Quite a few years ago when I first started my career, I was like anyone else just starting out – I was eager, hungry for work, and really poor. As most of us do at that age, I opted for as little benefits that I would have to pay out of pocket for as I tried to maximize the amount in my paycheck. However, as I got further on in my career I felt as though I was probably doing myself an injustice in terms of my future and I sat down with a financial planner to see what I should be doing with my money.

The financial planner quickly pointed out that while I was carrying health insurance, I had opted for the bare bones plan – something he thought I should reconsider, especially when I decided to have a family. Further, he noticed that I was not contributing to my 401k – something that he said was like throwing money out the window considering that my company matched funds for vested employees. Additionally, while I did have life insurance, he was concerned that I was not carrying disability insurance – especially since my company offered disability insurance plans from which to choose. He felt as though this was extremely risky considering how early on I was in my career. If I got hurt or sick, how would I be able to support myself until the age of retirement?

Needless to say, I left that meeting quite a bit shaken and committed to making some changes in my financial portfolio. I changed my health insurance policy, upped my life insurance, began contributed to my company’s 401k plan, and not only took advantage of one of the disability insurance plans available through my job, but also purchased a private disability insurance policy as a supplement.

As you’ll read in the next post, this decision wound up saving my family from financial ruin.

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