Americans continue to dig themselves in a deeper and deeper hole. While many have no savings, they continue to pile on the debt and liabilities. All of these problems will make the next recession difficult for most to get through financially.
A new report by Forbes states that 23% (nearly one in four) Americans are saving not even one penny from their paychecks. As part of its 2019 Savings Survey, First National Bank of Omaha examined Americans’ habits, behaviors, and priorities when it comes to saving, monthly spending, and retirement planning. And based on the fact that nearly 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, the rest of the results of the survey are, unfortunately, unsurprising.
According to the survey, only 40% of Americans prioritize their savings for their emergency fund with 27% saying their highest priority is saving for their retirement. 39% of Americans plan on putting this year’s tax refund in a savings account while 25% have never withdrawn from their savings account. Most Americans are optimistic too, with 60% reporting that they are “somewhat” or “very likely” to be on track with their savings to retire by age 65.
But those few decent statistics don’t detract from the scary ones. Such as, 63% of Americans do not set annual savings goals and 74% of Americans put 10% or less of their monthly paycheck towards savings. In fact, 23% reported that they put in 0% of their monthly paycheck toward savings.
Almost half (49%) said they only have enough liquid funds to cover living expenses for 0-3 months and 26% attribute high costs of living as to why they don’t have as much in savings as they would like. With the level of debt Americans have saddled themselves with, easy to see why they are blaming the cost of living as opposed to their oppressive monthly debt repayments. However, only 13% say credit card debt prevents them from saving while 13% say student loan debt prevents them from saving.
https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/americans-are-financially-and-mentally-unstable-crippling-debt-is-linked-to-chronic-depression_04182019
The truth is, the sooner we all, individually and as a society, get a grip on our debt and overspending, the sooner we could be on our way to real wealth and prosperity. It’s an easy journey to start, but not an easy one to go through with. One can simply find themselves buried in debt while digging out could take years.
There is no time like the present to start though and it can be done! First, you’ll need to live on less than you make. Cut cable out and reduce your spending at restaurants. These are both pretty simple ways to cut costs, and believe us: reading is better for your mental health than TV anyway! And on this subject of cutting costs, a book we recommend is called Everday Millionaires, written by Chris Hogan. In this book, Hogan describes the daily habits of ordinary people who became extraordinarily wealthy and the simple ways they reduced their costs and lived below their means to accomplish millionaire status.
Hogan destroys millionaire myths that are keeping everyday people from achieving financial independence. Chris and the [Dave] Ramsey research team surveyed over 10,000 United States millionaires, discovering how these high-net-worth people reached their financial status and compiled the information into an easy-to-read book that will have you on your way to becoming wealthy.
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I have guaranteed income. Money in the bank. New car and I hold the title. Pay all bills on time, always have. Had shit credit rating because I had no debt. The banks don’t like that. Try moving with a low credit score. Building managers go by credit scores in order to determine who to rent to. Soon, we will have social scores, just like the communist Chinese. Try moving around then. Don’t laugh. You are not free.
Him, I’ll be resettled at the BOL before that ‘social credit’ BS ever starts.
Him,
Other than the new car( all my vehicles are at least 16 years old). We are much alike. My credit score is less than perfect,
but still close to 800. That is due to a lack of a recent demonstration of getting a loan and paying for it.
I don’t think I’ve had a loan since 2001when I bought a 45 foot long sailboat( which I no longer have).
I don’t move around much, as I’m permanently in my BOL.
I suppose that makes me less free than most.
Even on my dramatically reduced income, I save money, at least 10% of my income. I keep a budget, I have to watch every penny.
Our society’s problem is Democrats. Were it not for that problem, everybody in America would be wildly rich.
The problem we need to solve is how to get rid of our Democrats.
Full disclosure; I don’t like Republicans all that much either.
In the entire history of man nobody has figured it out , our Democrat problem, so it is unlikely we will now. Perhaps Technology will do it for us. Lucky for Democrats, I no longer design software or build robots.
Rellik, if we can dispose of both major parties that will solve a lot of problems.
