Yahoo Finance How to Handle a Major Financial Disruption
When Eric McClain had a new baby on the way in 2008, he found himself unemployed and in the middle of a home renovation. "This was just as the financial crisis was starting," McClain says, which only added to his stress. The unemployment was unexpected, due to a bad fit with a new employer, and it took him about two months to find a new temporary job.
"I had to break all the rules: 'Don't take money out of this account.' 'Don't let debt run up,'" says McClain, who is a financial planner. He emptied out a 529 college savings account and ran up some debt in order to get his family through that tough period. After about 10 months at the temporary job, he found a new position at a financial firm and now co-owns a McClain Lovejoy Financial Planning in Birmingham, Alabama. "Today, things are so much better," he says.
Unexpected financial stress can wreak havoc on your bank account, not to mention emotional well-being, but it's a relatively common experience. According TD Ameritrade's 2015 Financial Disruptions Survey, which included over 2,000 respondents, two-thirds of Americans have experienced a major disruption to their retirement plans, the most common being losing a job or being forced to take a lower-paying one.
"Just because you suffered through a disruption doesn't mean you're immune to another one, so it's critical to have a plan," says Matt Sadowsky, director of retirement and annuities for TD Ameritrade. Home expenses, bad investments, supporting needy family members, accidents and divorce were also among the causes of financial disruptions, which respondents said had a negative effect on their long-term financial plans.
That plan, Sadowsky says, should revolve around saving more and spending less. "That's what the respondents say they would have liked to have done, now that they have been disrupted," Sadowsky says. Without a savings net to fall back on following a job loss, for example, people are forced to sell off retirement investments or dig into accounts designated for other goals, like college savings, as McClain did. Sadowsky recommends having an emergency fund of at least six months' worth of expenses.
Sometimes, the change in circumstances comes about by choice. In her book out this week, "Leap: Leaving a Job with No Plan B to Find the Career and Life You Really Want," Tess Vigeland, former host of public radio's "Marketplace Money," says that sometimes, it makes sense to leave a job, as she did -- but she urges people to be prepared financially. "You need to look at your finances and figure out if you can change your lifestyle to enable this to happen," she says.
In her case, Vigeland says she just reached a point of dissatisfaction with her job as a radio host that made her want to try something new, and she didn't think she could figure out just what that should be without time away from full-time work. "When I look back, I realized I had been unhappy and unsatisfied for longer than I knew," she says, adding that she experienced health issues as a result of that job stress. One day, when she came home and cried for three hours, she knew she had to quit.
"I did some back-of-the-napkin calculations with my husband, and we figured his salary could pay the mortgage with me not working at all," she says. Plus, she planned to take on freelance work.
Vigeland, who is based in the Los Angeles area, also significantly scaled back her spending. "Our lifestyle had to adjust: We didn't go out to dinner as much, we didn't go on big vacation trips and we just did a lot of road trips around California, and that was fine," she says.
Like Sadowsky and McClain, Vigeland recommends saving up for temporary unemployment, whether it's by choice or unexpected. "You need to take a close look at where your money is going: Can you simplify life? Get a less valuable car?" she asks. She also plans on working well past age 65, which makes her less concerned about the fact that she is saving less for retirement today than she did when she had a full-time job.
For McClain, the upside to his stressful experience is that he now relates to his clients who are going through similar trials. His advice to them is to push hard to find a new job as soon as possible. "Time is your enemy," he says. "You don't want to be cavalier and think something is going to come along. You have to go out there and push and push and push." When you have a family to support, the stakes (and stress) are even higher, he adds.
He also urges his clients to pay close attention to managing their emotions. "Don't go and spend a bunch of money on stuff for retail therapy," he says, a trap he's seen clients fall into.
Today, thanks to that earlier experience and a savings cushion, McClain says he's better prepared to handle any financial bumps that come along. "I have more of a mental ability to deal with it and more financial capacity to deal with being out of work for several months."
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