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The say that Americans are poor savers!
In fact the Secretary of the Treasury said recently that Americans just have to save more money and the country's economy would improve. But that isn't happening, and the reason is that we don't believe it! We are your Average Americans. Most of us don't believe that it is even possible to save any money, not to mention putting away a certain amount of money each month as a way to accumulate money for retirement. A lot of people I talk to say that they doubt they will live long enough to retire, or state that they'll work until the day they die, because there's no way they'll ever be able to afford to retire anyway.
Then of course, there are all those skeptical people who think that saving money, especially in a bank, is a waste of resources, that the money is somehow worthless now, and will still be worthless in the future. They tell me that saved money is money lost, that it's better to use the money now for fun and vacations, and for the accumulation of material, yet disposable things. They even want to pay some biils with their cash, would you believe it! I know people myself who would continue to increase their monthly debt load, seemingly as fast as they can, would continue to use up every penny of their income, which makes it impossible to put any money away for their future. They say there is no future anyway! And that kind of thinking seems to be on the increase. See for yourself what I mean, by talking it over with people under the age of 30!
Unfortunately, for these non-believers, they will not have the ability to retire while they're young enough to have a lot of good years left. My opinion is that they just don't believe in the future........And they don't believe that a steady program of saving or investing for their future will work out for them.
They just don't believe it!
So I was thinking about it some, and I believe you could compare the effects of a slow and gradual savings system and it's results, to a slow and gradual over-eating habit and it's inevitable results.
Would anyone disagree that eating even 100 extra calories worth of food per day for a long time would result in a slow, but gradual increase in our body weight? The answer is YES! Let's reduce that small excess amount of calories down to to 50 calories a day and see how it affects our body weight gain. There are 3500 calories in a pound of body weight (fat, if you want to be honest about it). Divide that by 50 and you can see that 70 days later we would have gained a pound. Seventy days is approximately 2 months, so 50 calories a day, which is pretty much invisible, or unnoticed, can add 6 pounds of body weight to us each year. Ten years in the future we could be 60 lbs. heavier. Agree or disagree? Fifteen years from now, it'll be 90 lbs!
So now.....start saving, a little at a time, more when you can do it. Try to forget about the money that you put away, just as you forget about the 50 extra calories when you swallow them. The money will grow, slowly, just as your body does! And it will seem like the savings isn't even happening, not being effective at all, just as the weight gain seems like it's not even happening.
Believe it and start working on your future today.
John DeFlumeri Jr. in Clearwater
"Decisions About Money and Controversial Commentary"
copyright 2009 John DeFlumeri Jr.
