Money troubles

Business Money
1

Anyone here have to deal with watching their savings dwindle to less than half because of circumstances out of their control (ie: medical bills, plane tickets, etc)? how did you deal with the accompanying low/depression that followed?

Recently (2 months) ago i had a procedure done here in taiwan that cost me almost 2,000CAD. None of it was covered by NHI.
THen i went home for the holidays (money wasn’t used out of my main savings) and ended up spending almost 2,000US on a different problem that i had no idea about.

Now, here I am in shock and depressed that a year’s worth of savings (10,000 CAD) is almost at half… of course, it’s good i had it to cover my ass, but it’s painful to see it almost gone.

I know i can save it again, but i’m still really bummed nonetheless and i feel like a loser teacher who hasn’t a pot to piss in at the moment. No work until feb 14th cause not enough students signed up for winter camp…

2

I have a friend in Taiwan who lost several million US$ during the Asian crisis. When I met him later that year ('98, if I remember this correctly), I expected him to be completely devastated: after all, he had moved from being quite wealthy to barely keeping one last remaining company alive. To my surprise, he was as upbeat as ever. Eventually I had to ask if he didn’t feel depressed about losing that much money. He just told me that what had happened was bad enough, so why should he punish himself even more by constantly feeling bad about it? By doing so, he would be losing precious lifetime wasted by looking back in regret in addition to having lost a lot of money.

Of course, not everybody can shrug off a financial loss just like that, but it’s possible and what he said makes a lot of sense to me (though I’m nowhere near his level of nonchalance).

3

Check your PM’s

4

“Easy come easy go.”

It may be good that you learned this now, that is if you are on your own.

This kind of thing happens. Maybe you want to hear other horror stories…but I don’t think that’s cool, or cathartic. Do what you do. And do it to the best of your ability.

The good luck will catch up to you.

And if you’re a good teacher…give me a call. I may be part of that good luck. :slight_smile:

5

welcome to the real world
i will pray for your soul

6

My experience is through investing. And making bad investment decisions. Many, many times, I might add.

The old market adage “Ride your winners, cut your losses” has some relevance here.

You can’t let the fact that you have lost these savings influence the way you act/save/invest in the future.

The performance of assets in the future should be an objective matter. The amount of risk in these assets and their future returns did not change when you had to use your savings, so your treatment of them should not change.

A common investment mistake is to, say, invest in something and lose money. Then, to compensate, double up your bets on it, or invest in something very risky to try and make a short-term gain and “win it all back.”

Thus, I agree with the posters here who say, in effect, to ‘let it go’ or ‘chalk it up to experience.’

You seem to be well on the way to doing this, when you say that at least you had the savings to deal with trouble when it came.

Just keep plugging along.

Don’t compound misfortune with a hasty error.

I should add a bit about coping.

First, pat yourself on the back. You sailed through an experience that would have floored many others less prepared. That’s not a loser.

Second, tighten the belt and pretend to be Scottish for a while. Watching the dollars and cents start to pile up again is psychologically helpful. Just give it a bit of a kick-start and you should be well on the way again.

7

it may not sound like much, but after those two operations, you likely have your health … and good thing you had the cash to fall back on, or would be paying interest on the loan that you woulda needed. so you’re ahead in that respect. :slight_smile:

money has a way of coming back, maybe pick up some extra hours or get a private.

i have no idea about your life, but not drinking in bars will save a lot of $$$ in a short amount of time.

good luck