The Worst Of Times, The Best Of Times
The news all around us paints a picture that is not too encouraging. In Malaysia and world wide inflation, record high fuel prices, sub prime crisis and shares prices taking a dive are making many cautious with their money. You too should be cautious with your money but don’t go overboard and don’t panic.
For many years, my wife and I have choose to live a simple life. Not a deprived life, mind you. We go for our vacations overseas (where the currency don’t make us poor people the minute we step out of the plane), we do have special occasions where we eat in nice restaurants and enjoy premium ice cream every few months.
By simple, we choose not to accumulate too many things around us. When we go for vacations, we don’t cart everything back because it is “cheap”. We buy things to give away at Christmas and for birthdays etc. And when we go to the shopping mall, we buy things we need usually to replace things that broke. Even then, more things are creeping into the house and the cupboards are getting full.
So, first off, I suggest a simple life, but you decide what kind of life you want. Then make the money to pay for it. However, if you don’t make the amount of money you need to fund your lifestyle, then you are heading into financial ruin. That’s almost as certain as death and taxes!
Why are these the best of times and the worst of times? In every challenging situation, some will come out better than before and some will end up worst. For example, at the moment, car sales people are hoping for high fuel prices to ensure sales of small fuel efficient cars remains high! Looking a bit further, changes creates opportunities to do things in a different way.
Cost of doing business is rising but smart companies finds ways to run business more efficiently and you should too. For example, in my office, we used to photocopy application forms. When it came time to replace the copier, I suggested a copier with scanning function. Now, we reduce the usage of paper, not to mention storage space, the time to retrieve documents are reduced.
Since cost of transportation increased, another opportunity to pop up is I foresee that more business will be done through the video telephone and internet. What changes and problems do you see that can represent opportunities? They are all around us. If you have the time, you can even create a business out of it.
These truly are The Worst Of Times and The Best Of Times!