The use of alcohol and/or other substances significantly impacts your life in all areas of wellness, including finances. You may not consider this as you pursue recovery, but recovery from substances can also include recovering your financial health. Realizing the effect of finances on your recovery is one aspect often ignored, but the stress might lead to relapse. Given the risk of relapse, understanding and managing your finances during recovery is of vital importance.
During recovery from alcohol and/or other substance use, you should have some goals to help ensure your financial well-being.
#1. Develop a Budget
Developing a budget is one of the first steps you can take to establish financial wellness. Spend time assessing your needs. Identify your bills, how much you want to save, and your incoming funds to assist you in identifying how much you can spend every month without going over budget. Be realistic. Believing you can pay more than you are able will ruin your budget and make you likely to spend more to compensate.
The first thing to developing your budget is knowing your incoming cash flow. Identify your income and allow for a percentage to be taken out of your pay for taxes. Remember, over-assessing your taxes is better than under-assessing. Over-assessing means you have estimated giving more to taxes than what is taken out and means you may have more money at payday than you expected, primarily if you work an hourly wage job. If you work on a salary basis, you can expect each paycheck to be the same and know your income.
Once you have identified your incoming funds, identify your bills and how you want to pay them best. Identify dates the bills are due and the amount of money you expect to be in your account at that time. Once this is accomplished, you can start to consider saving money.
#2. Developing Savings
Many people cannot emphasize enough the importance of having a certain amount of funds set aside for savings, just in case of an emergency. You might have a car problem or an unexpected medical bill. Having money set aside for emergencies alleviates the stress of unexpected bills. Alleviating the stress of emergency bills helps ensure a reduction in your risk of relapse.
Experts suggest having at least $1,000 set aside, but having that amount set aside is not realistic for everybody. Having at least $500 set aside is also reasonable and perhaps more within your budget.
The more you can set aside every paycheck, means more money you have for emergencies later. Having these funds can mean the difference between being able to manage the stress of an emergency or possibly relapsing under the pressure of a financial crisis.
#3. Ask for Help in Managing Your Money
Many banks help manage finances and can assist you in identifying a budget to fit your needs while still maintaining the option to save some money. There are agencies to help you develop a method to pay off credit card debt and medical bills. Some hospitals provide payment plans.
One important thing to remember is there are always options. You can recover your finances and recover from addiction to alcohol and/or other substances. Recovery takes time, so does financial recovery.
#4. Set Financial Goals
You may have accrued quite a bit of debt during your phase of addiction and the beginning stages of recovery while you tried to figure out how to make your finances work. Do not be discouraged if your finances do not match your needs. You can fix your finances and overcome this barrier.
Budgeting is essential. Another important aspect of budgeting is developing goals to get your debt paid as quickly as possible. If you can pay above the minimum payment, you should attempt to pay the extra amount. Paying extra saves you interest and allows you to pay off your debt more quickly.
Things to Remember
You are not the only person struggling with debt. Many people in the United States struggle with debt and bankruptcy every year. Recovering from what you might believe to be a mountain of debt is possible. Do not give up.
Experiencing relapse during financial stress is not uncommon, but there are ways to help ensure your ability to withstand the stress and be better able to cope with financial emergencies. Do not be afraid to ask for help. So many people struggle under financial stressors when there are resources to help you manage your debts and still have money to meet your needs and save during the month. There are options. Start by building a budget and move from there.
Understanding your finances during your recovery from addiction is critical to assist in avoiding relapse. Developing a plan to cope with financial stressors can aid in the recovery process. Recovery takes time, support, healthy coping strategies, and attention to multiple dimensions of wellness, including financial well-being. If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction to alcohol and/or other substances, you are not alone. You do not need to manage recovery on your own. Help is available to you. At Renaissance Ranch, we offer assistance to men struggling with addiction. We provide support for every part of the recovery process, from detox to sober living to after you finish with our treatment program via the Band of Brothers network. Contact us at Renaissance Ranch by calling (801) 308-8898 today for the help you want and deserve. You do not have to face recovery from addiction alone. Renaissance Ranch is here to help you.