Liz Weston on Personal Finance (Collection), 2/e

10. Changing Your Uneasy Mind

She was writing me, ostensibly, about how big her emergency fund should be. But her anxiety about money was overwhelming: "If I am laid off and use my emergency fund for living expenses, [another] emergency such as a furnace breaking or a car accident could still ruin me financially. I think of this every day, and even though I have over $37,000 in various savings accounts, I still feel like I am close to financial ruin. I don’t feel that I have enough, even though my monthly expenses are about $3,000 and I make $75,000 a year."

Another reader was a single mom with two kids who was struggling with big medical bills, collections for old debts, and a budget that never seemed to work. Her mother had already bailed her ...