We all hope and pray that an emergency is something we will never have to deal with. However, it is a sad fact of life that we almost definitely have to deal with one at some point or another in our lives, whether it is a problem with your health or a problem with your house. Whatever it is, being prepared as far as possible will make getting through the rough patches a lot easier. Here, we share a few tips that you can put in place to deal with anything that comes your way.

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Make sure that everything is up to date.

One of the most important things that you can do to prevent any unexpected emergencies is to make sure that everything in your home and in your life is as up to date as possible. For example, if your boiler requires annual checks, make sure that you schedule them. If you have a car, particularly if it is an unreliable or older model, make sure it is serviced regularly, and anything that isn’t quite right is dealt with swiftly. 

 Your own health should be even more important than the material objects in your life. If you don’t feel well, make sure that you go to the doctor, and make sure you go for annual check-ups. If you have any health problems, it’s best to treat them as early as possible to ensure the best possible recovery. Likewise, if any family members don’t feel well, encourage them to get medical treatment as soon as you can – keep an eye on any moles that you or your family members might have to ensure that they don’t change shape or texture and make sure that you’re all up to date on vaccinations and medications. 

Make sure that you are insured.

Insurance can be one of those things that we think we don’t need – and we hope we won’t need – but without it, things can get very expensive. One of the most important things to have, depending on where you live, is health insurance. Life insurance is also pretty important, especially if you have dependents.  If you are a pet owner, it’s a good idea to have insurance for them – you don’t want the guilty feeling of having to have your dog put down because you can’t afford to get their broken leg treated! You should also make sure that you get home insurance – if your house gets broken into or flooded, then you might lose some sentimentally valuable possessions, but at least you’ll be able to make significant repairs easily.

Remember that there are always solutions.

It is all well and good being prepared in advance for emergencies, but sometimes, things are thrown at us that we couldn’t possibly prepare for. It can take it’s toll financially, so if you need money super quickly, you could opt for a loan. Poor credit can be a barrier to many people, but you can have a look at the guarantor loans calculator to see how much you may be able to borrow. If you are struggling to pay things, make an appointment with your bank and see what they suggest. Remember, they are not the enemy and want to help you find solutions to any financial difficulties that you might be having.

 There are food banks available, and if you’re in the middle of a housing crisis, then shelters will help provide your family with shelter, clean clothing, and food. 

Build up your savings

When you are going through a tough financial patch, knowing that you have savings to fall back on can be incredibly reassuring. While being able to borrow money, as we mentioned above, can help in the short term, it can sometimes cause issues later, so having savings in place if you can is a much better plan.

Try to save as much money every month as you can – as a general rule of thumb, ten percent of your incomings is a good amount to put in a high-interest bank account. However, if you can’t quite stretch to that, it is absolutely fine to put in what you can. You can also look at skimming to try and save a few pennies or the odd quid here or there. 

Sort out escape routes

By this, we mean both physical escape routes and metaphorical ones. In terms of physical ones, you can never ever predict something like a fire, flood, earthquake, or other disasters, which means you have to leave your home quickly.  Make sure that you have your escape planned – you should know a rough area of where your pets sleep at night so you can grab them quickly, and you should ensure that your kids if you have any, know exactly what to do if they smell smoke or notice something strange in your home.  In terms of metaphorical escape, if you need to leave a relationship or start afresh somewhere new quickly for whatever reason, do you have everything you need?

Give children lessons in independence.

Finally, it’s important to raise your kids, if you have them,  to be independent and resilient. If you have to be out for the evening, then you want your teenagers to be able to make dinner for themselves – or at the very least to know how to call for pizza! If you are stuck on the way to doing the school run, can they get home by themselves? Help your kids to be contributing members of your household – and society in general – by assigning them tasks to do so that if they have to take on more responsibility one day because you’re tied up elsewhere, it won’t be too much of a shock to their systems. If your kids are independent, then they’ll be able to help out as much in an emergency as they can.