My wife knows EXACTLY how much money she is going to make in a month/year. She is a salaried wage earner which makes it incredibly easy to budget and live within her means.
She also invests $0 into her job which makes it pretty tough to go broke working. Of course she(or anyone else with a job) could get fired and then she would have to find another job. Happens all the time, hell it happened to me when the construction industry took a hit back in 2009. I moved on and found another job. Took a big pay cut it sucked but I didn't lose my ass and go bankrupt.
Now if you're self employed and have a yearly operating loan, land payments, cattle payments, machinery payments, feed payments not to mention the everyday costs of living it is a little different deal.
Living within your means takes a whole new meaning when the markets go to hell and you lose more money than you make. And obviously this holds true for any small business.
Honestly I am happy to get paid every month, don't have the personality to gamble and take out big loans.
