Pay for what you don't use
Situations when you give money for nothing happen more often than you might imagine.
Let's say you decide to take up sports and pay for a year of training. But then they stopped going to the gym: they got injured or the impulse didn’t last long. Often in this case, people simply wave their hand and do nothing, losing an impressive amount of money. Although you can resell the subscription if the terms of the contract allow it, or terminate the contract with the institution and return part of the funds. The gym you don't go to isn't the only black hole where money flows. Perhaps your payment for housing and communal services still includes a television antenna and a radio point, although these wires are not even connected to your apartment. Money is automatically debited from your account for subscriptions that you no longer use, but are too lazy to cancel. And even auto payments can be a bad help here if you don’t constantly monitor them.
Another weak point from a financial point of view is cellular communications. Let the operator offer you an “extremely favorable” tariff with a huge package of SMS and minutes within the network. If you only use mobile internet, why should you pay for it? It often turns out that wholesale is not cheaper at all. Look for exactly the set of services that you need.
Psychologist Sergei Klyuchnikov
cantrium.com | MySuomi.com | HELSINKI | TourMANN.com
The crisis is gaining momentum in our lives. Most people feel that their work is becoming restless, everyone is tense, waiting for a new wave of layoffs.
Schemers weave intrigues, colleagues notice every small mistake, the boss has become more demanding and angrier.
You can’t relax at home either, wives attack their husbands, husbands drown out their irritation by drinking, and the money becomes less. The state of many people can be expressed in one formula: life is bursting at the seams. How to find peace of mind in this alarming situation?
People are increasingly turning to me with such questions, both in personal consultations and on the Internet.
— I will try to give a detailed answer to this question, since many people come to me for consultation who want to survive the crisis with minimal losses, to self-determinate in new conditions, to reconsider their approaches to life, to choose their new path.
Those who have lost their jobs and those who are on the verge of being fired also come. I advise them to understand how much their specialty is in demand in the modern labor market, and whether their qualifications are competitive. I then ask my clients to determine their level of ambition.
Let’s say that the wave of crisis lasts for several years and then begins to subside.
If you are disqualified in a professional sense, accept a low-paid job, will this negatively affect your self-confidence and, therefore, future achievements, will your self-esteem decrease.
There are many factors that need to be considered in advance. Therefore, together with the client, we draw up a life strategy depending on his individual characteristics.
Among other things, a crisis is an excellent opportunity for self-development, to master new specialties, learn foreign languages, strengthen your health and family relationships, and establish a positive atmosphere in your life.
Anyone who acts correctly in this regard will be quite adaptive, adequate, stable, and will endure the negative trends of the economic downturn painlessly.
Nowadays the question of preserving vitality and energy is especially acute. You need to properly distribute your strength, not fuss, and use this time for personal and professional development.
Including for spiritual growth, that is, to better understand your purpose, engage in psychological and spiritual practices. The crisis also exposes our internal problems and shows who we really are. It is in the spiritual sphere that a person can find strength to overcome negative tendencies.
This is the only area that the crisis cannot affect. But if we internally rely on spiritual values, react flexibly to situations, combining periods of external activity and internal accumulation of strength, but not idleness, then we will more easily cope with the problems that arise.
The crisis predetermines our behavior in the financial field: and it’s a no brainer that this is not the time for high risks, not the time for playing on the stock exchange.
Fixed assets must be kept in reliable large Russian banks. These are Sberbank, VTB, Vnesheconombank. The time has come to set up a small business that will be useful for the everyday life of Russians.
Statistics show that a woman is much more adaptive during a crisis, since representatives of the fair half of humanity are more flexible in their approach to solving life problems and choosing optimal solutions.
A woman is psychologically programmed for stability, for the preservation of offspring, because she is responsible not only for herself, but also for her children, for her parents, she is less conflicted, learns something new faster and is more active than a man masters new specialties.
If for a man to agree to an unskilled job is to lose status, experience humiliation, he would prefer to sit and do nothing, then a woman is able to more easily overcome such a psychological barrier . Men need to learn how to adapt from women.
The crisis, of course, will seriously affect the relationship between men and women. According to statistics, now the number of marriages has decreased, citizens are getting divorced less, because they are afraid to take risks in these troubled times.
If a man loses his job, he has to redistribute family responsibilities, then he is forced to take care of children and housework, and a woman sometimes turns into the main breadwinner who feeds the family. This may cause some problems.
A woman begins to treat a man with some disdain, because instead of looking for a job or renovating something in the apartment, he begins to become depressed and drink.
Few people will like this situation. We must understand that this is a temporary phenomenon and it is necessary to show maximum patience and tact in order to save the family.
