Many people across the planet live paycheck to paycheck, unable to accrue any form of substantial savings before it all gets snapped up by an unexpected payment. Today, many of us face the issue of huge energy price hikes, effectively decimating our funds and even leaving some struggling to pay for essentials. While we can only hope that global governments handle this problem as quickly as possible and come up with some workable solutions to prevent more and more people from falling into poverty, it’s important for us to do everything we can to safeguard against these problems. One notable issue of the energy crisis is that it will be much more difficult to handle these unexpected expenses when faced with them. Here are some common emergency payments that people have to make and a few tips on how you can handle and prepare for them.
What Doesn’t Count As An Emergency Expense?
Before we look at what sorts of things can be classified as emergency expenses, it’s important to understand what is not categorized as one. Just because a regular payment isn’t monthly and is instead quarterly or annually doesn’t mean that it is an unexpected expense. It’s essential that you keep track of these payments, as they can feel like emergency expenses. If you don’t keep on top of these, you can feel blindsided by them, even though you could have prepared for it. These can instead be categorized as irregular expenses, however, and can include things like insurance payments, tuition fees, haircuts, birthday gifts, and many other things. With a bit of consideration, these can be handled with ease.
How To Manage Irregular Expenses
First, you should list every irregular expense that you can think of and create a timetable for when each will be paid. This will allow you to budget for irregular expenses, factoring them into your overall monthly budget and adapting it to easily cover that payment. If you’re concerned about significantly expensive payments, such as buying Christmas presents or tackling school fees, you could create a saving plan ahead of time to deal with them. For example, let’s say you’ve identified that you might need to pay upwards of $400 to buy Christmas gifts for your kids, your partner, and friends and family. The earlier you identify this cost, the better. The most organized of us might start saving up for the next holiday season in January. In this case, you’d only need to put away $33 per month so as to not worry about this expense. If you were to decide to start in September, however, you’ll be looking at $100 per month instead, which can be slightly more damaging yet not as bad as if you tried to find that $400 a few weeks before Christmas Day.
What Are Emergency Payments?
In contrast to those irregular expenses, an emergency payment is something you truly cannot predict. Of course, your boiler breaking, for example, can be expected as things do break at times, but it will still catch you off guard as it cannot be predicted. This is a good example of an emergency payment that can significantly impact your funds. This scenario frequently puts people into the situation of choosing between eating and heating. This is why trying to put as much money away into an emergency fund as possible is important. Other emergency payments can include things like medical bills and certain home and vehicle repairs. These payments are why having an emergency fund is so important, especially today during the energy crisis. Our everyday expenses will likely plummet in the coming months as prices soar, meaning that being able to hire a plumber or electrician to deal with repairs is not going to be as easy as it may have been previously.
How To Handle Emergency Payments
As mentioned above, having an emergency fund worked into your budget is the smartest thing you can do if you’re able to. It’s worth looking at your monthly household income and creating a strict budget for everything from groceries to discretionary payments. Then put aside whatever you can into your emergency fund and don’t touch it unless it’s an emergency. Unfortunately, these emergencies can occur before you’ve accrued enough savings. You could potentially turn to a quick loan, such as those available from Kallyss, where you could borrow $1000 online to cover those costs. However, you must be cautious when taking out a loan. Loans should only be taken out when you know you’ll be able to pay them back quickly. Many emergency loan services will have high-interest rates and could get you into more financial trouble down the line if you struggle to pay it back. Your safest bet is to pore over your income, cut out any unnecessary expenses, and instead put that money into an emergency fund.
Getting Financial Assistance
While the system is far from perfect in the US, citizens can receive financial assistance from the government to help pay for food, housing, health care, and basic living costs. With the cost of living skyrocketing and the energy crisis threatening the populace, many more will turn to government benefits to help them through these tough times. It’s important to take advantage of this if you need to, as the well-being of yourself and your family is critical. Whether you’re applying for unemployment benefits to help you handle living costs between jobs, or you need extra support to pay for groceries with the help of food stamps, there is help available to help you to get back on your feet financially.
Where You Can Put Your Money
When putting aside money for an emergency fund, many will simply consider leaving that money in a current or standard savings account. In the short term, this is adequate. However, in the long term, your money will lose its value in these spaces. Inflation naturally diminishes the value of currencies, and therefore, when you leave those dollars alone, they won’t be worth the same in ten years as they are now. Consider investing your emergency fund, whether in a high-yield bank account, money market account, an IRA, or even a CD (certificate of deposit). Bear in mind that you may have to pay early withdrawal penalties for these last two options, but they could significantly boost the value of your savings, putting you in a much better position in the future.