 Don’t you just love stories like the
three little pigs? Stories like that, while written in simple,
entertaining language for children can continue to provide life lessons
all the way through adult hood. You can actually learn a lot about
economic security from the
story of the three little pigs. The Great Recession was a huge eye opener for millions of people. Everything was going great for so long and then all of a sudden it all started falling apart. The worst part may have been losing a job. It is bad enough when your assets lose value, but not having a steady income can kill you, economically speaking.  The way I saw it was that just like there were three little pigs there
were three groups of people right before the recession. Of course, you can
imagine that the big bad wolf was represented by the small group of big
time lenders that started the mess. The first group of people, who built their economic security out of straw, were laden with consumer debt, owed more on their house then it was worth, had few if any marketable job skills, and had no savings to speak of. When the big bad wolf came around and blew hard at the house their economic security vanished immediately.  The second group of people, who built their economic security out of
sticks, had jobs in more stable industries like healthcare or energy, had
some money set aside, didn’t have consumer debt, and had some equity in
their home. They were still affected by the big bad wolf though, because
their access to credit was gone, their home value dropped making
refinancing next to impossible, and while they were still working their
hours were cut.The third group of people built their economic security out of bricks. They lived on cash and had no need for credit or refinancing. They were competent in marketable skills other than the ones they used at work. They were considered assets at work and too valuable to layoff or terminate. However, if their employer was forced to reduce or eliminate their pay they could fall back on their part time hobby based business, their emergency funds, or their skills in another line of work. While the big bad wolf blew as hard as he could this  group of people felt a lot less
impact then the first two groups did. So will you build your economic security out of straw, sticks, or brick? Learn more about building your economic security in the article titled “The 6 negative behaviors”. |