Difficult times are, to a certain extent, always a test of strength, a kind of catalyst that can manifest and strengthen both positive and negative factors.
On the one hand, the word crisis means judgment, and from ancient Greek it is translated as decision. In other words, a person’s fate depends on whether he makes the right decision. In any case, you need to prepare yourself for a long distance, for testing.
Regarding finances, the strategy is quite transparent: you need to save money, keep records and control expenses, accumulate all the family’s funds in a single piggy bank. It is completely unacceptable for each family member to spend money at their own discretion.
Such a dispersal of funds can be dramatic for such a family. It is important to cultivate a sense of mutual assistance and mutual assistance. There must be some center that makes major financial decisions.
It is important for a person to stay in good shape in order to actively look for work and work. We must understand that competition will intensify, and the factor of health and vitality will come to the fore.
If all these things are taken into account and thought through, then you can survive the crisis more or less calmly, and at the same time continue to develop.
The main thing is to overcome fear . After all, the algorithm of life for every person, organization, nation, and even civilization implies periods of rise and fall.
A crisis is usually perceived by people as something negative, annoying, and disruptive to their plans. But if we approach this situation without emotions, we will understand that it also brings positive aspects.
Maximum discomfort is a signal that the crisis has subsided. At this time, it becomes possible to get rid of errors that have accumulated in the system over the entire history of its existence.
Modern civilization has been subject to various kinds of crises, but, as a rule, they were local. The global crisis is a consequence of several mistakes made in the global economy and politics of a number of leading states.
First of all, in the United States of America. The economic policy of this country is built on easily accessible loans. Americans do not want, like the Chinese or Russians, to first invest effort and then get results.
They wanted everything at once, and for this they came up with a system of loans and mortgages. One of the reasons for the financial collapse was the consumer orientation of Americans to immediately obtain the benefits of life, which became a national idea in America.
Americans live comfortably, but at the same time they become hostages to their apartments and houses. This habit of borrowing from the future led to serious financial problems, which, as we know, began with the mortgage crisis.
A country that makes up five percent of the population and consumes 50 percent of the world's energy essentially forces half the world to work for itself.
As a result, a blood clot formed in the global economy, through which living streams did not pass, but began to get stuck in America. Experts believe that the global crisis will last from 2 to 12 years.
By the way, our country, on the one hand, approached it quite prepared - as a result of the last years of petrodollar prosperity, Russia has accumulated gold and foreign exchange reserves, a reserve and stabilization fund.
But on the other hand, the domestic market was not created, and dependence on Western manufacturers has led to the fact that our goods and services, already not very competitive, are now needed by few people in the world. It was necessary to distribute these resources more competently and direct them to strengthening the domestic producer.
The global crisis is having a serious impact on people's psychology. This manifests itself in feelings of anxiety and even uncontrollable panic. People are afraid that they will be fired from their jobs, that they will not fit into the new reality.
And weighing their strengths, comparing their situation with the situation of other more successful people, having built a mental image of a negative future, some people panic and begin to make mistakes both at work and at home.
The main thing is that they waste their vital energy in vain, worrying about processes that they cannot influence. A much more correct reaction would be a more adequate assessment of the situation. It is better to use your strength to improve your own situation.
The global crisis affects ordinary people like the onset of winter. There is absolutely no point in worrying about this. But most people cannot accept the inevitability of the crisis.
Another mistaken reaction to a crisis is to completely ignore it, when people continue to live as if nothing happened. A person who behaves passively, does not look for work, does not reshape his business, does not become more active, is at great risk.
It is better, of course, to adequately respond to current circumstances, but at the same time maintain internal balance, good spirits and activity. First of all, you need to learn to maintain a sense of joy, optimism and faith in your strength in any circumstances.
What can be advised to people who are really experiencing difficulties due to the crisis in order to get out of it without losses?
First of all, you need to accept it and adjust your life strategy . How? Let's say lower your ambitions. During a crisis, we are unlikely to achieve anything extraordinary in our career in financial growth. As a rule, during a crisis, people try to hold on to what they have.
A direct consequence of the crisis is a total reduction in demand, services, and consumption.
You need to tune in to deep calm and patience. Our compatriots have gone through much more difficult trials, especially the older generation.
Russia is a country of super-patient people. To overcome negative emotions, you need to master various psychotechnics and methods of self-control.
We must learn to abstract ourselves from the situation, observe ourselves, our states from the outside. The better we monitor and neutralize our negative emotions, the sooner we will find inner balance.
