Moving past 11th hour inspiration

BY ARETHA GRAVES

Chronic tardiness to school or work, late assignments, expired license (plates or permits), what do they all have in common? Someone was moving in a frenzy and a panic in reaction to something that wasn’t necessarily a surprise. When moving to become more mature, more financially successful, more personally responsible, community members must treat time, mindfulness, and preparation as resources as valuable as money. In fact, time is more valuable than money. In time, fortunes can be regained, jobs can be replaced, material possessions can be recovered, but lost time can NEVER be replaced. One can mend broken relationships, but childhood cannot be relived, or important events be replayed. 

Time management, preparation, and mindfulness are disciplines that come from hours, days, years of training. They may not come easily to folks who grew up in chaotic households. Inexperienced parenting, violent households, or traumatic experiences such as extreme poverty or homelessness may not have allowed the regularity of life where such training could take place. It has been this writer’s experience that some “11th hour” habits were a resistance to maturity, especially financial maturity. 

There was a workshop attendee that admitted that she would wait to pay her cable bill until the truck was outside, ready to physically disconnect the service from her home. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the money, it was that she wanted to “keep” it until the threat of a cutoff was imminent. After a discussion with the servicer in the company truck, he told her that he would happily come out to collect the payment, however, she was charged extra because he had to make the trip. She had never considered that her choice to put off paying the bill put her further in debt. So, unsurprisingly, each month she had a harder time managing the budget because the bill was larger. 

In a Financial Literacy Workshop, this was a groundbreaking moment. Everyone had an epiphany; there was some bill that each participant had shirked until the last minute, using their funds to enjoy a desire or impulse. Consequently, the dreaded bill became even larger, having incurred a late fee, the penalty for breaking the agreement for timely payment. This extra money might as well have been a gift to the utility companies; paying it did not enhance or increase the service that was received. 

Society has a place for the 11th hour population, because, if you don’t have a plan for your money, someone else always does. Initially, untimely payments incurred late fees as a penalty and a deterrent for non-compliance. Eventually, they are seen as a resource to some companies and their impulsivity a means of generated profit. These companies will extend a small amount of credit to folks with bad habits, not so much to offer a chance to build credit, but to capitalize off lax repayment habits and undisciplined spending. The interest attached to the credit is outrageous, the fees and penalties extremely high. With a continued pattern of bad habits, a customer will be in considerably more debt that could snowball and quickly become unmanageable.

Poor time management can be costly as well. Having no idea what to wear from day to day, what to eat, and when bills are due may seem like freedom, but in reality, only small children are supposed to have that type of freedom without consequence. Meal prep, wardrobe prep, and preplanned payments of regular expenses can save money and bring peace of mind; desperation to solve regular challenges can force people to spend what they do not have and agree to terms that they would not normally accept. 

During the workshops, participants learned to use their crockpots more often, brew their own coffee, and pack their lunches. That, in addition to paying bills on time, freed up hundreds of dollars each year and kept their tension levels down about fear of collections and cutoffs. Managing windfalls to pay fixed quarterly or annual bills builds of a sense of confidence and control that changed the customer’s outlook on life and enables folks who had previously run from structure and rules of adult engagement to see their goals through control and self- determination. 

It pays to plan and prepare, and to elevate credit reports, scores, and overall mental health, it pays to put in the work well before it’s due.