Life’s financial storms are unfortunately inevitable from time to time. But with the right mindset and resilience, you can weather these challenges to come out the other side stronger than before.
There’s no doubt that financial storms can be an incredibly stressful time, where you may feel pressured into making snap decisions. The uncertainty that comes with economic downturns, unexpected expenses or job loss is a massive source of anxiety in all our lives.
However, while we cannot control the circumstances that create financial storms, we can control how we respond to them.
In this article, we explore some practical tips on how to stay calm, centred and motivated through financial storms.
Let’s begin!
1. Create a Financial Plan
When dealing with financial storms, try to remain calm and have a clear plan. Your financial plan is your roadmap that will help you manage your money in a structured and effective way. Whilst we all feel anxiety around money at times, having a plan is a great first step to feeling more in control of your situation.
Begin by creating a budget for your income, expenses and debts. Acting as your financial compass, your budget will help you better navigate your spending and savings.
When putting together your budget, it’s important to set achievable financial goals for yourself, for example, paying off debt or saving more money. Creating a budget will help you better live within your means and provide a clearer path to navigate financial storms.
2. Focus on What You Can Control
Financial storms bring a lot of uncertainty and as such, it’s easy to feel helpless or overwhelmed. However, it’s important to remember there are areas of your life that you can still control, like your spending habits and financial priorities.
Where possible, cut out unnecessary expenses and prioritise making any debt repayments on time to maintain your financial health. Try to focus on things you can control, instead of spending energy on the things you can’t.
For example, although you can’t control the job market, you can still control how much you spend. Although life can often get in the way, building up an emergency fund is a great way to give yourself extra support in the event of an unexpected financial storm.
3. Seek Support
If weathering a financial storm alone is just too much, it’s good to know that you can always ask for help along the way. Don’t be afraid to reach out to friends, family or financial institutions for support.
By talking to other people about your situation, you could receive valuable financial advice and insights. It’s also a great way to connect with others and to realise that you aren’t the only one struggling.
If you’re having trouble managing debt, there are many free online organisations that can offer support, guidance and resources to better manage your situation.
4. Regularly Review Your Plan and Adjust Your Mindset
Financial planning is not a one-time activity. It’s an ongoing journey that requires you to regularly review your income and expenses. To stay aligned with your changing circumstances and a changing financial landscape, it’s important to make adjustments as you go.
Although easier said than done, a resilient mindset is crucial to effectively navigating financial storms. By building a resilient mindset you adopt more positive beliefs and attitudes towards setbacks you encounter.
When working on your financial wellbeing it’s important to not dwell on past mistakes but instead look towards the future and develop a plan to move forward in your financial journey.
Choose Salad Money for Fair and Affordable Loans
Financial storms can be an incredibly difficult time, however with a plan, it can feel a lot more manageable.
With that being said, from time to time, urgent payments can come up and you may need that extra helping hand. In these tough situations, Salad Money can help.
As one of the largest CDFI consumer lenders in the UK, Salad Money provides employed UK workers with affordable credit options, without relying on the outdated credit score mechanism.
At Salad Money, we believe that you are more than just your credit score. That’s why we use an open-banking assessment system to evaluate our applicant’s overall financial history, instead of credit score alone.
With our ‘More Than Your Score’ loans, we offer affordable personal loans regardless of your credit score.
As a regulated lender, you know that you can rely on us. Applying for one of our new loans doesn’t impact your credit score. We use Open Banking in our initial assessment. If successful, we report your loan to the CRA’s (Credit Reference Agencies). Your credit score won’t hold you back from being eligible.
To learn more about our services, click here or apply for a loan now.
