I very rarely stress over money.  I think there are so many other things in life that are so much more important than money.  If everyone in my family is healthy- then I am happy.  When something terrible happens it just shows how unimportant money really is.

But lately I find myself getting a little worried over money.  We are in the midst of trying to buy a house.  Everything seems to be incredibly over-priced.  I thought this was buyers market but the choices are slim and what is available is terrible.  It’s frustrating.  In order to get the house we want I’m afraid we’re going to have stretch our already tight budget.  We’ll probably get enough from the sale of our house to live off of for a year.  So, I know we have a year to get ourselves situated and get our business running better.  But I am just stressing over it.

Also, I’m stressing over our taxes.  This is the first year we have had our business and I used a tax program but I am so worried about our taxes.

I know there are things in life that are much, much worse.  I am thankful to have a healthy family and know that is the only thing that matters.

Our economy is in rough shape right now.  I’m sure you have noticed.  I mean, how can you not notice?  With the economy the way that it is, I am sure that most of you have been affected in some way.  I know we have definitely felt the impact.  In the past we used to put quite a bit of money away into our savings account.  Not anymore.  We are barely getting all of our bills paid.  So, what do you do when you are in that situation and you need some money right away?  You can’t wait until the next payday.  Well- you could look into payday loans.  This is something to only use in an emergency- certainly not something you should use all of the time.  But if you are in a rough situation you may want to consider it.

The other day I got a phone call from the insurance company who insures our cars and our home.  They wanted to talk to me about life insurance.  I was busy at the time and told them no.  But since then I have been thinking about how we don’t have any life insurance.  If something happened to one of us I don’t know what the other one would do.

We are young but talking about term life insurance is something George and I need to do.  So I was looking today at Financial One and checking out the life insurance rates to see how much it would cost for us to get some life insurance.  The rates really vary quite a bit- I found from $17 to $45 per month for me.  So, obviously when it comes to term insurance you need to shop around and find the best rates. 

It’s not something anyone likes to think about or talk about, but it is very necessary to do.

I try to take a lot of precautions to keep the identities of myself and my family safe.  It is a scary world where someone will try to take your identity and use it for themselves and ruin your name and your credit.  What are some of the things you can do to keep your identity safe?

You can be very careful about shopping online.  Make sure you are using sites that are secure.  You can shred documents that have your social security number or credit card numbers on them.  You can take all sorts of extra steps to try to prevent someone from stealing your information.  But what about the mail in your mailbox?  While you are at work the mail sits in your mailbox available for anyone to take.  Someone could easily watch your house and figure out your schedule and steal your mail.  That is why a locking mailbox is such a great idea.

Check out this video of how secure a locking mailbox from Mail Boss is:

With one of those in front of your house you can be sure that no one will be stealing your mail and your personal information.  Although the price might seem a little high at first think about how much more it would cost you if your private information was stolen.