Ray Mears and Bear Grylls have brought outdoor survival skills to the masses with their fascinating television documentaries on techniques for staying alive in the harshest environments and some of those key survival principles that keep Ray and Bear safe, can also be used to help you survive and thrive in the financial jungle.
Rule 1 – Preparation
The best survivors always ensure they are well prepared for any situation before setting out on their journeys. This means packing plenty of supplies, medical equipment, navigational aids, clothing and consulting with local experts for advice on dangerous conditions, so that they can avoid putting themselves at risk in the first place.
The same can be said for the best financial survivors. By availing yourself of the right tools (such as a budget), decent financial advisers to guide you and taking the time to research and understand the best ways to save and spend your money, you can significantly reduce the likelihood of running into financial difficulties.
Rule 2 – Ensure you fully understand your problems
Unfortunately, even the best made plans can sometimes go wrong and a change in circumstances could see you plunging into financial disaster.
When dropped into a survival situation, the first thing that Ray Mears and Bear Grylls do is climb a tall tree or reach higher ground, so that they can survey the situation and work out a plan for escaping.
Often financial problems whirl round & round in our heads and with each revolution they seem to increase in size and appear more and more difficult to deal with.
The best way to begin dealing with your financial problems is to get them written down on to a piece of paper. Ideally you should try and produce a budget to show how much you earn, how much you spend and how much you owe.
You can download our free budget template from here. It is really easy to use and helps you to fully understand your financial situation.
Creating a budget is the financial equivalent to reaching higher ground or climbing a tall tree. You can now clearly see your complete financial picture and begin looking at ways to resolve the problems.
Rule 3 – Create a simple plan and stick to it
Using your budget to assess your situation might reveal that you are spending more than you earn and by reviewing each of your regular outgoings you can identify areas to cut back on to save money. If this is the case, then set the plan and check your budget monthly or weekly to ensure that you are sticking to it.
Maybe you have a large credit card debt that you have been unable to clear with the minimum repayments. Again set a plan to increase the monthly repayments and a deadline for when the debt needs to be repaid. Monitor your progress monthly and provided you are not still spending on your credit card and continue to make the repayments, the debt should soon reduce.
Some people may be in more serious doo-doo and have such large debts or financial problems that they need professional assistance. Fortunately, unlike Ray Mears or Bear Grylls stuck out in the desert, help is available, either from a financial adviser or the Citizens Advice Bureau. Preparing your budget before meeting with your financial advisers will give them a massive head-start in understanding your situation and being able to help you out.
Rule 4 – Don’t get caught out by the unknown
In the wild, eating the wrong types of berries or drinking bad water can poison and potentially kill you. A born survivor will only eat and drink what they are confident will help and not hinder them.
In the financial jungle, poisonous dangers lurk in the form credit card balance transfers, payday loans and dubious packages for consolidating your debt into a single payment. From the outside they look like delicious quick fixes to your money woes, but in reality they could make things much worse.
Very often people are attracted to credit card details by 0% interest deals, but don’t realise that 0% is only on the balance transferred and does not apply to any new credit card expenditure, which could be charged at 20% or above, very likely higher than their previous card.
I’ve seen payday loans advertised on the television with APRs over 1000%, an absolutely shocking figure that will instantly plunge families into greater poverty and have heard stories about people who have lost their homes after securing a consolidated loan against them.
Whilst I appreciate that in certain situations some people have no choice but to use these poison products, they should at least be fully aware of the risks they are taking on and the potential alternative routes that they could take.
This rule relates back to Rule 1 on preparation and getting expert advice. Even if you are getting a ‘standard’ financial product, like a mortgage or a credit card, you should do your research so that you fully understand what you are getting yourself into.
Rule 5 – Learn how to thrive, not just survive in the financial jungle
For thousands and thousands of years, humans have been surviving in the toughest conditions, such as the Amazon rainforest, the Arctic wastelands and the sandy deserts. In each of these environments, people have not only survived, but also learned to thrive.
The same should be said for a born survivor in the financial jungle. Whether there is a tough recession or economic boom, people still need to fight to survive financially, but they can also use those survival skills of analysis, planning, saving and financial knowledge to begin building up their wealth.
Once you have cleared your debts, consider starting to save and invest in order to build your wealth. For more advice and tips on thriving in the financial jungle, take a look at this article on wealth creation.
