Financial Wellness When You’re Sick

The key to financial wellness when you’re severely ill is forethought.

It is thinking ahead to what may be BEFORE you get sick. It’s considering how to increase the odds of positive outcomes, and how to mitigate the negative outcomes. In this way, good financial health during a crisis pivots around effectively managing risk now.

What is Financial Wellness?

Basic Financial Health

What do I mean by financial wellness?

At the most basic level, I’m talking about the ability to maintain a positive bank balance while meeting all your financial obligations such as rent, mortgage, utilities, groceries, and insurance. For many, our financial obligations extend beyond these essentials into extras like recreation costs, subscriptions, travel, and dining out. Whatever your monthly costs are, you are able to meet those obligations without reaching for the credit card or dipping into savings. Also, you have measures in place to protect this cash flow in case of injury, illness, disaster, or death.

Protecting Your Financial Health

These protective measures center on managing your risks. How could your life fall into crisis? What keeps you awake at night? Where can you plan ahead? What would you regret, if you didn’t?

Will you get so badly injured or sick that you cannot work for a period of time? How will you pay your bills? According to the Social Security Administration, 1 in 4 twenty-year-olds will be disabled by retirement. Furthermore, there are an estimated 8 million adults with disabilities that limit or prevent them from working. 

What would you do if a natural disaster destroyed your home? Where would you live? In 2019, the common thunderstorm caused $27 million dollars in losses (statista.com).

What if you or your partner suddenly died? Would the kids be okay? According to the USDA, the cost of raising one child to the age of 17 averages $233,610. Holy Cow! Do you have that kind of cash laying around? We don’t! But my husband and I have life insurance to mitigate these kinds of expenses if one or both of us die. In fact, we have insurance for each of the above scenarios; health, disability, home, and life insurance. For a long time, these protections simply helped me breathe easier and sleep better! But two years ago, life took an unexpected turn.

Maintaining My Financial Wellness

Suddenly Severely Sick

Two years ago, I became so sick I was forced to take a leave of absence from work. It’s been two years without my regular income. 24 months! How did my family survive? By activating my disability insurance. Do you know how grateful I am? I feel blessed and lucky beyond words. 

Photo by Ulises Baga on Unsplash

Security in Disability Insurance

Don’t be mistaken, disability isn’t an elixir. It’s a stop-gap measure. Cash flow has been significantly thinner. The only way we’ve financially weathered this health storm is through 1) activation of my disability coverage, 2) guidance from our financial advisor, and 3) maintenance of a revised budget.

As a key to financial wellness, I urge every reader to sign up for disability coverage as soon as possible. I got lucky working for a company whose benefits include disability coverage. If they didn’t I would have been totally screwed. Why? Because I didn’t buy into disability coverage in my 20s when I was healthy. By the time I considered it, after having babies, I was denied coverage because of my struggles with Postpartum Depression. Buy in early and increase coverage as your salary increases.

Value of a Financial Advisor

Our financial advisor, Brandon Gulley, has been another saving grace throughout this difficult time. He has been a rock offering objective yet compassionate guidance to help us navigate the many financial challenges that have cropped up because of my illness. No, I am not telling you to go out and spend tons of money hiring a financial expert. We have never directly paid our financial advisor. Although there are great resources out there such as books by Dave Ramsey, David Bach, Suze Orman, I am a much bigger fan of a personal advisor. Brandon knows Alex and me, our kids, our values, and our objectives. And he knows how to teach financial wellness.

Photo by Blake Cheek on Unsplash

Beauty of A Budget

We had been working with Brandon for a couple of years when I got sick. So, we had already adopted his budgeting system which taught us principles of fiscal responsibility and discipline. Since I’ve been sick, we have met several times with Brandon to recalibrate our budget as we continue to adjust to challenges. Having this budget, taking responsibility, and being disciplined has allowed us to stay afloat.

Securing Insurance, learning from a financial advisor, and maintaining a balanced budget are three major components to weathering the financial challenges of a health crisis. Planning and forethought will allow you to better manage the risks of the many unexpecteds life can throw at you. When you are sick, the last thing you need to be worrying about is money. Do what you can now.