COVID-19
The Corona Virus crisis is pushing us working people worldwide to think, act and process life matters differently, including money management and related money matters, far beyond our comfort zones, current understandings and perspectives.
The uncertainty of these times may cause or exacerbate feelings of fear, doubt, insecurity, anxiety and more. The story goes like this: there is not enough money to make ends meet. We don’t have enough. Quiet as it is kept, we sometimes feel like we’re not enough when our survival need seems to far outweigh our income. Today’s blog is here to remind and encourage working people worldwide of the following: We are enough. We have enough. We do enough. As the young folks would say, we GOT this!
I say let’s try not to Shake with fear, but instead SHIFT!
Like Going To The Gym
Here Are 6 Practices
Like going to the gym, when we come together in community, in coterie and exercise together, we get a better work out and the world’s ‘doohickey’ tends to work out in the long run.
My writing speaks about the need to make financial/life paradigm shifts and the “stick-to-itiveness” required to achieve overall success in community.It is my hope that the blogs, books and words affirm and transform in tangible ways; ways that helps you, the reader/action-taker gather, gain, give and strategically spearhead your financial and emotional currency, like never before. My hope is that you live like millionaires now with your current resources and leave a rich legacy, even now, in the midst of Corona virus.
In an effort to help, I am going to share an alternative way of looking at some interesting, perhaps, even unsound financial advice being disseminated from well-established people in the world of business, government and personal finance.
Here are 6 practices I am using to maintain my home primarily on a teacher’s salary in light of COVID-19 and I believe they will help working people like us worldwide.
6 Practices
I
Maintain Some Sense of Normalcy
Make no quick moves to accept Receive now, Pay later offers from lending and financial institutions, government, utility companies, etc.
This is just a more sophisticated version of an old credit card paradigm — Buy now, Pay later. In California, residents are being encouraged to skip mortgage, rent and utility payments.
These receive now, pay later offers always seem right, sound right and feel right in times of financial crunch. However, will this solution be right for you in the long run – – 3 months, 6 months, 9 months from now when the COVID-19 crisis begins to flatten.
My friends, it is always the right time to consider the right use of your dime even in corona virus prime. Instead of immediate acceptance of these offers, let’s explore other options together, in community. Easier said than done, but worth it, even in catastrophic times!
Have you exhausted every effort to first pay your essential bills: mortgage, rent, utilities? Do your best to pay all essential bills even if it means essentially that’s all you can do!
It is a trap, not to! I repeat, it is a trap! Though delayed and modified payments feel like relief right now, believe me in a few months (as the crisis is flattening), your feelings will probably change.The current 200 pound dead lift will feel like 10,000 pounds debt weight when the pandemic is over. Delayed and modified payments always feel like relief in the beginning, but in the end they double and triple the pain.
Today, these offers feel like help, tomorrow they will actually be balloon payments, products and services that have doubled and tripled in costs and a barrage of hidden and strange fees.
.
Pay something — as much or little as you can – when you can. Accept this help only after you’ve exhausted every effort; as the last resort.
Consider community based programs, religious organizations, food banks, non-profits and other local programs that may provide stipends for rent/mortgage, food, and other essential needs. Business owners and entrepreneurs, check into the CARES Act for support. Regardless of the decisions you make, you got this!
The worse thing we working people worldwide can do is make chaotic decisions because we are living in chaotic times.
II
Gather up the Fragments
Gather up the Fragments.
When I was a little girl, Big Mama (grandmother) read the Bible to me. There’s a popular story in Scripture where Jesus commanded the disciples to feed 5,000 men, plus women and children though they had no money or food. The disciples were perplexed and frazzled like many of us are today because of COVID-19. I can imagine them thinking there’s just not enough money, food and resources to meet these needs.
It may feel the same as me saying do everything possible to pay your essential bills in the midst of these unusual and unprecedented times.However, with deeper insight a second disciple sees a boy with 2 fish and 5 barley loaves. Notice the shift. How quickly we have gone from nothing to a little something—2 fish and 5 barley loaves. Big task: Feed 5000 men, plus women and children.
Where is your little something, little savings, little coins? Count them (particularly those who joined the coin saving challenge a year ago)! All may be surprised by the actual amount in your possession. You may have tens or hundreds of dollars, just what you need to pay the light bill, the water bill and perhaps a partial payment for the gas bill.
Think about your money stashes; forgotten money in your coat or shirt pocket, the purse you haven’t carried in a while. I found $60 in my pants pocket the other day. The money found could cover the remaining charges on your gas bill similar to the 2 fish and 5 barley loaves being enough to feed the multitude. What’s under your mattress?
Have you asked your car insurance company to lower your rate and perhaps return a portion of your premium since we are driving less due to worldwide stay home orders. I am expecting an $80.00 check from my insurance company because I called and asked. My students love my concept of the creative dollar. I have utilized this concept to manifest $100 to $10,000. Shifts required. Leave no financial stone unturned.
Gather up the fragments and……
III
Let Nothing be Lost…Cut the FAT!
Let nothing be lost…cut the fat!
In my book, I talk about us working people being the CEO/CFO of every aspect of our money lives. Whether we manage a Fortune 500 company or our Fortune 500 home, there comes a time when we have to treat the financial part of our being like a business. We take inventory of where our money is going and what our money is doing. This moment of sheltering at home is the perfect time for us to take a strategic look at how we wield our money tool, take out our saw and start cutting.
