re: I Heard Two Interesting Positions on NPR Today; Do People Not Have Savings Anymore?

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we're a family of 5 with well over 90K a year and don't have substantial savings. I dont know how people make it on 50 60 or 70k a year.

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What sort of lifestyle do you live? Do you live in an extremely expensive house? Do you and your wife drive new cars every few years? Do you take expensive vacations regularly?

Throughout most of America 90K is plenty to build up healthy savings, if you choose to sacrifice a few luxuries to do it.

90K in metro Atlanta isn’t enough. Can tell you that. Especially with kids.

It all comes down to discipline and sacrifice.

My wife and I are no more than middle (some would say lower-middle) class in our early 30s.

We worked through college and graduated with about 17k loans between us. We don't vacation. We upgraded cars only when necessary. When our CC debt started getting out of control, we cut ourselves off and maintained until we could afford to pay it down. We waited until 30 to have a baby.

More than anything, we have always prioritized having an emergency fund and saving for specific goals (wedding, baby, etc).

The amount of batshit insane mistakes I see people my age make financially is ridiculous. Every penny of a raise or bonus goes to "reward" themselves when they're sitting on tens of thousands in debt and no assets to speak of. Not even touching the people who smoke or drink away thousands of dollars a year and freak out over a $25 co-pay to go to the doctor.

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It all comes down to discipline and sacrifice

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Yep my wife and I are in our 20s and I came out of college with no more than a few grand in a checking account and my wife has a crap load of student loans yet we nearly have an entire years worth of salary combined in our savings account already. Granted we don’t have kids yet but I don’t understand how the majority of Americans end up living paycheck to paycheck. I never believe those statistics.

I blame schools and education for not teaching finance curriculums. That part I get though. The more debt slaves the closer we are to voluntarily voting in communism!

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My question is: does the average American really not have any money saved?

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the stat is like 80% of Americans have less than 400 bucks in savings

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I feel like there are adults with families who have no safety net, and frankly will never have the means or intent to save.

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wages have been stagnant while costs have risen. It’s not like most people are buying boats or mansions instead of saving money.

My only issue with the traditional “savings” account is that the yield is just crazy low. I max out my 401K, so I don’t have as much in traditional savings earning less than 1% interest as I should. The other benefit to the typically great returns of the 401k is that it’s harder to touch, but I can borrow against it in a crisis if I have to, and I’m paying myself back the interest. I also have low debt and real good credit, so barring an utter catastrophe, I feel like I’m ok without a year’s salary.

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It all comes down to discipline and sacrifice

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Right, and some imagination. Bring a sandwich for lunch instead of eating out, that’s app $50 a week in savings, x 52 weeks, $2600! If saving is a priority it can be done and seeing that account balance grow is very satisfying.

Yea I see no issue with viewing a 401k as a last ditch savings. That's what mine is for now. Unfortunately in this kind of catastrophe it's taken a major hit.

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4cubbies

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Fake Christian