March 29th, 2009 | by O.A. Wisen
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In times of economic turmoil, nothing says you have to be a tightwad during a recession. When others are making the effort to tighten their belt and trim down excesses you wouldn’t have to. In fact you can view downturns as opportunities. It is a recurring convention that when the going is good economically people let go of most of their financial inhibitions. But when the times are “hard” (like a freeze in credit, recession, loss of job, etc) most of us revert back to being conservative all the way to being tightwad-dy, and actually decide to take saving a little more seriously than we have in the past. For some, to become savings-conscious during bad times can help salvage current situations, but for others it may be too late for correction.

How To Start Taking Charge

When others are tightening their belt and are concerned, you can be relatively stress free if during the times of plenty you apply the principles (saving and holding back) “forced” on all  during a recession. Done ahead of time, it becomes a smart choice, and not a cutthroat necessity for survival. Compared to times of scarcity, it is usually during an overflow of abundance that a nice surplus can be saved.

By doing away with the general faulty convention, and taking better advantage of abundance when a recession does come around and people are panicking, you are positioned to pick up investments at a great discount which your flustered counterparts have discarded in a flood of panic for survival. Then you just sit and wait. When the storm is over and the calm comes, you can sell back for greater profits. That is an example of how you turn a seemingly bad occurrence into an opportunity. With a trained and smarter mindset, you can take this exercise further by looking for the opportunity in every adversity – there will always be one. You can only see these opportunities if you have a clear head and are not in a state of panic, you can avoid a state of panic of you are confident in your position, confidence comes from preparation and due diligence (effort and consistency), and you can only prepare ahead of something if you have the insight and foresight.

Does Opportunity Always Knock?

If you feel like you missed an opportunity during an economic downturn, but are relatively young, you will probably have an opportunity to catch another wave in the not too distant future. No matter how much we try to streamline an economy there will always be dips and dives in the market. I recall the tech bubble that peaked in 2000, and my thinking that I had lost an opportunity to invest and make profit. Then it bust. After that, for some reason, I wasn’t knowledgeable enough to realize that the economy will climb back up again. I didn’t make any attempt to do anything, and the market recouped. Next, all the houses were expensive and home values only seemed to keep climbing. Then I felt bad because I missed another opportunity again – then it bust and then asset value went back to discounted prices. Unlike some opportunities that may come around once in a lifetime, financial opportunity could be one of many that seem to keep re-presenting themselves.

Finally, the lesson for the future – Let us all be a little better than we are now with thinking and planning a couple of steps ahead, and not always thinking things will sort themselves out. Sometimes it’s a good approach other times it’s a bad and lethargic approach. There are too many instances to recount where such a mindset led to disastrous repercussions. When we leave things to their whims, it may not be the desired solution that is arrived at. Sometimes, getting the desired (or optimal) solution will require some effort, diligence, and most importantly consistency on our part.

Chance favors the prepared mind – Louis Pasteur

Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity – Oprah Winfrey

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