Preparation In Case Of Facing Hardship In Your Life – Episode 314

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[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. On today’s episode of the Prosperity Podcast, we’re going to be talking about preparing for a disaster or a hardship in your life. And we’re going to give you some specific tips and recommendations. So Kim, we would love to hear your insights as we start off this episode today. Well, you know, it’s interesting. So many people just want to bury their heads in the sand as it relates to any kind of natural disaster preparedness. So I’m talking about what happens in your community and in your family if a hurricane comes through or some tropical storm or something that causes a disruption, basically just even in electricity. I mean, forget whether maybe cell phone towers are down and a variety of other things

[00:52] that tend to go with that. But what happens in your family if you don’t have cell phones and you don’t have electricity? So having some very specific things happening for your family that you can do with a couple hundred dollars and a quick trip to the grocery store will put your family in so much better of a situation than 90% of your community. Because it is amazing how fast a grocery store empties out of batteries, water, non-perishable food when there’s any type of a storm. Because grocery stores are dealing in just-in-time delivery these days. They don’t have the stores, the like areas in the back with massive extras that stores typically used to have. And so you as a family will want to do this.

[01:51] So I’ve got just a couple really basic tips. And then Spencer, I know you’ve dealt with this before and I love your tips as well. So kick it off. You’ve got a few tips and we would love to hear those and I’m going to share some insights too. So I think one of the simplest things to do is every time you go to the grocery store for the next like 10 trips, grab an extra flat of water bottles and throw it in the back of a closet. Like every closet in your house should have a flat of water bottles. A piece of cake doesn’t cost that much money. It’s not going to really be in the way. You don’t need extra storage space. Just shove it under the clothes and you’ll have water because you really want to be able to survive not just the 72 hours that is often recommended,

[02:33] but a good four or five days without water if needed. So that’s my first tip. Okay, water. So that’s one of the essentials that we’re going to need for anything. What’s your second tip? That is batteries and or types of ability to charge things that are not electricity dependent. So like you might have a solar lantern, you might have a wind up flashlight, of course, regular flashlights and batteries, you know, a lot of people have candles. That’s fine. And you need to be extra careful of an open flame. So I really encourage just flashlights and batteries till the cows come home. Piece of cake. You just want to cycle through those batteries so that they’re not sitting in the drawer forever and ever and ever.

[03:17] So just get a couple extra sets of batteries, a couple extra flashlights. Like I said, maybe a wind up flashlight or two, maybe some type of lantern that works without a whole big series of gas and etc. I know in the camping stores they have lanterns that work really well these days. And again, you just want to have a source of light. So water and light. OK, so we’ve got water, energy. What would the next be? Well, it’s obviously food. You got to have some food. So my easy solution here is grab a couple extra cans of tuna every time you’re at the grocery store, throw those in the back of the pantry, extra cans of vegetables, just anything that’s nonperishable that can hang out in your house, just in your normal mode of operation.

[04:01] Really, really easy solution. And then, of course, if you want to take it a little step further, there are all kinds of companies. You can find them on the web these days that will provide food in very efficient environments like Boxed Up, All Perfect, where families that like to store food for a year, as an example, these people buy from these sources where there’s food that is storable and safe and packaged neatly. And usually the packages are pretty expensive because they’re like food for an entire family for a week or something. But they can be an additional way to store some food for your family. OK, so it sounds like those items you mentioned handle the majority of the things in the first 72 hours or first couple of days.

[04:48] Is there anything else you’d like to tack on that list? Well, I have a fun one that I’m going to save for a little later, because I want to hear you first. OK, so the way that I look at this is not necessarily preparedness as far as saying, oh, I’ve got to have all of these items. I’m looking at it as in time. And here’s the reason why. Close friend of mine was in Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria, and it was a devastating storm. And the thing that he did right was that he prepared himself and he had food, water, batteries, the items you mentioned, and it made it possible that he didn’t have to leave for over a week. He got to stay at home and yes, his freezer, the food started to thaw. So he got to do a barbecue with all of his neighbors.

[05:38] So it was great that the wonderful thing about it is it gave him time. So he didn’t have to sit in lines at the gas station. He didn’t have to do all of those other things. So I’m going to add a couple of things to the list. One is have some cash on hand with smaller bills and that cash on hand is what you can use in case electricity is down and you have to go to the store. Credit card machines aren’t going to be working. The next thing is I have some radios so that our family can communicate. And you can pick these up on Amazon for under $40. And I’ve got a couple of radios that sit inside of a bag. So if ever a disaster comes, our family knows, hey, we’ve now got a radio for the parents and a radio for the kids.

