What to Do While You Wait for Things to Return to Normal

Life on earth has never been perfect, but you’d have a hard time convincing some people of that. It’s not that they are ignorant. They have selective memories.

Now that it appears things are no longer quite so perfect, you’ve put your life on hold. You’re anxiously pacing the floor, trying to hold on until the stock market rebounds, retirement accounts bounce back, your loan modification comes through, or some TV advertiser offers a debt-settlement scheme that returns your life to the “perfect” way it was.

Can We Talk?

Stop looking back. “Normal” may be a setting on your clothes dryer, but it is not an economic condition. Every moment that you mourn the passing of the way things were, is a moment lost in the present. Concentrate on where you are and plan for how you will face the future.

Accept what you cannot change

As hard as it is for some of us to accept the fact that we cannot control everything, that is the truth. If you’ve lost your home or business or filed for bankruptcy—as terrible as these events have been—you cannot change what happened.

Change the things you can

Thankfully, far more aspects of your life fall into this category.

These days, it seems that for every letter I get from a reader who is filled with gratitude that I nagged them to death to get out of debt, to build a Contingency Fund for emergencies, to fund a Freedom Account for irregular expenses, and to make that shift to living below their means, I get one from someone who is beside her/himself with regret for just not getting around to it. The old “It could never happen to me,” has happened.

Create Your Plan

If you are still in credit card debt, now’s the time to get serious. I mean it! Revisit Chapter 7 in my Debt-Proof Living book. Create your rapid debt-repayment plan today, and commit to it as you’ve never committed before. (Check your local bookstore, library, or Amazon.)

Save More

Start beefing up your savings—your emergency fund, retirement account, or other savings vehicles. Even if all you can save right now is your pocket change, do it. Get serious about cutting back even more than you think possible so you have more to save. I predict that in years to come if you have one regret it will be that you did not save more money.

Downsize

If you find yourself in over your head in a house you cannot afford, it’s time to move. You need to downsize into a house you can afford. Of course, I do not know your exact situation, but if you are hanging on by a thread, hoping that a loan modification will suddenly make your home affordable, think very carefully. And, weigh every issue.

Get a Job

If you are not working because you’ve given up, or you’re holding out for something that fits your idea of “normal,” let that go. Reality means a job you can get right now. Find a job. Then work at upgrading to a better job.

Headed for college? The days of a fully-funded “free” education that you can pay back at a more convenient time, are gone. Let me say this again: Get a job.

“F” words

Say them often and let them become part of your reality: faith, family and friends. Without my faith, family, and friends, I don’t know where I’d be. Develop these things in your life.

I have noticed over the years that winners accept their realities. They don’t sit around and wait for things to change. They do what they must to make things happen.

Even more than that, they don’t whine, they don’t complain, and they don’t make excuses.

Save $9.12

Debt-Proof Living, by Mary Hunt

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Linda Brady says:

June 18, 2022 at 2:51 pm

So true! Started reading your column over 30 years ago, and it changed my life in so many positive ways. I really believe it is your attitude about money that is just as important as how much you have. Thanks Mary

Mary Hunt says:
June 18, 2022 at 7:25 pm

So lovely to see you here, Linda! Wow … 30 years? We should get some kind of longevity of friendship award! Thanks for our kind words. If there’s one thing these years have taught me it is this: Teaching teaches the teacher. Oh, so true and I say that with so much gratitude.