Can I afford to keep my horse?

What happens when you can no longer afford the things that mean a lot to you?

You’ve got a horse in the paddock, a timeshare in Spain and the kids are happy and settled in private education. You’re even able to support an orphanage that you visited while travelling around South Africa.

Life has never been better, income is steady away and the credit is easy to come by to fund the luxury lifestyle…but it can all be shattered with an unexpected income shock.

Whether it’s an illness, redundancy or unforeseen emergency it can be devastating knowing that you can no longer afford the things that are so dear to your heart and part of your daily life.

Yes, these luxuries might sound extreme, but they’re all things that are achievable when money is coming in regularly and the bank is practically throwing the credit at you.

We’ve had clients that have burst in to tears over the thought of having to part with their beloved pet horse “just so they can repay their debts”.

No matter how much we can empathise, it’s impossible to support a budget if there is a deficit and someone is living beyond their means.

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The last thing that anyone wants is to have to get rid of a loved one. We will always try and look at ways of avoiding this by maximising income through ideas like horse-sharing (yes, such a solution exists) or saving money by stabling them for free.

The key to a realistic and sustainable budget is to make sure you’re living within your means. As fuel prices, food costs and taxes continue to increase, it’s becoming increasingly difficult. When you start to struggle financially, one of the first things to consider is making cutbacks to help you live within your means.

This can be easier said than done when there are emotional ties involved. It’s all too easy to pretend that it will get better with time or it’s not as bad as it seems so the reality doesn’t seem so harsh. Just the thought of getting rid of a family pet such as a horse is heartbreaking when you realise you can no longer afford to maintain the costs involved.

And how do you explain to the kids that they have to move away from their friends to a state school where they don’t know anyone? And what do you do with the timeshare that you’ve spent many a holiday in that you can’t even get rid of?

It’s the guilt and embarrassment of realising that you can no longer fund the lifestyle that you’ve become accustomed to which is so hard to deal with.

Unfortunately the reality is that this could happen to any one of us at any time and it may not be the ideal solution but sometimes cutting back on those costly ‘non-essentials’ is the only option. In a lot of situations, our advice is simple: you can’t afford to keep the horse.

Horse or no horse, if you’ve got money worries and want to become debt-free use our online counselling service Debt Remedy, or contact us.