I am by far no financial guru, but I can do simple math. The fact is you need to set aside some of your income for emergencies and/or investing. I don’t care what the income is, large or small, something needs to be put away. I’m really suprised at how few adults in this country can manage money. Don’t they teach anything worthwhile in schools? Almost everyone I know has no savings and carries credit card debt. Both are recipes for how to stay poor for the rest of your life. Life is going to be full of emergencies from car problems to sickness and being off work. If you don’t have any savings your forced to go even deeper into debt and ensuring the cycle continues. It seems the old saying about money burning a hole in your pocket holds true for most people. They can’t resist buying that next instant gratification thing.
Luckily I have one kid out of four that is pretty good with money. He went to buy a new living room set yesterday. The store was shocked when he didn’t want to finance it. The lady said they have old people pay outright sometimes, but never anyone younger. Another thing that impressed me was a comment he just said to me. Our business has been good so we decided to upgrade our phones before the end of the year, to help with taxes. He picked out the latest ones for everybody and was so excited about it. After a week of carrying it around he realized it’s just a phone and doesn’t make much difference in the big scheme of things. He said he will remember that the next time he gets excited about any new toy. Made me proud....