In this text:

• Let’s ask what causes crises.
• Let’s discuss resilience and its importance.
• Let’s show what attitude carries through a crisis.
• Let’s talk about the costs of families.
• Let’s show that commitments can be skipped.
• Let’s give a recommendation on how to overcome a bottleneck.
• Do we have tips on how to be better prepared.

In life, crises always appear, including those that are financial. If you are still young and only have the responsibility for yourself, you often accept them with a shrug of the shoulders and look for new solutions.

The big difference with family life is that as parents you also worry about the children. If things don’t go as planned, the little ones are also affected. In a crisis, it’s important to keep your nerve and take the right measures. We have tips.

Identify The Cause Of The Crisis

A crisis can have a wide variety of causes, but there are two main characteristics to distinguish: Either it comes from within, such as unemployment or a breakup, or from outside, as a general economic crisis such as Corona or problems in a particular industry.

Persistent mismanagement of the budget can also be responsible for the onset of a crisis or exacerbate its effects.

The essential difference is: If the financial problems have arisen internally, then one has room for maneuver. The causes can be eliminated and a fresh start can be made. However, if the causes are external, then all you can do is keep calm and try to get through this period as well as possible.

In such a case, room for maneuver means, for example, looking for a new job, retraining, or moving into a smaller apartment after a separation. Careful management of the household also helps both to overcome a difficult time and to be better equipped for later.

With This Inner Attitude You Get Through The Hard Times

Hard times show how much resilience you have as an individual and also as a family. Resilience describes the ability to cope well with difficult situations without breaking down because of them.

Some people tend to resign themselves in crises, but that is out of the question when you are responsible for your children. If you go down yourself, you take the others with you.

That’s why it’s important to train your resilience as a family. Resilience can be learned, and hard times are the best teachers in this regard.

Situations that cannot be changed must be accepted and dealt with. Especially in front of children, you should choose positive phrases and not frighten them unnecessarily by painting black.

Do Not Underestimate The Costs As A Family

Many parents underestimate the financial cost of family life. While everyone has read that you spend around 150,000 euros on your child until he or she is an adult, these figures are very abstract and intangible until you actually face the monthly challenges.

Clothing, housing, food, and many other items must be factored into the budget. If you’re already strapped for cash in everyday life, you’ll have a much harder time in a crisis situation.

Building Up Reserves Should Be A Priority

Reserves should definitely be planned into the budget because they are the rescue umbrella that helps to keep calm in a crisis. Even a job, no matter how secure, can come under threat; even a viable concept for self-employment can turn out to have gaps.

Illnesses, strokes of fate, economic crises – if you can open a financial parachute for a few weeks or months, you remain more relaxed and can wait in peace or plan new measures.

Overcoming The Financial Bottleneck

Reducing costs is basically a good idea for reorganizing in the medium and long term, but this method is of little use in an acute emergency. Here, you need to act quickly and generate a certain amount of money that can be used to pay important bills or other obligations that cannot be postponed.

Most of the time, one asks the family first, because here the money is lent interest-free and the repayment is flexible. Taking out a microloan can also be a good way to overcome an acute shortage. Currently, interest rates are very low, so that even a loan does not come with too high additional costs.

In The Crisis: Suspend Obligations

Anyone who becomes unemployed or has another bottleneck, the regular obligations press even more than usual. You won’t be able to do much about rent or the cost of energy and living expenses, but you can do a lot about larger loans, which are an enormous burden for many households.

In the best case, one has taken out an insurance policy for the loan that takes effect in the event of unemployment, for example. Then one can let the obligation rest without problems.

But even if you have not made a corresponding agreement beforehand, you can successfully ask for a deferral. This applies all the more if the crisis is of a general nature and has nothing to do with a personal “fault,” as is the case with the Corona pandemic, for example.

In general, you should avoid calculating your entire net income when it comes to planning loans, for example. Leaving some wiggle room can prevent you from becoming over-indebted, as is the case with about 10% of the population. You are overindebted if you can no longer meet your obligations on a regular basis.

Be Prepared For The Next Crisis

The next hard time is bound to come, it’s just that no one knows when it will. Nevertheless, you can try to prepare for it, for example by building up reserves. A rule of thumb says that you should be able to survive for about three to six months without income.

Anyone can calculate how much money they would need for this. But how should you save if you barely have enough money anyway? The trick is to try to increase your income on the one hand and to reduce your running costs a little on the other. With the difference, you can start to save.

This Is How You Save On Monthly Costs:

• Energy suppliers for electricity, gas, etc. should be changed regularly. New customers often get a hefty discount, from which one can benefit in this way.
• Savings are also possible when changing health insurance companies.
• Shopping is best done with a shopping list. Who cooks freshly, instead of reaching for fast food, already the purse and the health.
• One can take the current subscriptions once under the magnifying glass. Sometimes you pay for things even if you don’t really need them.
• Insurance is a big item in the budget. Today, it’s easy to find new providers.

If you also keep a budget book, you have a good chance of creating a decent financial cushion. And that makes it much easier to survive a crisis.