When your cash flow decreases, it can be a very hard and frustrating time. You have to wonder how you will manage to pay your bills on time and keep debt at bay. Today, we are discussing how you can deal with decreased cash flow.
Gain Control of Your Cash Flow
The first thing that you have to do is gain control of your cash flow. This means that you need to start tracking your income and expenses closer, increase your income and decrease the amount that you have to spend each month. Once you have analyzed your cash flow you will be able to gain control over it, which will get rid of your decreased cash flow problem.
Raise Your Rates
If you work a brick and mortar job, it can be hard to increase your rates when you want. However, it never hurts to ask your boss for a raise or more hours, especially if you are a great employee. For those of you who are entrepreneurs, you need to raise your rates with clients that you have been catering to for years without letting them down. Furthermore, any new clients that come onboard should be quoted the new rates.
Change Payment Terms
This works for loans as well as your income. For loans often times if your income has drastically decreased you may be able to negotiate a new term. This can work with all sorts of loans from car loans to mortgages.
Usually, for brick and mortar jobs it is standard to be paid bi-weekly. However, if you are being paid monthly or even further apart, you will want to look into being paid more quickly. Freelancers should also change their payment terms to the shortest amount of time. When you have to wait thirty days or more for payment it throws off your accounting each month and you are putting yourself at risk of not being paid for your work.
Capitalize on Your Success
You know what you are good at so use it to your advantage. If you work a brick and mortar job, you can start a side hustle to sell your skills outside of work. For freelancers, you can focus on promoting your bestselling services or products more frequently so you can increase your cash flow.
Closing Thoughts
Just because your cash flow has slowed down, it does not mean that you need to panic and think about going into another field. Instead, it just means that it is time for you to evaluate your income and expenses to see where the problem is. Once you have located the problem and fix it you will be back on track to a positive cash flow, which could be greater than what you were normally used to.