bettymae1121
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2010
Not sure if I can think of a challenge worse then cancer. I guess maybe death? But that's what I have life insurance for.
I do see your point. However, I guess maybe I prefer to stay on the safe side. Too many things can go wrong with investments and then if something happens, there goes your money and you're stuck with a car payment. These days it's hard to find any low to moderate risk investments that have a decent payback. The stock market is back down again, bonds & treasury notes don't pay much. Probably the best investment a person could make would be picking up cheap foreclosed real estate, but even then it could take 5-7 years to see it go up, and that's after you've paid property taxes, hoa fees, etc. By far the best investment I think a person can make is to save up and pay cash and have zero risk.
I know that catastrophic "sharp end of the stick" things happen. But I believe with planning ahead you can definitely lessen the impact. If you prepare for emergencies, then amazingly enough when the do happen, they aren't emergencies anymore.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not making light of your illness or any other challenge your family has faced. And I absolutely agree that being prepared like you were made a huge, huge difference for you. Had these things happend to someone in debt and with no savings, the outcome would have likely been bankruptcy.
What I'm trying to say is that sometimes disasters that strike can be so huge that they overwhelm any preperations we make. We can do our best but sometimes you just can't overcome what life throws at us. Case in point, a lot of people that lost homes in Katrina. People that had huricane riders and flood insurance thought all their bases were covered. But the homeowners insurance said the house was a loss due to flood damage and wouldn't pay, and the flood insurance said it was wind damage and wouldn't pay, so the homeowner is stuck with a mortgage on a house that is unlivable. Who foresees insurance companies weasling out of their payments? Sure those people sued, but lawsuits take years, if not decades, and what do you do in the meantime? They did everything right (had the right insurance), and still lost it all, and no one can prepare for that kind of financial loss, unless they were independently wealthy to begin with.
As bad as things get, there can always be something even worse lurking around the corner, and no one can possibly prepare for it all. It does come down to luck sometimes. That doesn't mean we shouldn't prepare for life's curve balls, but it's just not possible to cover all possiblities.