[06:26] And then the other thing that we have is a family plan. So if there happens to be a fire, an earthquake, we know where to meet. And it may just be across the street at the lamp post, or it could be down the street at a friend’s or family’s house, but by having a plan, and we simply did this on a family walk one evening, we said, Hey, if an earthquake ever came, here’s where we’re going to meet. And with little kids, it’s almost like a fun adventure saying, oh, cool, this would be great. So those are some of the things that we’ve done and are prepared. I love it. There is a large article on this that I’m sure is webbable in the National Geographic that they put out a whole bunch of additional suggestions,

[07:09] kind of depending on how big of an area of concern this is for you. And of course, some parts of the country way worse than others, et cetera. What’s so cool about this is that I think a lot of people, this runs in the back of their head as a, oh, what if a little bit of a possible concern or fear, and if you’ll take the six steps that we just lined out, all of which take very little time and money, then you can cross this concern off your list and handling that kind of thing mentally enables you to be so much more free and confident about going forward in your life, just knowing that this area is solved and that this is handled, taken care of, checked off for your family. And that’s part of where my last tip is we wrap up is going to come

[07:57] is one of those areas that I think a lot of people just have floating around in the backs of their minds. And let’s just get those things solved. So whatever else is floating around in the back of your mind, find a solution, find help. And even if you can only take a baby step in that direction, get that help, get it done, cross it off your list so that you can be mentally free and psychologically, emotionally free to move forward and focus on other things. Yeah, absolutely. I’m actually going to steal the thought of what you would normally say. And I’m going to relate being prepared for an emergency. It comes from the savings principle, because when you have the savings and that habit, which means you took the work and the effort to do that,

[08:46] you don’t have an emergency in your life. And when you have water and food and batteries and you have a plan, now you don’t have an emergency or your emergency is greatly decreased. And this very much falls in line with a principle of prosperity. Now, sure, we’re talking about a disaster and that doesn’t sound prosperous, but planning and preparing it is going to make it so that it may feel like an adventure to children instead of a disaster. It’s funny. It’s the one of two occasions where I am actually OK with the word plan, because as a general rule of thumb, that’s a four letter word to me because it assumes that we’ve made a bunch of assumptions and it’s all going to turn out the way that we quote

[09:32] planned. And yet, like you talked about a family plan, you could call it a family strategy if you wanted. But the fact is that you have thought through it. You have assumed all the things that you could possibly assume. You’ve taken action on those assumptions and then you’ve done something about it. And that’s the important part. And so it’s preparation that enables that plan to then go into effect if it’s ever needed. That’s a wonderful thing. So for listeners, I have a little different of a call to action today. Since the episodes also go live on the blog post, you’re able to make comments on there. And so if you find this episode through one of the social channels or if you hear this episode from the website,

[10:21] we would love to hear your comments on how you prepare yourself or your family. And so leave those inside of the comments. And if you happen to be shy and you don’t want to be social, then send an email to hello at partners for prosperity dot com. And let us know how you are going to create a family strategy or a family plan for any types of emergencies. Awesome. So I want to add in this little hint that I was saving for the end to get you to listen to all that we had to say. And it’s about a little bit different subject matter, but it is still in the area of preparedness. And it’s just come up recently in a couple of situations that I’m aware of. So I just always want our clients to have the best lives

[11:05] that they possibly can have. And as we know, life on this earth ends in something called death. And unless you know differently, that is a guaranteed event. And so because we do not know the time of that event, being prepared in my mind also means having your end of life environment dialed in, ready to go. Now, this may seem really weird for, say, a 22 year old to do, but our family has had a very young adult pass on recently, not in our family, but we were aware of one. And so this was a wake up call to me because a lot of times I would say, yeah, you can worry about that end of life stuff when you’re like 40 or 50. Or, you know, a lot of people, it’s 70 or 80 before they’re even thinking about it.

[11:49] And yet in this situation, it could have gone so much more smoothly if once you become an adult, so literally at age 18. But let’s even bump that forward. The typical four years later, when somebody graduates from college, that’s the time you’re getting all of your adulting going, right? You’re getting an apartment, you’re getting car insurance, you’re maybe switching your cell phone over to your own plan, etc, etc. Let’s add in a common act of an uncommon thing. And that is to get your end of life straightened out. So what I mean by that is decide whether you want a service like a funeral service or you want cremation and no service or you want a big party or whatever it is. And I have something to share that I just think is the best service

[12:36] in the whole wide world. And it’s called Heritage Cremation Provider dot com. So clearly it’s cremation service. But here’s what’s important for you to know. If when somebody passes on, you dial 9-1-1, you are in the clutches of the funeral industry. And it will be $15,000 later on the small side, up to $30,000 later on the large side without a blink of an eye. And that is not for everybody a good expense. Some people like to go that way. That’s fine. No judgment. And yet I want our family of listeners to know that there are alternatives. And so Heritage Cremation Provider dot com is a nationwide service where you call their 800 number as soon as you realize that somebody has passed on and they will take care of the rest of it.

[13:26] Again, if you call 9-1-1, you’re in the clutches of the funeral service. And so if you don’t want that, then you are wise to not call 9-1-1. Have this 800 number available. It’s not a prepaid service. You don’t have to do anything ahead of time. You just have to call the 800 number at Heritage Cremation Provider dot com instead of 9-1-1. I’m not connected to them in any way. I just love the fact that we have choices and I want our clients to know about them is a great option. I didn’t even know about that. And to clarify one piece, if it is an emergency, obviously you dial 9-1-1, but it’s so wonderful when it’s not an emergency. You can actually have some clarity and I would imagine they’re experienced

[14:11] and they’re going to make it a lot more calm and it’s going to be a lot more comfortable for you. So wonderful advice that other people can do and take care of in their preparedness. So thank you for listening to the podcast today. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you, visit us at Partners for Prosperity dot com. If you liked this episode, make sure you subscribe and leave a review.