about, like the 30 day rule and the walk away and see if you come back to it rule.  But my biggest impulse spending issues come in to play in the grocery store.  I have to make a list and force myself to stick to it when grocery shopping. 

So my refund should be here soon, and I don't know which side of me is going to win.  It's going to be a fight to the finish, that's for sure...