Financial Resilience – bouncing back

Are you resilient? Do you get up when your knocked down? Maybe sometimes you are back up quickly, war-paint on. When life gives you lemons you make lemonade. Or perhaps the lemons leave a sour taste in your mouth and it leaves you unhappy for longer.

Are you more resilient at work or at home? Resilience is the ability of people to cope with stress and crisis, and then rebound quickly. I know I am quite good in the eye of the storm but often feel the effects afterwards. I came home from my summer holiday to a flooded downstairs and within 20 minutes we were clear. The next day however I felt the effects of mopping and had 30 towels to wash. In work, when faced with a problem our first thoughts can be to quickly act – how do we solve this and how do we make amends? Some people come alive when client or work problem solving but other more personal issues can hit them far harder.

Money can be a different matter. This splits down to income and assets for me. When income is hit in the face of a job crisis such as redundancy our first thought is “how will we manage? How will we pay the bills? How long will any payout last?” The trick is to be prepared for this uncertainty or crisis. In theory, a redundancy payout followed by a new job could be amazing news for a family. If there is a few month’s outgoings stored away somewhere – the stress is reduced. Yes, it could take longer to get new employment but knowing this one issue is dealt with means more focus on the CV, the interview preparation and being positive which surely helps the process of getting the new role. The cushion of an emergency fund helps with boiler breakdowns, car catastrophe’s and family fallouts.

What about the other issue of assets falling in value? When Brexit was announced the stock market fell heavily in 45 minutes. What did that do to your investments? Nearly everyone in the workforce is now in a workplace pension so is invested in shares – often UK based. Did you panic? Did you consider leaving where you were invested or stopping the whole thing? Had you thought about how you would feel if your investment fell BEFORE this happened? The market has since bounced back but there will always be highs and lows. This is why building resilience into our money plans reduces stress.

Next time you make a money decision understanding the options for loss and the effect this would have on our feelings and separating this from our ability to bounce back and continue on our chosen money path is vital.

Building our knowledge on the subject, bit by bit and understanding where we are going and what we will do with bumps in the road is so vital. Check how resilient your money situation is now… and maybe your plumbing!