Are You financially desperate?

Does one of these situations sound like yours:

 

  • You are living with an upside down mortgage and foreclosure is close at hand.
  • You have lost your job months ago and have not been able to find another, yet unemployment is about to run out.
  • You have had medical emergencies in your family that have cost thousands of dollars you do not have.
  • You have credit card debt that has become a monster and the worry is taking over your life.

My hope is that I can restore hope and give you encouragement as you read on and act on the advice I provide.

Let me tell you a little about myself. I am not rich. I have worked in many different jobs, some menial and some managerial, but my salary has always been modest. Therefore when a few hundred dollars are needed unexpectedly, it is a financial problem. So this advice comes from one who has learned, experienced, and gleaned from others.

When you are financially desperate follow this advice (for more in depth information check the resource at the bottom of this blog):

1. Pray

This may surprise and even offend some of you. You may even be accusing God for allowing you to be in this position.

Nevertheless, God does love you. it may be hard to understand that now, but He really does. Jesus told how that God cares for the birds and flowers of the field and that God cares even more for you. Jesus’ conclusion was “Do not worry.” If God provides food and clothing for such as these, He will surely provide for you. (Read Matthew 6)

What should you pray? Tell God your desperation. You may even want to show Him your bills (He already knows about them anyway). Ask for His help and His wisdom in dealing with the situation. Pray for his financial provision or how to save money.

One time when my wife and I were financially desperate, we were out of gold fish food. My wife prayed for God’s help. On a walk with our year old daughter she found a $10 bill that she was able to use to buy gold fish food.  God does provide in unique ways and seldom used the same way twice.  He does not want to be seen as a genie in a bottle granting wishes, but wants us to develop a trusting relationship with Him.

 2. Create a Budget

This has become a bad word in our society. If you make enough money, you don’t have to budget (do you?). A Budget is pre-planning where your money needs to go.

Let me explain it this way. A 19 year old gets a payroll check for a full time job. It is the first time he has seen this much money at one time — $800 for two weeks of work. He may immediately think now I can buy that $300 stereo for my car and couple video games and still have money for gas and eating out. Even as a teen he has other responsibilities that a budget would make visible to him, like car insurance, and car repair and maintenance.

Unfortunately, many of us live with that teenager’s mindset. We need to budget our known expenses so we have a real picture of what we have left for fun, saving (for retirement and major purchases), and even giving to others.

 3. Contact your Creditors

Most of us want to run from our creditors. Some even move without forwarding addresses to avoid creditors. It really does not work. The person knows in the back of his mind that he still owes that company and can not shake that feeling. Without confronting his creditors no lifestyle change will occur that will keep him from owing more creditors.

Instead, talk to your creditors. Lay out your finances — you income, your expenses (your budget), and your bills. Work out some way to pay off the bills even if it is $10 a month.

Some creditors may even help you with lower interest rates or even forgive part of the bill. However, I would not encourage you to ask for this favor. You do owe them the full amount, even if their interest terms were outrageous, you accepted them when you started using their credit card.

Some hospitals do have financial aid that you can apply for. It is usually based on the US poverty line and can be a great help to paying off their bill.

 4. Follow through using your budget

It is not easy changing habits, but a budget needs to become a habit for you. Plan your budget and then distribute the money into the budget. One simple way is to use an envelop system. This means cashing your check and placing the specific amount of money for that budget item in the envelope. When there is no more money in the envelope, you are done buying for that area.

For example, you allow $100 for clothes a month. You need a dress for work, so you take the envelope with $100 to the store. You look at dress after dress and come up with two you really like. One is beautiful and you would love to have. It costs $60, but you would have to buy shoes and a purse to match, which would put you over your budget. The other is $75 and is equally pretty. You already have the accessories you need to make an attractive appearance with this dress. So you buy the $75 dress.

5. Read encourage stories of others who have made it through financial struggles.

There are several places on line that you can find encouraging stories of desperate people who got out of debt and are financially free.

6. Consider additional income

There is a good reason I mention this last. If you are in financial difficulty due to credit card use, the answer to your problem is not more income. It is instead using your money wisely and not satisfying every desire you have. You need to learn delayed gratification and distinguishing needs from desires. Until this problem is corrected, more money will just increase the level of debt, not diminish it.

There are several online opportunities to make money. Some are scams which is very sad to say. Honest people search for ways to make money and spend their hard earned dollars on some answer to their need to make money only to discover that it just grabs their much needed money out of their hands rather than places more money in them.

I have found one opportunity that has great potential for anyone willing to learn and spend time working it. It is internet marketing. Now if you are as green as I was, you wonder what is Internet marketing.

The best way to explain it is to use an example. Let’s say that you are considering debt consolidation as an answer to your financial problems. Therefore, you open your internet brower and search “debt consolidation”. Immediately you are given many pages and ads referring to the subject. You click on an article about it and read about the subject. That article has a link to a debt consolidation company. If you click on that link it takes you to the site. If you use their service the person who wrote that article gets a portion of the sale.

This occurs over and over on web searches. One can write on any number of topics, including his passions and hobbies and make money by simply writing articles and linking it to products and services related to the topic.

If this interests you, fill out the form below for a free course explaining how to make money in internet marketing. There is absolutely no obligation.

Resource: www.crown.org This is a financial advice website based on Christian principles and also very sound financial principles. There are many great resources available at this site no matter where you are financially.

 

 

 

 

Be Sociable, Share!

Filed under: Uncategorized

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!