Giving Thanks for Low Stress Personal Finance

Personal finance can be very stressful. Here are five major areas that we feel fortunate about.

Limited Debt
The bad news is that we have a mortgage to pay. The good news is that we have no student loan, car loan, or credit card debt to worry about. The less you owe, the better you feel and the less you worry.

Emergency Fund
A financial pessimist could spend their whole life worrying about what bad things might happen to their bottom line. Luckily, we’ve built up a sufficient emergency fund so that we don’t have to spend time stressing out over what might happen.

Health Insurance
Our whole family is very thankful that my grandmother has recovered amazingly well from a very scary recent health crisis. This incident reminds me of how precious our health is and how important it is to have good health insurance to help protect it. If you’re sick or injured the last thing you want to think about is whether you can afford treatment.

Home/Auto Insurance
As I mentioned above, our mortgage is our biggest financial burden. We’re lucky to have a wonderful insurance company that helps us protect not only our home but also our automobile assets/liabilities. I’m thankful I don’t have to stay up late thinking about major damage to our home or fender benders; I trust our insurance company enough to let them do the worrying for us.

Retirement Savings
Thanks to my parents, I learned the value of a dollar early in life and the importance of saving, saving, saving. We started putting away money for retirement as soon as we could and contributed enough early on that we don’t worry about whether Social Security will be around for us later in life.

Giving Thanks
As I mentioned above, my wife and I have our parents to thank for our financial upbringing. The things we learned early in life have helped us provide for and protect the most important think, our family.

It would be a major oversight if I didn’t mention the Money Writers, Money Blog Network, the M-Network, and rest of the personal finance blogosphere for providing timely, relevant, and personal information on finances for everyone.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ben Edwards, the founder of Money Smart Life, saved up enough to buy a Nintendo back when he was 12 years old. When he used the money to buy shares of Wal-Mart stock instead, he knew he wasn't like the other kids... His addiction to personal finance has paid off for his family and now he's helping you to afford the life that you want. Check him out on the web at Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook.

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