Can you Afford to Stay Home Right Now?
Every day I talk to people who are scared and concerned to one extent or another. Some not very concerned at all and some who are practically terrified and you can see the fear in their eyes and hear it in every word they say.
Many tell me ” I would love to stay home right now – but I just cant afford to – I have bills to pay...”
While I am taking more time to stay home than usual and spending less time in direct face to face contact with people these days, I get it and I understand because I am in a similar boat myself to a point anyway. Yet because I made sure to get rid of all housing costs (Our home has no mortgage or rent payments at all) and I do not finance personal consumer stuff anymore (no car payments, loan payments, etc.) and because we keep our standard of living relatively low and manage the ratio – I do NOT feel compelled to have to work out of fear of losing our home or other property.
I am immensely thankful and grateful every day that we made that decision back in 2012 to drastically alter how we handled such things – otherwise, I would feel the same intense pressure so many other people I speak with are in fact experiencing every day. I feel bad for them all.
Having said that – I also realize I still have much further to go before I get to where I really want to be too. While our needs are modest – they still exist and I need to do things to make a certain amount of money each and every month or it would be felt. Though not as immediately or as severely as most other people – it would still be a negative impact none the less if I just decide to totally stay home and not venture out at all for the next several weeks to several months.
My plan and my goals now include changing that as fast as I can. That way the next time something like this happens (and it will happen again – only a matter of time) that is exactly what I would like to do – lock the gates and secure the property and hunker down until it all blows over even if it takes many months.
So How About You?
Where are you at in your own preparedness?
Can you afford to stay in for several weeks to several months right now or would that destroy you financially if you did it?
For most people, it isn’t a good option at all. They have a mortgage or rent, one or two car payments, insurance, credit cards, consumer loans and all kinds of other expenses that would quickly eat them alive if they stopped making the monthly payments of all that stuff. Even a couple of months would be devastating.
Now is as good a time as any to reassess your life and reassess your priorities.
This will pass and hopefully, you and yours will come through it alive and fine. I pray that is the case for you and I wish you well. But then what?
Like I said – time has taught us again and again that these things are going to keep happening. Some are more severe than others too. So what can you do and what do you want to do starting NOW so that you will be better prepared the NEXT TIME for the next crisis – whatever that may be that is the next thing coming our way?