Ideally, financial discipline should be everyone’s practice in hard and soft times. However, when we are floating in cash, the art of managing finances is highly disregarded. This becomes one of the primary reasons most people are not able to cope with the hard times when they come knocking. It’s usually hard to predict exactly when you will be in a financial crisis, and that’s why it’s better to cushion yourself in advance.
What do you do if life becomes hard because of the reduction or loss of incomes? Hard economic times usually affect every citizen, the high, middle and low-income earners. It brings about unprecedented changes in lifestyle, especially where spending cash is concerned. When this happens, most people are not aware of what to do in order to survive and live to see better days in future. Herein, let’s share some basic tips that will come handy.
Create a new budget
Rewriting your monthly budget is the first step towards managing your finances. It doesn’t require technical accounting tools for you to do this but just a pen and paper. It basically means getting to know how much money is coming in and where it is going to. Most likely, the expenses will surplus your current income, and this is where you need to cut out any entry that is not worthwhile. When creating a new budget, ensure that you include the basic items you need for survival first. If they all fit in, then and only then can you add other secondary needs without compromising on the earlier
Opt for installments based payments
Not every basic expenditure recurs every month but may consume a huge part of your income. For such payments, one may consider paying for the goods in multiple payments over the period they will be consumed. This ensures that you leave some cash to cater for other urgent expenditures. For instance, in Indonesia, Akulaku official site offers credit to online shopping, airtime and data top-up to users even without a credit card and repay within a flexible tenor. The shop now and pay later platforms to guarantee you and your family financial liquidity until the economy recovers. Online shopping also ensures that you pick what you need and avoid impulse buying with physical cash. Also, Akulaku has been accepted by most Indonesians as it offers unsecured loans or in the Indonesian term a “pinjaman tanpa agunan”.
Rethink your priorities
Desperate financial times call for radical measures. This includes abandoning capital consuming projects that will not generate income immediately. This also includes avoiding luxurious expenditures and doing with what you have. To arrive at this decision, one needs to equate one need against another and choose that which you can do which. It makes sense to halt furnishing your home décor and save the money for food, rent, school fees and medical needs.
Negotiate with your creditor
Contacting your lender about your existing loan facility in a bid to relax the terms of payment is advisable during the economic crisis. This includes rescheduling installments and to extend the repayment period. By doing this, you will not only safeguard your credit scoring by not defaulting but also retaining your assets and worth for the future.
Save any coin
After readjusting your lifestyle, it would be prudent to keep off the secondary needs for the time being and save the amount as a precaution. The reason is that basic stuff continually increases in price each day, and having some stock will save you some cash the following month. No matter how little it is, save it for tomorrow’s sake.
Have an alternative business plan
Finally, this is a hard one but much necessary. Think through and strategize your business in line with the current situation. Even the darkest cloud has a silver lining and is not lost with your business or job as long as you think of the next move in good time.
In summary
During hard financial times, what you need is a reliable partner that will walk with you until things get better. You need a financial supporter who will fill in the gap to ensure that you meet your basic needs. Akulaku is one great example of a financial solution provider in Southeast Asia. It offers short and medium credit services in terms of payment for shopping and other basic needs. You also get to pay back in affordable installments. If you can, readjusting your monthly expenditure and saving as much as you can be the best way to cope with the cash crisis and adapting to new situations.