Today I’m going to walk you through the fundamentals of an exercise you might find a little strange, but it’s a very important lesson to learn either way. We’re going to dissect the elements of what it means to prepare for a windfall, in other words you have to prepare yourself for the receipt of a large sum of money, paying special attention to what you’d do with it. How are you going to spend it? Are you going to save some of it? Are you going to invest it?
Why prepare for a windfall?
The singular reason why every economically active individual should entertain the prospect of preparing for a windfall is because at some or other point in your life, you’re actually going to get your windfall. Okay, so you might be in the rather unfortunate situation of already having gotten your particular windfall and you conspired to squander it, but even then you should still prepare yourself for the possibility of a second windfall. It may just come and at least this time you’ll be much better prepared.
If the second windfall never comes, you can then use the knowledge you have to perhaps be of help to others who have received a large sum of money, or you might come into some information about how you can effectively generate your second windfall. This is a position of great power and this will put you well on your way to financial freedom.
The preparation areas
Okay, so what you need to prepare in anticipation of a windfall includes where and how you’re going to store the money, so that it at the very least retains its value and doesn’t get chipped-away at by the effects of time and factors such as inflation; what you’re going to do with it – you don’t have to allocate it all to one activity; and how it’s going to impact your life. The last thing you want is to be in a worse off position after the pile of cash has come and gone, something which often happens with lucky winners of big sums of money.
Windfalls can come at any time
It’s true – windfalls come in different shapes, forms and sizes and they can come any time really. They often come at the most unexpected of times, such as finding out that a wealthy relative of yours died and left a property for you to inherit. This happens quite a lot in our industry and the faces of the beneficiaries never get boring by way of how they just light up upon getting the good news.
Unfortunately because of not being prepared, many of these beneficiaries simply opt to sell the inherited property and then proceed to squander the hefty sum of money to follow.
The bottom line is that a windfall can come at any given time, whether through winning some good money at the slots machines or indeed if you might have been involved in a Las Vegas car accident for which you get compensated following some very competent legal representation.
So you need to be prepared, always.
