Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: It's Take Control Tuesday. That means I get a chance to talk to Mansa, Musa and Mansa. It's rough out here. I mean, everything is expensive. We were talking off air about gasoline. There's groceries, there's energy cost. And it just has gotten to the point where we need some strategies.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: I hear you. Now listen, we've spent years on Take Control Tuesday talking about how to achieve sustainable financial well being. We've talked about saving money, managing credit, controlling spending and preparing for emergencies.
And listen, all those things still matter. But there's something else we need to talk about.
What happens when you've done the right things and the money still isn't enough?
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: You've worked hard, you've managed your money, you built up your savings.
But like you said, Randy, groceries cost more, gasoline costs more, housing costs more, insurance cost more, and your paycheck just isn't keeping up.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: No.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Maybe you've already used your emergency fund savings to pay some ordinary bills. Maybe you're using your credit cards or even buy now, pay later to put groceries on the table.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: That's not necessarily a failure to manage your money.
Sometimes the economic conditions are simply more than your resources can handle.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: And that's where we want to begin. There's something important I want the listeners to understand.
We've always talked about financial capability, learning how to make the best use of the resources you have.
But there's another side to that.
It's called financial capacity.
That's the money and other resources you actually have available to work with.
You can have the knowledge, you can have the discipline, you can make good decisions.
But if Your household needs $3,000 a month to cover the essentials and you've only got 2,500 coming in, you still got a problem. Yeah, you can't budget money you don't have.
So that's why we're starting this new series called Survive, Stabilize and recover.
These are the three stages of getting through financial hardship.
First, survive.
When the money isn't enough, how do you protect the things that matter most?
Keeping a roof over your head, feeding your family, Keeping the lights on.
Get into work. Sometimes survival means making difficult choices about which bills get paid and when.
Second, stabilize.
Once you've dealt with the immediate emergency, how do you stop things from getting worse? How do you reduce pressure on your household?
Avoid unnecessary fees and penalties and begin closing the gap between what's coming in and what's going out? And third, recover.
How do you begin rebuilding what the crisis took away?
Your savings, your financial safety net your credit and just as important, your ability to make choices about your future.
Because financial well being isn't just about paying bills. It's about having some security and having choices for sure. What we're going to do here is throughout this series we'll share practical strategies you can put the work to survive the immediate challenges, stabilize your finances and rebuild your financial well being. And I want to emphasize something, Randy, okay. We're not starting from the assumption that people are struggling because they've been irresponsible.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: We're talking to working families who've been doing their best, sometimes doing everything they've been taught to do and still finding themselves under financial pressure. Our job is to help them make the best use of whatever resources they have and find ways to improve the situation.
So I want to leave our listeners with this thought.
Where you are financially today doesn't have to be where you stay, right? You may not be able to change your circumstances overnight, but you can begin by understanding where you are, protecting what matters most and taking the next step.
And that's what we're going to work on over the coming weeks. Survive, stabilize, recovery. Our goal hasn't changed helping people achieve sustainable financial well being. And right now that starts with getting through this.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: It's a lot to get through and I know that we will weather the storm. We did it during the pandemic. We're going to do it again right now in these days. And I look forward to the series. Mansa, of course you'll be able to check out all of our archives in the meantime@take controltuesday.com and as always, Mansa, thank you.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Thank you.
