As the Treasury Manager of the company, and the writer of this blog, I try my hardest not to get caught up in it, though I admit it’s hard. As a personal finance writer, I preach to be conservative with your money: save, invest prudently, and keep an emergency fund; and as a financial professional in charge of all of a companies cash I act the same way, because if there is one thing I know, it’s that the party always ends.

Adorning the walls of my office I have hung constant reminders of this: vintage advertisements for Chrysler and Chevrolet. Every time I look up and see the ad for “The New 1967 Chevrolet Pickup” or the “Silver Anniversary Edition Chrysler New Yorker,” I think about what their management would have said at that time had someone approached them to announce that their company would go bankrupt. As much as I’d like to think they’d sit down and ask “how? when?” I have a feeling that they would have laughed it off. After all it was the heyday of the automobile!

Think about approaching an internet startup in 2000 (really, any startup will do), with the same information. Money was being handed out left and right, it was a huge party!, but the vast majority of them got caught up in the party and never looked at the bottom line. For a prime example, watch the movie e-dreams which follows the rise and fall of kozmo.com.

What about telling Bear Stearns in 2005? Worldcom or Enron in 2000? Blockbuster in 1999? All of these companies were at the peaks of their “Party” stage in these times, only to go drastically downhill a few short years later.

With all this said, I’m not against the “party,” in fact I love the party stage it’s fun and very exciting, but like any party, you have to party like the party will end, or else you wake up in the bushes wondering where your clothes went.

In personal finance partying like the party will end means saving, planning for retirement, and keeping an emergency fund, all while still enjoying your money. In the business world, that means always keeping an eye on costs (I just saved the company $15k by changing vendors for deposit tickets), managing the funds prudently (and safely), always striving for efficiency, and growing the business at a manageable pace.

If you stick with this advice, the party will last longer, and you’ll be prepared if it abruptly ends.

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