Episode 1260: Money Management When Your World Falls Apart

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,260 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:07] Wayne Titus: I'm Wayne Titus, author of the Entrepreneur's Guide to Financial Wellbeing. I encourage you to be inspired to become a better steward through financial wisdom by listening to this the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott.

[00:00:22] Scott Maderer: A multitude of counsel to surround you so that you can make wise decisions and again, that's something that you can start setting up before you need it because the best way to deal with money, whatever your world falls apart, is to actually have thought and planned and put things in place before.

[00:00:44] Your world falls apart. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures [00:01:00] for your true calling In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, who will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that.

[00:01:10] Can impact the world

[00:01:12] in today's episode about investing in yourself through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about how we all have times our world fall apart, both big and small, and how these can affect our money. I also talk about what you can do to deal with it when this kind of time comes your way or even before.

[00:01:31] And I also give you some tips on how you can move. Forward in a healthy way as we talk about stewarding your treasures. Wouldn't it be great if you could support this podcast and do it without costing yourself an extra dime? Turns out you can. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon.

[00:01:53] When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon, and a small commission will come back to support the show. If [00:02:00] you enjoy the show, when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. Just like we've been talking about all week, whatever things happen that make you either feel like your world is falling apart or actually are causing your world to fall apart, a lot of times that shows up in your money.

[00:02:21] If you've had a job change, if you've had a spouse pass away, if you've got diagnosed with a major illness or maybe a family member has. Even whether it's things like inflation and possibilities of your own business being affected, or whether or not the economy is going to do well this year, all of these things show up in your money.

[00:02:44] They often cause us both to have real world effects. For instance, things get more expensive and it costs more to just go to the grocery store and do things with. or perhaps our wage increases don't keep up [00:03:00] with the cost of goods and services, or our spouse passes away and they were a second income earner or even the primary income earner.

[00:03:09] And now questions about do we have life insurance and how much, and is, do we have enough start coming up? Or maybe it's just someone in the family getting older and you're now looking forward to. Care, both healthcare and maybe changes in living things like you can no longer stay in the house that you've been living in for a long time.

[00:03:32] And of course, all of these things as well as actual true monetary effects, there's emotional effects that go along with that too. , there's grief, there's sadness, there's worry, there's fear. There's all sorts of emotional effects that come about that also begin to affect our decision making because when you're afraid, when you're dealing with grief, when you have these sorts of strong emotions, oftentimes the decisions we [00:04:00] are making aren't as easy to make or aren't as good.

[00:04:04] They're made more out. A sudden reaction than they are out of really thinking through what is the best decision at this time. And let's be honest, sometimes people take advantage of that, whether it's family members or friends or total strangers, they can often prey on that emotion as well. So one of the things you can do with this or do about this is deal with it before it happens.

[00:04:31] Recognize the fact. You're probably going to have some financial changes at some point in your life. You're going to have a period where you have a job loss or a spouse passes away or a change in your business. It's gonna go up or it's gonna go down. These things are normal. You're gonna have major events like a house fire or a car being wrecked.

[00:04:56] It. It's inevitable that [00:05:00] something will happen in your. This is one of the reasons that having things like an emergency fund or getting out of debt or other things like that can be very valuable for you and your family. Making sure that you have things like an estate plan and the various kinds of plans around your.

[00:05:21] What's going to happen, Whether that's a will, whether that's a trust, whether that's things like medical power of attorney and regular power of attorney, financial power of attorney, All of these things can be in place ahead of time. You can actually plan for the fact that there's going to be problems before those problems come.

[00:05:41] You may not know exactly what problem's going to show up. You may not know what form it's going to take, but the fact that it's unexpected doesn't mean that it has to be unplanned for, but let's say you've not planned well, or things come up that are bigger than maybe you planned for and you suddenly [00:06:00] have this financial emergency.

[00:06:03] What do you do? What do you do when that spouse has passed away and there was no life insurance and they were a major breadwinner? The first thing to do in those cases is slow down. That sounds like it might be something that causes some strain because the truth is you wanna speed up, you wanna make decisions quickly.

[00:06:25] It feels like an emergency, but often taking a breath and slowing down is one of the best things you can. Prioritize things like mortgage or rent, food, utilities, health cost insurance, these sorts of things. First, before you get to things like student loans and other debts that maybe you've occurred.

[00:06:50] Recognize that quote, the four walls, the things like food, utilities, transportation, and shelter become much [00:07:00] more important in a time like, , those things are important to keep up, but a lot of the other stuff that's happening, you can safely put off for a little while. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying duck out on debts.

[00:07:18] I'm not saying be dishonest, but recognize that you probably have more time than it feels like you have. You can work with family and friends or a coach or someone else. To make sure that you're making decisions that are not just wise in the moment, but wise for the long term. You don't need to make a long term financial decision for a while because while you're dealing with the emotions of the grief and the fear and all of those things, you're probably not making your best decisions.

[00:07:55] Admit that, Say that out loud. Re. And then take a breath [00:08:00] and slow down. Don't just trust any one person too, even if it's the closest family member who you trust. Beyond belief, get multiple input if at all possible. Talk to more than one person that you trust. Make sure that you've. A multitude of counsel to surround you so that you can make wise decisions and again, that's something that you can start setting up before you need it because the best way to deal with money, whatever your world falls apart, is to actually have thought and planned and put things in place before your world falls apart.

[00:08:43] Thanks for listening.

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