Mr. Penny Pincher: The Warmth of Financial Security

There may be nothing worse as a child than having a nightmare. All the good in the world is sucked away and replaced with a night of restless sleep and anxiety. In order to stave off the demons swimming around in a young mind, children often turn to their parents for safety. This is certainly what happened in my case. Whenever I had a nightmare, I’d crawl into my parents room and ask my Mom if I could stay with her for a little while so I could fall asleep. 

Immediately at ease, I’d drift off to sleep with nothing but happy thoughts. 

Wanting to feel safe never goes away. This past week, my wife was dealing with a bad head cold. Rather than keeping me up at night with the coughing and sneezing that often accompanies a cold, she opted to sleep in the other room. Some people may see this as a reprieve from the mundane of having to share a bed with someone else. A vacation if you will from the shared marital bed, allowing you to live the single life for a brief period of time. 

Personally, I have no desire to be in bed by myself. I much prefer having my wife asleep beside me. Her time away this week gave me time to ask myself why. Why do I prefer to have her in the bed rather than being alone? 

One reason is that I love my wife and always want her to be around. That’s the easy answer; however, I wanted to dig deeper than that. As I unfolded the layers and got to the root of the reason, the conclusion was easy and crystal clear once it became evident: I feel comfortable and safe having her beside me. 

Anyone that’s heavily in debt will tell you the stress and lack of certainty can be overwhelming. A helpless feeling of despair begins to take hold. Far from the warmth of a mothers hug or the comfort of your spouse asleep beside you, money becomes an albatross around your neck. Money can be cold, hard and unfeeling with no regard for you or your family’s future. 

It can also be the gateway to a happy life that can be shared with others as you see fit. Having an understanding that you’re in control of the input and output is the first step. No one is going to save you from a mountain of bad financial decisions that have been made over the years. 

The good news is, there’s also no one in your way to stop you from being as successful as you want to be. Adjusting your mindset reveals that you’re in charge of your success. The money nightmare only ends if you own your past mistakes and make better decisions in the future. 

There’s more good news to share. Once you’re no longer in debt, you have the ability to provide comfort and safety to those in need. 

There is nothing better than knowing you have the financial ability to help someone you love. Good money management becomes a gift that can be shared with others. It’s no different than wrapping a warm blanket around your child when they’re cold or listening to your spouse drift off to sleep beside you. The comfort that’s felt knowing you’re safe and you’re keeping those within your inner circle safe due to debt avoidance is hard to quantify.  

Perhaps the greatest reward of financial freedom isn’t the money itself, but the sense of security it provides when the people you love need you most. Just as I once found safety in my mother’s arms and now find it beside my wife, it;s nice to know that when life’s nightmares come knocking, we’ll have built something strong enough to weather the storm.