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A financial emergency can strike at anytime and no one is immune or can predict when a financial emergency will happen.  Yet, many people fail to plan adequately for the chance that a financial emergency will occur and are financially devastated when an emergency situation occurs.  There are several steps that you can take to help prepare yourself to be able to handle any financial emergency that occurs and taking these steps will increase your peace of mind and confidence in your financial situation.

Reduce Your Debt Level
The most common reason for financial emergencies causing financial devastation is a high debt level when the financial emergency occurs.  People that are carrying a high debt level often do not have much money saved and have limited opportunities to obtain more money to handle the financial emergency.  In many cases, these people have either put off handling the situation, which could end up costing them even more in the future, or they have to obtain a loan at an astronomical interest rate to have the money to fix the problem.  Paying down your debt level can eliminate these issues and allow you to have money in reserve for handling any problem that arises.

Increase Your Savings
Many people do not realize that obtaining the money for a financial emergency from your savings account is much cheaper than obtaining the money from a lender, mainly due to the amount of interest that will be charged on the loan.  Short term loans have high interest rates and placing the charge on your credit card can result in interest payments of 20% or more.  Both of these options will still cost you less than obtaining a loan from a payday lender, where interest rates often top 300% and the money has to be paid back within 14 days.  Putting more of your salary into a savings account to hold for future needs will reduce the chances that you will need to go to an outside lender to obtain money to handle the situation.
 
The ability to take control of your financial future and take care of any financial emergencies that occur provides many benefits to a person.  Stress levels are reduced because the person does not have to worry about how they are going to take care of the problem.  Health and happiness are also increased because the person will not have to make major sacrifices to be able to handle the issue.  Being able to solve these problems and keep the family finances intact will go a long way towards improving the lives of people that are struck with financial emergencies.