financial disaster

I listen to clark Howard and he receives mant phone calls of peple overwhelmed by debt, most of which is due to poor financial decisions on their part mainly caused by overuse of credit cards and often aggavated by a job loss.

I too found myself on hard times due to a business venture gone bad. I lost almost everything eventually. I lost my car, my home, and least importantly, my wife. I know, one would think keeping the family together, especially during difficult times would be a top priority and it may have been except she was the main culpert in the business going bad and when there was nothing left for her to siphon off, she bailed on me.

She might have stayed if I had chosen to file for bankruptcy but my parents would have either had to float a loan on their own or lose their home and I thought it wrong of me to put them in that situation.

I had some hard choices to make but I did what I had to do. I worked part time jobs, looked for every conceivable way to cut expenses and negotiated with the bank to reach an agreement with both could live with.

Cutting expenses may not seem like a viable alternative but one would be surprised if one is forced to make that decision. I grewas much of my own food as possible, lived off of three for a dollar frozen buritos and dried beans, took care of the elderly in exchange for a place to sleep and wrote articles for money in my limited free time.

Perhaps the best way to make the hard choices is to plan for them long before bad things happen. I don't care how little one makes, a dollar or two can be saved each week and if started soon enough, by the time disaster strikes, one would probably be more than prepared to handle it.

Pay yourself first, make the hard choices now, and prepare for a downturn and you will survive.