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The Return of “Money Mondays”
I used to write about the economy about almost every Monday, and I may go back to that for a while, to share the trends I see heading towards the bottom of the year. As I've written about recently, I have reason to think that perhaps we're heading for the next bump down in a few months to a year.
On many Mondays (but certainly not all) I'll make an effort to find recent news links that talk about our predicament and future trends.
“You've Got No Job!” The Future of Unemployment– www.peakprosperity.com/blog/84644/youve-got-no-job
The present is NOT employee friendly, with workers being treated as expendable– and the trend for the future is pretty bleak.
“The point is: If you're an employee (which most folks reading this are), recognize that the trend here is not your friend. For a variety of reasons – some defensible, some not – corporations are increasingly less motivated to train, compensate, develop, and retain workers than in the past.
The question I want you to ask yourself is this: How impacted would my life be if I unexpectedly received a pink slip tomorrow?
For most people, the answer is: Substantially. For too many: Devastating.”
To help prepare for this, the author suggests:
“The following are *not* quick fixes; they take a lot of inner work, dedication, perseverance, and time to complete. But these steps are indeed achievable and will make your chances for career success and security a heck of a lot higher than if you don't do them. The basics include:
- Identify the work you're best suited for based on your natural aptitudes, interests, and work experience – For many, this is the hardest step. Our educational system is notoriously bad at helping people actually figure out what kind of career path is right for them. The good news is that there is a defined process that, if followed conscientiously, makes your chances of identifying a “best fit” field highly probable – even if you've been in the workforce for decades…
- Make a career transition if you're currently in a 'bad-fit” field – If you're not on a career track that plays to your strengths, you need to move out of it. If you're in a bad-fit position, it's hard to outperform (or even perform at the average), and you'll be in danger of being one of the early casualties during a culling of non-essential employees. Making a transition to a new career track is time-intensive, but again, quite doable once you know what direction to head in (see above bullet).
- Become a domain expert with organizational ownership – Management values most the talent it needs that is expensive (time and/or cost-wise) to replace. It can always reduce budgets or department staff levels, but it will do its utmost to retain talent that does work others can't (or can't do as well or as cheaply).
- Develop a professional support network – Make yourself known in your field, particularly outside of your company. Be a source of useful industry insights, and seek to learn as much as you share. Help other people. Seek out mentors. People change firms often throughout their careers; after a few years, you'll find you have contacts across numerous companies. Should you fall victim to a layoff, you'll have insiders at other firms working on your behalf to get you hired in.
- Develop a personal support network – Talk actively with family and friends about what you are willing to do for each other should one of you lose your job. How can you help ease the burden (meals, child care, loans, etc.) of the uncertain time between gainful employment? Figuring a plan out in advance, and making deposits in the Bank of Karma by supporting struggling folks in your community, will result in payback that will dramatically reduce the shock of sudden job loss.
- Create multiple streams of income – Ideally, you want to develop enough diversity of income that the loss of any single one won't compromise your lifestyle dramatically. Again, there are no easy shortcuts here. But options include: taking on a second job, moonlighting, starting a side business, enabling an unemployed family member to start a paying job, investing in assets that produce cash flows/coupons/dividends, consulting, monetizing existing assets (e.g., renting out a room on AirBnB), etc. Spend some time deciding which approach seems most appropriate for you and start with that one. Once you've got that second income started, ask yourself: How can I make it bigger? What other new sources can I add next?
- Save – Start by amassing a rainy-day fund equal to 3 months of your current monthly income. Then expand it to six. Then, if you're able to, a year. This cushion will take the pressure off immensely if you find yourself unexpectedly out of work. Concurrently, strive to not only live within your means, but below them. Learn to appreciate non-material joys in life. You'll reduce your expenses (the difference of which should go straight into savings) in the immediate term and be able to better maintain your quality of life if your income takes a hit.
- Develop a plan for business ownership – In the end, it's better to be the one calling the shots than answering to them. Yes, there are other types of risks that apply to business owners, but your employment and income destinies are much more within your control as long as the business remains solvent. As you currently build your domain expertise, develop a plan for converting it into your ticket to independence. How can you use it to create value that others will pay you for, versus depending on the single check from your employer? If you have multiple customers, it's unlikely they'll all stop doing business with you at once. With an employer, it's all or nothing.”
I think the 4th, 5th,6th, and 7th bullet points are especially crucial– and steps anyone can take anywhere that have nothing to do with needing money. We're working on these steps ourselves. If we buy this place, we'll have land to work to grow food and livestock on, the extra we can trade or sell. We're already getting ready to start selling eggs (which are coming out of our ears now that our new hens are laying too). We're considering turning the smallest apartment into a longer-term (at least 3 days) full-service vacation rental (WAY more money than monthly rental) for example. Meeting people and working out agreements with them really helps all of these things happen.
The most important thing to understand is that you have to start working towards these things while you still have a job and a choice. I think for us, it was that period of absolute desperation for several years that brought the point home. We learned the hard way to never take a steady income from employment (especially one with benefits and paid vacation) for granted.
Source: http://lucretiasheart.livejournal.com/1013112.html
