Make Hay While The Sun Shines

When life is good it’s easy to relax our financial controls a little.

When you’re living in a house you like, in a nice area and working a steady job you enjoy it can be tempting to enjoy your money a little more than usual.

• Why not upgrade that phone to the latest model (with the high-cost tariff)?
• Why not book that expensive summer vacation?
• Why not buy that tablet you’ve been considering?
• Why not swap your tired old car for a nicer, newer model?
• Why not go “crazy” this Christmas?

After all, life is good.

Who cares about a few thousand dollars on the credit card? We’ll soon get that paid off next year.

Sadly if life has taught me one thing it’s that this comfortable phase can change quickly and without warning – at almost any time.

Don’t believe me?

Here are just a handful of the situations that could very quickly blow your comfortable little world out of the water…

• Your employer decides to downsize and you get laid off
• Your company relocates; you can choose to move with them or find yourself unemployed
• A company reshuffle means you’re suddenly landed with a douche-bag boss you can’t stand
• A change in your industry totally alters your job, making it thoroughly unpleasant
• A nightmare neighbour moves in next door, having late-night parties every weekend
• The interest rates go up, making your mortgage unaffordable
• Your landlord decides to sell the property you’re renting, or otherwise not to renew your contract
• An elderly family member falls ill, meaning the only option is for you to move closer to look after them

…And these are just off the top of my head. There are many more possibilities; and they won’t necessarily come alone; you may be faced with two of more of these situations in a short space of time.

The Alvin Hall Way

Personal finance guru Alvin Hall once told a story that has remained with me ever since.

He tells of his company downsizing, and a large portion of the workforce being laid off – including him.

Many of them had been living the high life, rarely putting money away for a rainy day. They were the people with the new cars, the expensive gadgets and all the foreign trips away.

Understandably many of his colleagues were beside themselves with anguish. How would they meet their mortgage payment, or even put food on the table?

Not so with Mr Hall. He’d been making the most of the opportunity; rather than blowing his comfortable salary on an even more comfortable lifestyle he’d been carefully socking away money into savings.

He had a buffer.

He was prepared for anything.

So on that fateful day, when those all around him were losing sleep over they’d make ends meet, Mr Hall did something completely different; he went art shopping.

He figured that he had more than enough of an emergency fund to cope with such situations, and if he was going to be spending more time at home then why not have something beautiful to look at while he was there.

What a contrast.

The Moral of the Story

Here in the UK we have a phrase:

“Make hay while the sun shines”.

In other words, when the stars align don’t fritter away that opportunity; instead leverage into future abundance.

If your life looks pretty cosy right now don’t allow lifestyle inflation to eat up all that “spare money”. Instead, budget just as hard (if not harder) when things are good, so you can survive then things go bad.

The absolute worst case scenario here is that things won’t go bad. That your comfy life will continue.

In which case you have even more cash to enjoy.

But if ever things do go south (as they have a nasty habit of doing) then doing things the Alvin Hall way will help you to cope even under times of financial stress.

Have you ever been laid off? How did you cope? Have you ever regretted not taking advantage of an opportunity? What was it? Please leave your experiences in the comments section below…