Can you afford to lose your job?

What would happen if you lost your job tomorrow?

Would your savings cover next month’s bills?
Do you have a plan, or would panic set in?

I don’t ask this to stir fear, but to spark action. Because true financial confidence comes from knowing you’d be okay even if life threw you a curveball.

What about debt? I saw an article last week that said over 60% of Coachella ticket purchases were purchased using a payment plan. Now, I am not judging anyone for wanting to spend money on entertainment. You should be able to spend your hard-earned money and enjoy the things you enjoy. However, if your default way of making purchases is to put it on credit or to pay via installments, you are slowly sinking yourself.

Because I ask you once again, what would you do if you lost your job? All those things you purchased using “buy now, pay later” will still have to be paid for. You’ll still need to pay your rent or your mortgage.

None of us has a crystal ball. We don’t know what the future holds. Who knows what jobs will be in demand in ten years, and who knows what jobs will be obsolete in that time. We don’t know. But what we do know is that life happens. That much we can depend on.

And of course, one of the things that can happen at any point in our lives is a job loss. And because many keep talking of recessions once again, and as a Millennial who lived through the Great Recession (my husband even lost his job during that time), trust me, recessions are no joke, and the scariest thing about this is the loss of jobs.

So, how prepared are you if you or someone else in your family whom you depend upon financially, lost their job? Do you have an Emergency Fund? How much debt do you have? What is your default for making purchases that you don’t readily have the cash for? Are you financing those purchases instead of planning and saving ahead? What changes do you need to make to help recession-proof your finances?

**Here’s what you can do today:**

✅ Review your emergency fund – do you have at least 3 months’ worth of living expenses saved? If not, I would make this a top priority, higher than paying off debt. If you don’t have an Emergency Fund yet, make this the weekend you open up a High-Yield Savings Account and start saving your EF.
✅ Audit your monthly spending – what needs to change?
✅ Identify your “bare bones” budget (here’s a blog post to help you figure this out)
✅ Cut one unnecessary expense this week.

As I mentioned in last week’s email, we must proactively manage our finances. We can’t wait for the storms of life to hit us. We need to build our arks to help us weather the storms of life.

So, what is one thing you need to do today?