Are you working feverishly to meet your financial goals?
August 16th, 2008 | by mbhunter |
This week NetFlix’s distribution system went down in a big way for three days. Getting videos to its customers is the largest chunk of what it does, so not being able to do this is a big problem for NetFlix. They stand to lose a few customers and stand to pay some refunds to affected customers as it is. They stand to lose a lot more if the hiccup goes on much longer, which is why they were "working feverishly" to fix the problem.
This is the nature of business. A business absolutely needs to retain its profitable customers. It does this by constantly giving those profitable customers better reasons to stick around. In other words, the customer is always asking: "What have you done for me lately?"
NetFlix has been good at keeping its customers happy, and it’s only on very rare occasions that big problems like this occur at NetFlix. "Working feverishly" to fix the problem and to make amends with its affected customers is the best it can do now.
Even as successful as NetFlix is at what it does, I doubt its employees are in this kind of crisis mode all the time. Not that they’re slugs when things are going well, but they aren’t putting in lots of overtime and popping antacid as I bet a few were when they were losing about $1 million a day.
Nor do many of us work feverishly all the time to save for college, save up an emergency fund, save for retirement. There are times to be in financial crisis mode, like when you’re facing foreclosure or when you need to reduce your debt. It’s in the good times that we might do well to save with more urgency, since prevention is rarely urgent. It’s important, but not urgent.
As expenses crop up, as a job loss happens, as illness affects a family member, though, the ability to important things without urgency gives way to taking care of urgent matters just to stay afloat. Then one has to work feverishly.
This might not convince you of the need to work feverishly to meet your financial goals, but what about these:
- Do you have goals? As in dollar amounts, by a certain time? If not, it’s not surprising that you’re not working feverishly toward goals that don’t exist. (How often do you get to see a sentence with a quadruple negative?)
- Do you know what you’re facing? Do you know what your tax rates will be when you retire? What will a dollar buy you? How much will a gallon of gas cost? Will you be able to draw on the Social Security you contributed to all of those years?
- Are your spending patterns consistent with your goals and what you’ll be facing? If not, are you motivated to fix that?
- Are you ready to ask yourself, "What have I done for me lately?" Looking at yourself as a business with at least one customer (maybe other loved ones, too) might bring a little more urgency to what you do every day. No one will care about what happens to you more than you do, and most won’t care at all what happens to you.
Perhaps it’s not wise to go through life on the verge of an ulcer but it’s probably wise to have a healthy fear of outliving one’s money.
6 Responses to “Are you working feverishly to meet your financial goals?”
By ToughMoneyLove on Aug 16, 2008 | Reply
Even folks who are careful with their budget when money is tight have a tendency to relax when they have a windfall or extra income and spend it. I agree that this is the moment to bear down and put those extra funds to work for you, not into more “stuff.”
By Steward @ My Family's Money on Aug 16, 2008 | Reply
I think I am a fan of quick bursts of intensity to fix problems. I think some people call it Gazelle intensity (especially when referring to getting rid of debt), but I think it applies to a lot of things - even positive financial goals. By focusing on fixing something or improving something with a lot of intensity for a short period of time you can get a lot done and then ride out the benefits until you have enough energy or desire to improve it more later.
By Fern on Aug 18, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for the prodding. I’m supposed to be contributing $500 monthly to my taxable retirement account (on top of the 15% to 401k and fully-funded IRA), so i will do that today. thanks again!
By Patrick on Aug 19, 2008 | Reply
Interesting post. Would you be interested in syndicating your content on the home page of my site? It’s an online community of finance professionals ( http://www.wallstreetoasis.com ). I could add an RSS feed that will allow me to promote your blog posts to my home page (when i think it will lead to a good discussion and/or is appropriate), but I wanted to make sure you were comfortable syndicating first. The syndicated post would have a link back to your original post. Thanks, Patrick (you can reach me at wallstreetoasis@wallstreetoasis.com if you have any questions).
Also, if you are willing to provide a link to wallstreetoasis.com that would be much appreciated.
By PDamian on Aug 19, 2008 | Reply
Steward, thanks for writing. When it comes to saving, I’ve never been able to sustain a gazelle-like intensity for more than four to five months at a time, after which I go a little stir crazy and splurge on things like dinner at my favorite upscale restaurant and a hundred dollars’ worth of books and CDs at Barnes & Noble. My splurges never last more than a week or so and never cost me more than about $300 total, and they’ve never come between me and my monthly goal of $1000.00 savings minimum, but I used to feel terribly guilty about them. Over time, I’ve come to regard them as a much-needed pressure valve, and I try not too beat myself up too much over them. As long as I’m meeting my 1K monthly quota, I figure I’m okay. Focusing on a goal for short bursts of intensity does indeed get you to goal, as long as you continue to experience those short bursts over the long term.
By Savings Toolbox on Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
Excellent comparison. People do tend to react financially during tough times. Being more progressive about money can certainly relieve the stressors of the tough times/emergency situations.
With so many options avilable for consumers to save money, it’s important people understand the need for savings. We did an article about one of the options that you can read here http://www.savingstoolbox.com/2008/08/18/should-you-open-an-online-savings-account/ . It’s also important to remember to start teaching principles of savings to the young in order to instill the importance of saving money early.
Thanks for a great article!