Events such as September 11 or the Bali bombings, drought, job retrenchments, a stock market crash, inflation, an investment disaster or overspending on credit cards - whatever the cause, economic upheaval is impacting many couples and families. Financial pressure can place individuals and families at a greater risk for depression, anxiety, anger, thoughts of suicide and physical illness.

Marital conflicts and family violence may increase, as well as feelings of helplessness. Drugs (illegal or prescription) and alcohol use may worsen. Children may display aggressive behaviour or even the opposite—constant crying and clinginess.

If you are a victim of financial stress, your only solution to the problem is to balance incomings and outgoings. This balancing act can take two forms:

Either (1) increased income or (2) decreased desired outgoing. Debts you owe must be paid out of present and future income. Can you reduce your debts in the future? To reduce your debts in the future, it may be necessary to reduce your expectations for your style of living. Are you willing to make that choice?

When:

1. you have done everything possible to increase income, such as getting another job, putting another family member to work, working longer hours, getting a raise, or getting higher returns on investments;
2. you’ve stretched your income through better buying strategies - planning ahead, buying only at sales, comparing prices, using vouchers and refunds, buying only quality merchandise, and using it properly;
3. you’ve substituted every other resource - your time, energy, skills, and abilities for money and still feel pressure,
4. you may be ready to look at your basic lifestyle and decide to get just as much out of living but without the need of buying. Living a simpler lifestyle requires planning, decision-making, and more cooperation among family members. But it can result in a calmer, happier family life and a feeling of greater value from the money you spend.

It won’t occur unless you take some special steps to identify why you can’t live within your income, and unless you make changes that will put less demand on financial resources. And, it won’t occur unless you have the personal strength to stick with the decision you have made.

Many ideas are available for coping with financial stress. Magazines, newspaper and other media all suggest ways to save money while shopping. A simpler lifestyle might require that you not make certain purchases at all. And, if your ‘desire’ spending is reduced you may be able to balance it with your income.

In this post-series we’ll introduce activities, skills and strategies to assist you survive and effectively cope with financial stress.

Follow-Up Posts:

1. Tips to Help Reduce Spending
2. Making a Few Changes to Help Reduce Financial Stress
3. 7-Step Action Plan to Reduce Credit Card Debt
4. Step 2: Track your daily spending
5. Step 3: Learn how to manage your credit cards
6. Step 4: Stop spending
7. Step 5: Create a monthly spending plan
8. Step 6: Make some tough decisions
9. Step 7: Prioritise your debts
10. Debt Journal
11. Selling Assets
12. Retail Therapy
13. Protect Yourself and Start Saving, Now!
14. Five Point Plan For Your Income

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Life Coping Skills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.