"Financial well-being comes when we can meet current and future financial obligations, are able to absorb financial setbacks, and keep driving toward financial goals. This life well-being is at the center of the third generation of behaviorial finance, and at the center of this book. It broadens the lens of finance to see people as whole persons, and show them in domains beyond finances, including family, friends, health, work, education, religon, and society. This book is unique in combining the scientific findings by scholars in finance, economics, law, medicine, psychology, and sociology with real-life stories at the intersection of finance and life. The domain of finance is only one of the domains of life well-being, but it has a special place because it underlies life well-being in all other domains. We need finances to support ourselves and our families, to pay for food, shelter, and schooling. We need finances to maintain our own health and that of our families, paying for the services of physicians and hospitals. We need finances to pay for education that would qualify us for well-paying and satisfying jobs, careers, and vocations. We even need finances to experience and express our religion. This book assigns to the domain of finances the special place it deserves among the domains of life well-being, but it does not overlook the other domains. It provides the sociological underpinnings of the practice of financial well-being, addressing the relationship of day to day life to finances for financial advisors, financial planners, and the investor concerned about making sure their money protects their well-being."