Assess what you use and don’t use. What you need and don’t need. For example, do you have a landline and a cell phone? Do you need both? Maybe you’ve got cable and love it. Instead of letting it go completely, perhaps you review the channels you actually watch and cancel the ones you don’t.
Cancel and unsubscribe to everything you pay for and don’t use NOW! Find other areas where you can do the same. My book offers 40+ ways you can consider cutting now to give yourself an immediate raise. My students have given themselves an immediate raise of $3,000 to $4,000 by just following these easy to implement strategies. Somebody help me say, Let nothing be lost!
Remember the ‘old school’ wisdom from Big Mama, Nana, Granny. They taught the following to save a buck: turn off the lights, unplug unused appliances, put on a long sleeved shirt instead of blasting the heater, etc.. I wonder if these practices could yield another 200 or 300 dollars. Working people worldwide help me say,”Cut the fat!”
IV
Sharpen Your Money Tool
Sharpen your money tool!
Hammers. Nails. Chisels. Bolster. Think about the purpose of these tools. They are the basic building materials. I liken them to building blocks, as I draw on my years as an elementary school teacher. Building blocks stimulate the imagination and creativity of young children and helps them develop new and specific skills.
I compare the adult money tool to the building blocks of our youth. Like children use building blocks to build imaginary castles and bridges, we working people can use our current money tool or resources to build and create the lifestyle pictures in our head. Since we’re now adults and need more stability, let’s call it brick building.
How can we create a stronger, more solid financial foundation?
Let’s look inside our money tool box and let our creativity flow. Perhaps, now is the perfect time to sharpen your money tool by learning a new skill, strengthening a skill-set and extending or pursuing a new line of work and/or a side business.
COVID-19 can be seen as an opportunity to reflect and focus on what’s next, what’s possible in what will probably lead to a new paradigm in terms of how we do life.This new paradigm will create new businesses, new medical technologies, new ways to provide services and new millionaires.
Working people worldwide, let’s use this time to get ready, reinvent ourselves and prepare to increase our financial success!
What kind of education and training do we need? The University of Google!
The internet is a great tool to bolster your money mindset and sharpen your money tool. Many colleges and universities are offering classes for free or a nominal cost. Research reveals that a builder’s best money tool is his or her pencil.
I have sharpened my pencil and am now taking free classes at Harvard. I have learned, sometimes all we need is a proper point!
See the link below for more information.
https://online-learning.harvard.edu/catalog/free
Prepare for the next Emergency!
V
Prepare for the Next Emergency!
Prepare for the next emergency!
In the words of Marvin Gaye, there are 3 things for sure: taxes, death and trouble, this I know baby!
Rest assured as this COVID-19 pandemic seems to be flattening, there will surely be another crisis, to test our physical and financial fitness. You know, it is said we teachers love to give assessments. I’d like to ask us a few questions:
How did we hold up physically? Were we strong? Can we increase our physical stamina, strengthen our immune system? Health is wealth!
Let this pandemic serve as a time of self-reflection, where we assess what is working and what we have learned during this challenging time. Were we somewhat financially prepared? Were we not prepared at all? What could we have done to be more prepared?
Look at the fragments gathered, cut the fat and pat yourself on the back for all success, no matter how big or small!
Even, if now is not the best time to implement your strategy, it is never too soon to have one, a plan. Remember, the Girl Scout motto is to “Be Prepared.”
VI
Believe in Miracles
Believe in miracles!
Some of us working people have adopted the adage, “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” In my years of climbing and building a strong financial infrastructure, I adopted this same adage. I am happy to report that I have been delivered from this thinking.
It is by God’s grace that I have achieved and accomplished financial success; success that extends far beyond societal and statistical expectations (to be unpacked). Sometimes, my work speaks to the need for us working people to believe in God, Higher Power, Universe; a power bigger than ourselves.
I know this corona virus pandemic is big, perhaps resulting in the biggest financial challenge that caught us off guard. But, we’ve been challenged before! By faith you will get through it like you did the last hardship. Expect the resources you need to appear; in my case they always appear near the 26th mile of a 26.2 mile race- i.e. at the very last minute.
Let me show you what this looks like in the life of my friends who read my book and I will conclude by finishing the story regarding my business transaction. I was talking to a friend who recently read my book, who was struggling with money shortages. She did just what I am asking you to do, believe and keep the faith. And someone from her synagogue left a check on her doorstep. The next story is about a friend who works in the entertainment industry where filming has come to a screeching halt. Her prayer circle went to work and raised $3,000 and donated them to her with no strings attached.
The misjudged business transaction put me $10,000 in the hole. Woe, worried and worn out I had nowhere to go but to my knees. This lender wanted his money yesterday and in one payment! And when I said that won’t work, he gave me two weeks.
I cried. I cried out to God.I waited for days in silence. Like the miracle of the 5 Fish Finances, I took a visit to the headquarters of the place I’d been working. Somehow, I spoke to HR and had been informed that I had been underpaid by $12, 500 and that they were going to cut a check for me to pick up. I picked the check up on a Friday and drove an hour in rush hour traffic to cut the lender a check for $10,000.
Pardon my grammar, but Big Mama would say, “That ain’t nothing but a miracle!”
“That ain’t nothing but a miracle!”
~Big Mamma
I believe in miracles…
Check out our first LIVE podcast coming on our You Tube channel!
Monday May 18th, 2020
7pm EST
“How To Be Safe, Sound, Sane & Financially Savvy in a COVID-19 World”
~Timolin r. Langin
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