What to Do When Unforeseen Events Hit Your Family & Your Finances

A severe car accident. A broken furnace. An unexpected opportunity to travel and work abroad. What do all these seemingly unrelated things have in common? They all have the potential to alter your family’s life and your finances. 

While sometimes these unexpected events can be good, as in the case of the job opportunity overseas, they’re often not positive. And either type of event can cause significant stress. 

If you’re dealing with the aftermath of such an event, or you just want to be prepared for some future event, try implementing the following four tips.

1. Prepare for it Mentally

To put it frankly, bad things just happen sometimes. Because you can’t always avoid such situations, knowing that they can happen and mentally preparing for such events can give you peace of mind. 

To help you prepare, visualize different situations and think about how you would handle those situations. Where would you go to for financing? How much money would you be willing to put towards certain events straight out of your pocket?

2. Save More Ahead of Time

Saving money for a rainy day can be one of the best ways to improve your finances this year (or any year), according to a Forbes article. 

If you’re saving with an emergency in mind, you’ll want to have two kinds of savings plans, a short-term and a long-term one. In the short-term, you’ll need between $1,000 and $2,000 for emergencies like a blown furnace. 

For the long-term emergencies like a job loss, you’ll want to save enough income to live without an income for six to nine months.

3. Get Help from a Professional

Some emergencies are so bad, you can’t dig yourself out of them by yourself. One of the best things you can do if you find that this is the case is to get help from a professional. 

As Clearfield & Kofsky points out, it’s difficult for the untrained to deal with the potential legal matters that can arise from events like an accident or a bad fall. Of equal importance is to find some support for your mental health as well. 

You can’t really make good decisions if your thinking has been skewed a bit by the accident. Having a professional around to guide you just makes sense.

4. Get Good Insurance

Having good insurance can go a long way to help you recover from an accident or other mishap. It also helps to ensure that tragic events won’t completely wipe you out. 

It’s okay to not know where to start when it comes to this. In fact, you should go ahead and shop around for a good policy. Doing so can save you some serious financial heartaches in the future.

The best way to handle emergencies is to be prepared for them. Just like cities and states have an emergency plan in place for when trouble strikes, so can you. 

Getting money put into a savings account and lining up some good insurance are some good first steps. Additionally, it’s critical that you know how to get professional advice when the need arises. 

Finally, know that everyone has challenges. If you prepare for them, however, they don’t need to wipe you out financially or emotionally.