Overcoming depression , or rather, reducing the level of anxiety and anxious expectations about a future that we cannot change, is a prerequisite for our activity for the sake of a future that we can change.
It is important to learn to maintain a positive state. The crisis also has its positive aspects. This is a good reason to reconsider your relationships, free yourself from unnecessary things, and tune in to unite with people who help us.
Social Like
Not reading documents carefully
From the point of view of the law, if you signed the papers, it means you agree with everything that is written in them. Not reading documents is a bad habit that can lead to dire consequences.
For example, you buy insurance for traveling abroad. But it says that you will receive compensation only if you poison yourself with mandrake root during the full moon. And the rest of the cases are uninsurable. As a result, you will have to treat a cold while traveling at your own expense, and you will also be wasting the money for the policy. To prevent this from happening, always read contracts very carefully.
Losing a business: how to survive and start from scratch
Some come with ready-made capital and a ready-made company, without starting a business from scratch. It’s just that one day they jump on the bandwagon of an already accelerated locomotive. They feel insecure in business, most of them are those who are afraid of the future and force majeure. They frantically grab onto a single business and don’t understand what it’s like to close old, mature businesses and open new, promising ones.
I opened my first business in my fourth year. I lived in a hostel and ate with the money I received from a night stall. The staff consisted of myself and a partner. The fixed assets are two tables written off from a research institute in a room at the Astoria Hotel - a gloomy place in the 90s, but on the central avenue. We also had a green “troika”. Not BMW. Our first transaction was exactly one hundred dollars, or 200 UAH. And no dads at my wedding said into the microphone placed by the toastmaster: “And I give this company with its staff to the newlyweds as a wedding gift, it’s bitter!” My uncle did not introduce me to the board of directors, transferring matters. I did not come into my wife’s business as a consultant, director, or founder. But you can lose count, counting how many times over these 20 years we started everything from scratch, from a clean slate.
And so, when someone advises me to be a good girl so as not to lose everything, I laugh. I lost everything just enough times to understand that a lost business is like a broken car. Only a loser is unable to acquire a new one. The law is that the lower you fall in what is considered a failure, the higher you shoot on the next run.
When they “friendly” warn me “you don’t know who is next to you, you will lose all the money,” I answer: you don’t know who is next to me, and all the money is too big an abstraction to lose.
Business is the movement of a wheel. You are either at the top or at the bottom. And if someone promises that you will always be at the top point, drive a stake into his throat: you can always be at the top point while being OUTSIDE the rotating wheel. I recently spoke with a man who collapsed in his career before prison, but after that he soared to such heights that few people in Ukraine have ever dreamed of.
It’s a strange way to try to manipulate, putting pressure on “you’ll lose all your money.” The fact is that all money is a mirage. The same as my two apartments in London, the existence of which I learned yesterday with surprise and without pleasure from Vilkul-media. What surprised me was that I bought these apartments for my children. This somehow does not resemble the image of the gloomy businessman whom greyhound talents mold me into for the money of the Father and Son office. No pleasure – I was saddened that the apartments were in London. I hate London. For the dampness, smog, Arabs, fog, chaos on the streets, lack of greenery, high cost, remoteness of Heathrow airport, for the fact that it gets light late and dark early. I understand the logic: these two apartments must be on the same site as Nasirov’s apartments, but what good is Nasirov for my children? I guarantee that they are not interested in him.
Gentlemen. When I buy apartments for my children, it won’t be London. Apartments for children should be somewhere where it is always warm, there is a lot of sun, where there is sea air, excellent beaches and a lot of fruit all year round. Only the limited brain of a stupid beggar can come up with an apartment in London. This suggests that the person who invented it has never been to London. Once you get there, these fantasies leave a person forever.
I'm not afraid of losing all my money. Because in any city in any country I only need two things - a phone and a SIM card, and in the evening of the same day I will have the first hundred dollars in my pocket.
I didn’t start with my dad’s money. I started in the 90s, from scratch. We still exist. And there are many of us.
Keep long-term savings at home
If you are saving for old age, children's education, or some other deferred goal, there is no point in keeping bills at home. Over the years, some of the money will be consumed by inflation. The amount seems to remain the same, but the purchasing power of savings will decrease.
It’s worth at least considering banking products like savings accounts and deposits. But at the same time, keep your finger on the pulse in order to navigate in time if the situation in the country once again begins to change.
Better yet, start investing. Make money work, and it will not only fight off inflation, but also bring profit.
I lost my wallet with money - what to do?
