Financial Wellness: Personal Finance Crisis Management

Learn valuable steps in preparing for and responding to a crisis.

Each person should be able to avoid or cope with a financial crisis with proper planning and crisis avoidance techniques which will greatly reduce financial stress and help ensure that they can pay for essentials. This program will address four crisis management subjects which are planning, avoiding crises, coping with crises, and recovery. Each section will discuss several specific steps to take to avoid crises, cope with any that occur, and recover from the financial malady.

The presentation will suggest percentages of the student's funds that should be held in cash, certificates of deposit (CD), mutual funds including high risk - high return programs; and encourage students to avoid unsecure investments such as penny stocks and cryptocurrency. The steps presented are foundational to any discussion of financial well - being but in this program will be focused on preparing for and responding to a crisis. We will talk about the importance of taking at least a day to relax following a financial crisis, another day to plan steps to survive it, and then on the third day carefully and methodically start to implement the steps that he or she has developed. The recovery plan which is typically developed once the crisis is under temporary control can take a week or more to write and may include input from accountants and financial planners. While the facilitator for this class would like everyone to prepare for a crisis and avoid the stress and financial ruin that is caused by it, many people will not be prepared for it and will then struggle to stay afloat. The steps presented in the coping section will help a person to meet their essential needs and stop the financial freefall until they can reach the recovery phase.