Preparing For The Worst
The talk of recession is really making me think a lot about my family finances. I think it could be a tough road ahead if I don’t start paying attention to the bottom. Elsewhere I have talked about precautions that I am taking against a probable recession, but I didn’t really think about the effect on my family’s finances. I guess it’s time that I take a look at our finances.
I have decided to focus on saving money. Like most people, we run balances on our credit cards, but lately we have been paying down our balances instead of saving the money. We have dealt with a lot of debt that way. The problem is that we have neglected our short term savings. That amount is precariously low.
We decided to drop our payments to the minimum amounts for a few months and put the rest into cash savings. It might cause us to lose to lose a little bit on interest charges, but I feel more comfortable with cash savings on hand…and yes I know that we could pay down the cards and just use the credit cards for emergencies. This might save a few dollars, but I still think it is better to have cash savings.
Comments
2 Comments on Preparing For The Worst
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Bhelle on
Tue, 30th Sep 2008 9:35 pm
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john on
Wed, 1st Oct 2008 11:56 pm
Hubby and i don’t maintain a credit card and always scrimp on things to save up.Your post is indeed helpful to all.Thanks for postin!
Funny, I actually just did the opposite. Took cash out of savings to pay off all of my credit cards. Even at low interest rates averaging about 9% (low for credit card debt anyway) I just wasnt comfortable any more having that debt. We have one car paid off and another a year from doing so. Really all that is left is out mortgage then. I like that position. I think emergency funds are overrated - if it is truly an emergency I’ll use a credit card.
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