I Have Been Fired. So What?

I am motivated to write this blog because of some of the responses to my last blog: YOU ARE FIRED! At the end of the blog, I asked two questions. ‘I have been fired. What now? And I have been fired. So what?’  As a means of prompting readers to reflect on their current position within the context of the commentary YOU ARE FIRED! The general response was of shock, as people realised that they are no way near prepared to confront the reality of life after the ‘fire’. The general overiding emotion was fear, panic and confusion, even helplessness.

However, a number of people said ‘so what’? Which I took to mean that they could not be bothered because they were prepared (or so they thought) for the eventuality of being fired, made redundant or retired. So I decided to probe further by contacting a few of them to find out how prepared they really were and I was really shocked by my findings. One guy told me he had a buffer of about 100,000 dollars in savings and so was prepared in the event that he lost his job.  Another had speculated in land in the surburbs. Another lady told me that the value of her gold jewellry was enough to carry her till she found her next job. Yet another told me of completed business plans and strategy for starting a new business. Less than 10 percent had earning assets or investments that would yield them annuity income and thus provide them with a ‘salary’ in the absence of paid employment.

Without fear of contradiction, I dare say that even if you have a million dollars in the bank, the interest from such a deposit  at today’s rates, will not be able to maintain your quality of life if you do not have supplementary income. You will simply continue to spend out of the million to supplement, until it vanishes before your eyes. Yes, gold, land and other assets are good, but in the same vein, you will continue to extract cash from these assets to meet your needs, until they also disappear. You can argue that gold increases in value and that land appreciates, but to extract value, you have to dispose of the asset and once ownership changes hands, they become redundant to you. In my opinion, beyond outright disposal, they are useful to the extent that they can be used to secure credit that will enable you finance investments that will yield you rent, annuity income or create wealth.

It is apparent that most of my respondents have acquired assets that will tide them through those bumps resulting from a short term loss of job and not for the sustained absence from work or inability to return to employment that is the norm today.  If you have not invested in a business or assets that will yield you profit, dividends, rent or annuity income that is large enough to pay you a salary in a figure big enough to ensure an acceptable quality of life to you, then you have not started my friend. You are in no way ready to survive and thrive in a sustained period of job loss or economic down turn. 

My advice today is that you appraise your assets and reconfigure them or convert them into assets that will yield you income, even as the asset itself continues to appreciate in value. In my next blog I will be discussing investment  and wealth creation options that may guide you to become truly financially independent and enable you say ’So what?’ in the real sense of the word.

Remember, it is the lack of money that is the root of evil.