6. Annual Expenses
If you want to have a good, relatively stress-free financial life, you need to save for annual expenses. These may include money for gifts, vacations, vehicle maintenance, minor home repairs, fixing appliances, property taxes and possibly income tax. It can be tempting to refinance a mortgage to pay off debt or to use a line of credit to pay off high interest credit cards, but it is dangerous to endlessly put expenses on credit without actually paying them off. The best way to manage these types of expenses is to save for them in advance. This will not only save you money, but it will give you peace of mind. To learn how to budget for annual expenses, click here.
7. Unforeseen Expenses
What will you do if your car needs some major repairs? Do you have $500 to $3,000 on hand? What if your house needs some repairs, or it is discovered that you are living in a building that leaks? You can’t always count on the bank to lend you money for all of these things. It is much better to anticipate a worst case scenario and have some money saved.
8. Emergencies
As much as we hope that emergencies won’t happen, we all know that they do. A family member can develop a health issue, you might need to make an emergency trip, you may have a car accident or breakdown, severe weather could flood your basement or crack your pipes, or you may have to fly to a loved one’s funeral. Any of these emergencies can be expensive, and we all know that we will likely encounter some sort of emergency from time to time. So why not be prepared rather than potentially become another victim of an emergency.
9. You Could Lose Your Job or Get Hurt
In good times, everyone thinks that their job is secure, but in bad times, many begin to realize that bad things can happen to anyone. You could suddenly lose your job, your business could dry up, you might get injured—either physically or psychologically or become too sick to work. Any of these things can happen to you. Employment Insurance (EI) doesn’t kick in until you have been unemployed for 6 weeks. Do you have enough savings to tie you over or will you be living on credit? Living on credit during a time like this can quickly make a bad situation worse. Minimum payments become higher and higher until they are unaffordable and credit limits no longer budge. Then when you finally do get some income, what used to be enough doesn’t get you by because you have all these new debt payments to make each month. So now you actually need more income than before because you’ll need to pay down these debts and eventually work to get them paid off.
10. To Have a Good Life
There are huge emotional, psychological and physical consequences to always living stressfully, from hand to mouth, pay cheque to pay cheque. People who don’t plan for their future seem to run from “crisis” to “crisis.”
There is a little known truth that happiness can come from being organized. Being organized isn’t going to make you happy all by itself, but it can sure help. There’s so much in your future that you don’t have control over, so putting aside some money to spend when you need it is actually organizing and taking control of your future and financial affairs. You have nothing to lose by saving – and only a happier future to gain.
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