Do you have a ✅CHECKLIST BACK TO NORMAL?
Our lives are not going to be the same for a while but we can begin our path back to NORMAL….well, at least a new normal. Here is a CHECKLIST I have put together for the clients and people who follow me. Remember, if you fail to plan you plan to fail. So get out this checklist, roll up your sleeves and get to work. The sooner you have your checklist completed, the sooner you can get back to normal.
🔼TOP OF THE LIST — What is your SPENDING PLAN?
â–¶ï¸This plan involves how you will adjust your spending based on your informed forecast of the amount of stress this new economic frontier will put on your wallet (or purse, sorry ladies 😀)
So if you expect the economy to be sluggish and money or income to be coming in more like a trickle than a stream over the next 6 months how will you tighten your belt? What expenses will you reduce for the short term? Will you cancel some online subscriptions? Will you eat out less (this might also be a part of your health safety plan also)?
Create a plan, a roadmap.ðŸ—ºï¸ This way you will not find yourself depleting your cash reserves or your monthly budget with the only option left is to run up your credit cards.
â–¶ï¸A suggestion – find ways to create more income. Sell stuff you have around the house that you no longer enjoy or use. Ebay or Craigslist it. Turn up your hustle and work extra hours, create more value, and do it with a sense of urgency.
Cutting back is never a long term solution. Creating more income solves every problem.
So what is your plan?
NEXT you need a Health Safety Plan
A plan is always the best way to move ahead. Without a plan you know what they say — you plan to fail, right?
This kind of plan is easier to explain by simply asking you a number of tactical questions in succession. Here is your checklist.
â–¶ï¸When you go out to run errands will you have a face-mask? Will you wear it in the car?
â–¶ï¸ When you walk into the store/business/restaurant? Will you keep the mask in your car?
â–¶ï¸Gloves — will you keep a clean pair in your car? Backups? Or will you not wear gloves and simply sanitize your hands when you get back to your vehicle?
â–¶ï¸ Do you have a number of times you will go to the grocery store or will you have them delivered? How will you sanitize (or will you) the items you purchased when you bring them into your home?
Don’t forget that sticking to your health safety plan is important not only to you but to everyone in your home. Have a plan.
The next plan on your checklist to get back to a new normal is creating a plan to become irreplaceable at work.
Before COVID the economy was thriving. Record highs on Wall Street. There was room to move, money available, and this means that there was a fair amount of room for you to be on cruise control at work.
Now we have over 30 million unemployed. What will insure your job from being cut? You have to find a way to EXPONENTIALLY INCREASE YOUR VALUE – to be so valuable to your company that when it is time for cuts and your name appears on the list that there is a unanimous agreement ‘we can’t let her go, she is way too valuable.’
How will you pull this off? How can you go the extra EXTRA MILE? Create a plan to LEVEL UP your game at work — it is your insurance policy for employment.
So what’s your plan?
So now you can go back to restaurants and have in person meetings. How will you navigate this in the new post COVID reality?
You need to add HAVE A SOCIAL PLAN to your checklist. ✅
Some things to consider in creating this. Will you shake hands ever? With who? If not, what will you do — an air high five? Elbow bump?
If you are in a meeting will you sit several feet away? If you are in a social gathering/mixer setting how will you approach someone so that you feel safe and (JUST AS IMPORTANT) so they feel safe?
Will you don a mask and gloves? In what settings will you take off your mask?
So, what is your social plan?
Next on the checklist back to normal (sorry, the new normal) is to create an Income Plan B.
Just as so many people learned in 2008-09, putting all of your eggs in one basket will ruin you. Most of us have done this by putting almost all of our security into our jobs. Our healthcare, our retirement, our sole income, our friends, even our sense of accomplishment — it is all tied to a job, a W-2.
You need to DIVERSIFY your income. You need to create another stream of income. You need an income PLAN-B. There is a saying in the military
“ONE IS NONE’ This means that if you only have one gun going into battle, you may as well as have none. You need a back up, or two.
Wealthy and successful people know not to put all of their hopes of income in one place.
So what will you do to create extra income? Start an online biz? Join an MLM? Start investing in real estate?
What’s your plan?
We have looked at 5 things so far that need to be on your list. The last on the list is certainly not the least important. In fact, having this in place could have made you and your household financially bulletproof to the economic crash caused by COVID 19. Unfortunately, the most recent crash revealed that for many households, their finances were way too exposed to market risk or they discovered that their cash reserves ran out far faster than they had thought possible.
As you put together a Wealth Building Plan consider how you will KEEP what you have — how will you make your retirement accounts, real estate investments, and other growth areas BULLETPROOF from any threat? Wealthy and successful people hire consultants. Who will you turn to to get help? Choose wisely.
SO WHO IS GOING TO BE ON YOUR WEALTH BUILDING TEAM moving into the new post-COVID frontier? My passion is to help entrepreneurs maximize their wealth — that starts by making sure that what money they do make and they do save is bulletproof to wealth destroyers like market crashes, taxes, lawsuits, inflation, and more. If you would like to know more about what is involved in hiring me to help you quarterback your financial game plan reach out to me over Linkedin or email me at david.bradford@driveplanning.com
