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When things are going well, it can be really easy to buy into your own invincibility.

You can’t possibly lose your job. You’re dominating in the workplace and taking care of everything that can be asked of you. Your performance numbers are incredible.

You can’t possibly get sick. You feel great and your health has always been excellent.

You can’t possibly have to worry about extra family costs. You don’t have a child and don’t plan to have one any time soon.

You can’t possibly have to worry about transportation. Your car is as solid as a rock and it starts every time.

Once you start believing such things, it becomes really easy to take financial shortcuts.

If nothing can possibly go wrong, what’s the point of having a cash emergency fund? I’ll just invest it in stocks instead. If something were to happen, I could just use my credit card. It’ll be fine.

A long time ago, I wrote an extremely well-received post in which I outlined the basics of personal finance on the back of five business cards. After that, I converted the cards into a presentation that I’ve used many times when I’ve been invited to speak on personal finance topics in my area.

A few weeks ago, a person I know in the community asked me to summarize that presentation quickly. I couldn’t quite remember all of the details off of the top of my head, so I basically sketched out the ideas on seven sheets of paper.

After I finished, he smiled and said, “Respect!” I didn’t really understand what he meant, so I just thanked him. He shook his head. “No, no, respect! R-E-S-P-E-C-T! That’s what your presentation spells out!”

Mary writes in:

“I have a son graduating in May and he has a good job lined up making about $60,000 a year. He has no debt and will have about $1000 in credit card debt. He drives a car that we are hoping will last the next 5 months, not in the best of shape. My question is, I tried looking for advice in Simple Dollar that would be geared towards him. I’d love to forward a couple good articles to him that would pull him into reading your blog. The articles I find seem to be geared toward the college grad that has lots of debt and or no good job lined up. He will feel like a millionaire after being so broke for four years but I know $60,000 will go fast. I also know that if managed properly it will be a big advantage to him. Can you direct me?”

It is often said that a major part of success is filling your life with people who encourage your positive growth and your success.

Every single success in my life over the past decade or so has been tightly interwoven with the efforts of my wife, Sarah. There is no major success that I would have been able to achieve without her.

Whenever there’s a decision to be made, Sarah always has a valuable thought or two that I would have never considered. She does an amazing job of pulling our ideas and feelings together and developing ideas and plans for our future.

She’s always taking care of the little things that need doing, often without even saying a word. Many little things will just be done, often without anyone immediately noticing. She just does them.

She constantly makes hard choices and small sacrifices for the people in her life, putting aside what she might want to be doing in any moment to take care of those around her.