If you are one of the unlucky ones who discovered money missing on the street/at work/in a cafe or in another place, you should try to remain calm and concentrate on finding the lost money. To begin with, it’s worth remembering where money was most likely lost and visiting all the places where you’ve been recently. Moreover, if before the loss you were in uninhabited places, the likelihood that the money will be found will be higher. If the loss of money could have occurred on a bus or minibus, you can rely on the integrity of the drivers and passengers and try contacting the dispatch service. The chances of a return will be greater if your business card was in the wallet.
Don't waste bonuses and miss promotions
It seems that now even tiny convenience stores have their own loyalty programs. Usually the buyer is offered either discounts or the opportunity to pay with bonuses that have accumulated on the card.
There are so many offers that the brain itself sometimes marks all such information as spam and deprives you of the opportunity to save. The points on the card may have an expiration date and simply expire, and the discounts may end. Therefore, if possible, track this information at least for the stores where you buy most often.
Ignore sales
You won't be able to buy everything at a discount. If your fall boots are torn in mid-October, it is obvious that you will buy them at full price. But missing out on sales is at least strange, because this is a great opportunity to save money.
For shopping to be profitable, you need to prepare for it. For example, you can go shopping in December and make a list of the clothes and shoes you like. There is a good chance that all this will be available at a discount during the Christmas sale.
Incorrect use of banking products
Any banking product is a tool. Its effectiveness depends on how exactly it is used.
Let's say you have a credit card. You saw a last-minute tour with a great discount, but there’s still a week until payday. If you pay it with a credit card and pay off the debt seven days later, you will be able to save on travel and avoid interest. At the same time, you will be charged a commission for withdrawing cash from an ATM, and interest for late returns.
In order not to lose money, it is enough to understand how the product works.
Do not use bonuses from the state
The state has provided subsidies, benefits and other bonuses for us. For example, in some situations it helps with mortgage payments. Families with children receive especially generous offers.
Every citizen with a white income can receive a tax deduction. You will be refunded the money you paid towards personal income tax. You can use this right when buying an apartment, treatment, training and in some other situations.
And that's not all. Do not hesitate to find out what you are entitled to from the state.
Lost money
You can lose money anywhere and at any time, and no one is immune from this. However, one should not think of a person who has lost money that he is “confused” and “open”. A very collected, serious, attentive and cautious person can also lose them. As they say, even an old woman can get screwed.
Losing money happens in transport (bus, trolleybus or tram, minibus, taxi, train, train, boat, plane), on the way somewhere (to work, to the cinema, theater, cafe, bank, to a disco, birthday, wedding , a trip around the world, to a resort, to the village with grandparents or to a neighboring city), in a hotel, guests, on the beach, etc. In general, there are a lot of places where you can lose money. But the result is the same, and incredibly unpleasant: you are left without a penny in your pocket (wallet).
People who often lose money should be advised to be more attentive, careful, collected and careful in order to reduce the number of such unpleasant incidents in their lives to a minimum. Those who find themselves in such extreme situations very rarely and by terrible accident need to get into the right mindset (everything in this life can happen) and remember the words of the cat from one famous Soviet animated film: “From every situation, even the most hopeless, at first glance, situation there must be a way out."
First, let's consider the situation of losing money in a “non-fatal” case, that is, when it can be, if not easily, then at least with some difficulty, somehow compensated. If you decide to buy something and go to make this purchase, but suddenly find that you have lost your savings, a whole range of alternatives opens up before you.
Firstly, refuse this purchase altogether or for some indefinite, and perhaps for a very specific time;
secondly, you can, no matter how unpleasant it may be, borrow the required amount from some good acquaintance or friend (if, of course, you consider it “convenient” to borrow money);
thirdly, you can return home and take money from your secret reserves (this way out of the situation is possible if you have the required amount) or ask someone close to you to do it for you (by cell phone, payphone, pager), if you are quite far from home.
Fourthly, you can simply start searching for lost money (this option for getting out of an extreme situation is only possible if you have free time and if you want to search: if a person is very upset, then he won’t even want to look for anything).
Of course, you shouldn’t contact the lost and found office, because they won’t return your money, and neither will the police: they didn’t steal it from you, so you won’t be able to find the culprits.
The second type of extreme situation of losing money can be described as “finding yourself in an unfamiliar city without friends, acquaintances and money.” It is quite possible if, say, you lost money at a resort and there is no way to return without it (documents and tickets are lost along with the money). Then you can hitchhike home.
You can try to borrow a small amount of money from random acquaintances in order to call or send a telegram home.
And finally, the third type can be called a situation where someone else’s money is lost. In this case, the decision should be unambiguous: get your money back at any cost, because we are talking about reputation, name, and, as we know, they are very difficult to acquire, but too easy to lose.
