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Friday, May 8, 2020

The act of pivoting

Learning how to pivot then new information comes it is key to long term success.

Today I start my sprinklers then promptly forgot and let my dog outside.  Then he quickly chew off the head of the sprinkler.  So a minor flood happened in my backyard.  Now this isn't the first time he has done something like this.  This is the first time for something of this scale ( 6 of the 8 heads needed to be fixed).

I was frustrated because repairing these are annoying.  Not difficult or that time consuming just annoying.  So I pivoted and decided to use repairing the sprinklers as part of home school.  I got the tools out and show the kids how to turn on the sprinklers and how them how to fix the sprinkler heads with the special tools.   Was a quick 20 min learning exercise and the kids had fun. 

This is the same thing with your finances.  Heck even the most buy and hold investor Warren Buffet just sold all his share of airline stocks, because things changed when he first decided it was a good investments and the long term for airlines don't look good.

This can mean you need to change your eating habits or that vacation you were planning.  I was planning on going to Seattle with travel rewards to see a baseball game. We had to cancel that. Now it is looking like maybe no vacations this year.  Our vacation trips to see family are now in doubt.   Somethings are easy to pivot from while others are not. 

Right now change vacation plans aren't fun, but they are easy.  What happens when a birthday comes up or Christmas. Or long term things like saving for College.  If things are tight now what does it looks like next month or the month after that.

I know there has been lots of talk about stimulus or more stimulus money, but let me real.  What goes around comes around. And one day all this money is going to have to come from somewhere.  All I can say is start saving now.  Save a dollar a week for birthdays or Christmas.  Or start the conversations now that things are tough. Don't completely shield your kids they are smart and understanding.  Talk to your spouse and spending habits.  I'm going to have to do that soon.  One choice my wife decided was to help local business by ordering out once a week.   This has blow out dinning budget which is fine, but our grocery budget got a little fat as well.  We just need to refocus what we buy instead of buying acute things to make dinner for the next couple of days get stuff that can make multiple meals.

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