The Serendipity Account
By Melissa Tosetti
It’s impossible to plan for everything.
While it’s important to plan the spending you want to make over the course of the next year, what happens if an opportunity drops into your lap?
Do you whip out a credit card?
Pull from your emergency account?
Putting it on your credit card can saddle you with unwanted debt and unplanned interest payments. Your emergency account is to cover essential life expenses if your income stream gets interrupted, or to pay for critical, life-changing events. If you use it for other purposes, it may not be there when you really need it.
Instead of falling back on those negative spending habits, consider creating a Serendipity Account.
The idea of a Serendipity Account came to me while working with particularly adventurous clients in Massachusetts. Their travel spending frequently included ski adventures and cruising around the Atlantic in their sailboat for months at a time.
During the process of creating their Spending Plan, they told me about an experience they previously had that they wanted to make sure they would be able to be open to again.
They met a family on one of their sailing trips and struck up a friendship. A year or so later, that family called them to say they were sailing through the Panama Canal and wondered if they were available to help them on the voyage. They jumped at the once in a lifetime opportunity and were so glad they did.
While they wanted to be more financially responsible about their known travel, they also wanted to be able to say yes to unanticipated opportunities like the Panama Canal trip. That’s when we came up with the idea of creating a Serendipity Account. A savings account for life’s unexpected opportunities.
Even if you don’t take big trips or sail around the world, you can benefit from setting aside money for life’s unexpected experiences. Accounts don’t have to be just for grand adventures. You can do the same for smaller opportunities such as:
Surprise guests come to town. Enjoy taking them out without it negatively affecting your other financial plans.
Are you an Antiques Hound? A Serendipity Account can allow you to spend even more on that unique find when it pops up.
Favorite band on tour? Grab tickets before they go.
You can think of your Serendipity Account as an Emergency Account for fun!
Melissa Tosetti is a cash flow planning expert, founder of The Savvy Life and author of the international bestseller Living The Savvy Life.
For the past nine years, she’s worked with over 650 individuals and families to create Spending Plans.
To learn about the Spending Plan process, visit The Savvy Life’s Home Page. If you’d like to learn about how The Savvy Life works with financial advisors and their clients visit: The Savvy Life Advisor’s Page.
