Dealing with unforeseen expenses can be confusing especially in an event where room is not created for this exigency.
Unexpected expenses may result from inflation in the market resulting in increase in food items, sudden hike in fuel prices, home maintenance, sudden illness, loss of job, sudden increase in house rent.
Even though experts advise that one should have an emergency fund, no one ever plans for or anticipate sickness, loss of property, fire outbreak, car breakdown and such uncontrollable events as every human being hope for the best.
To ease yourself the stress of emergency and sudden expenses critically assess your situation to find ways of filling the lope holes in your budget.
You may need to restructure your budget to accommodate such expenditure and ensure you follow it strictly.
You can ask for clarification on whose duty it is to fix an item in a rented apartment instead of going ahead to fix it all alone. Seeking for clarification may afford you the advantage of knowing that the landlord has made a provision for such repairs or that it requires contributions from other tenants.
Your emergency savings could be handy in this situation. But if the expenses is beyond the fund in your emergency account or you don’t even have an emergency account other saving accounts could be your saving grace.
You can forego some financial plans already made if you think such plans can wait till future date.
Selling items that are not in use is another way of funding unexpected expenses. Instead of keeping items you don’t need to occupy space, you can give them away for a fee to meet your immediate needs.
You can also ask for help from relatives and friends in form of money gifts or even ask them to give you a loan if that is too much for them instead of dying in a life threatening situation because of lack of funds.
However, avoid borrowing money from people who request you pay an interest on the money borrowed even if you don’t have the principal to pay as more often than not, the interest paid on the money borrowed far exceeds the principal over a period of time.
Hope Ikwe