Best way to maintain a credit score is to have a couple credit cards and ALWAYS pay them off in FULL each month. That gives the illusion of credit.
That’s my situation – no debt except the “monthly” debt on these cards. That along with all bills paid on time and I have credit score in the 800’s. So it’s (relatively) easy to do…..
At my job, 7% of my paycheck was automatically taken out for forced retirement. Not optional.
I wonder if this article considers “forced retirement” withholdings in it’s savings determination.
There is a woman who did an interesting video that is on Bitchute. It is about Gothic Cathedrals. In it she reads from a book a letter from a princess in Europe after the genocide of her people. It speaks of rape and murder. It speaks of the deliberate impoverishment of people. And shockingly it describes a Holodomor or forced starvation that mirrors the horrors of the Communist caused Starvation in the twentieth century. This video talks about events in the seventh century, the tenth, twelfth, and eighteenth centuries. She concludes that the beautiful Cathedrals were built by enemies of the people, some Muslim, some banksters, and that the Cathedrals are in reality Mosques and a symbol of oppression similar to the oppression of European Christians today. Quite disturbing but answers some questions about the financial situation and predicted financial collapse.
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My comment is in moderation.
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it’s quite simple, really. our gubmint has been spending money on useless projects, raising our taxes, to where a majority of the population can no longer afford to live in amur’ca. cities are bankrupt, states are bankrupt, counties are bankrupt, and the PEOPLE are bankrupt. when will america realize we can no longer afford all these gubmint regulations they have foisted upon U.S.? when will they realize we can’t afford to pay over 50% of our population some kind of monthly benefit? and how do we afford paying over DOUBLE for our homes, when we make MUCH LESS MONEY than we did in 2000, the last year of “normal” house prices? sign me “busted”….
oh, and look at the gubmint’s OWN monthly employment report. we now have 4 people who don’t have a job for every 6 people who DO work. and this number doesn’t count children and old people in those numbers….it only is “employable population” in that employed percentage…line u6, as i recall. boy, we in a HEAP ‘o trouble!
Janet Yellen reduced your keen analysis to one muffled mention of “prime-aged” persons out of the labor force without putting a number on it. That is 95 million, with the average, employed person just working part time.
Those part-time-working moms could save altight, especially since their small paychecks aren’t their only source of income.
They have a spousal income, a rent-covering child support check or about 4 layers of monthly welfare covering everything from rent to food, plus up to $6,431 in refundable child tax credit cash. Many of their moms do their childcare, letting them count it as expense for child tax credit purposes.
Most other Americans outside of the top 20% are living on the pay alone from temp, churn and part-time jobs. The problem is that rent has risen by 72% over the last 25 years along with a bunch of other ballooning major expenses, like the cost of operating a car (even a paid-for one).
But all the Dems see is Millennials with student loan debt. If they forgive that debt, their favored group of borrowers will still face the unaffordable rent and other issues, and I wonder what that means for the convoluted rigged-casino betting that undergirds many of the stock savings of past generations.
I really shouldn’t care. I have nothing, and most of those people are the dual-high-earner parents, taking all of the household-supporting jobs with benefits in this country along with a ton of vacations (for kids!).
Crony parents are nearly above firing. They keep two of those jobs, while low-wage daycare workers raise their kids. They are the only ones with any extra money for retirement-account betting, and they do not sacrifice expensive and frequent vacations or minor luxuries, like eating out, to save it.
When they retire, they have two SS streams per household and two 401ks or a 401k and a pension from one of the many, secure, mom-dominated jobs, like primary and secondary school teaching.
Those of us who are single and childless, and thus qualified for zero.point.zero in governent favoritism in the tax code or otherwise during our younger years, will have one stream of income at $1,300 per month (on average with many getting less) in SS income, with rent that is $900 per month for a one-room hovel.
Dual earners will get bigger SS checks—two of them—based on their top-5 earning years, plus their other two retirement income streams. That is why, despite the cutesy baby pics adorning their desks, they are often so very cutthroat in keeping these jobs.
They’ll do anything & everything but refraining from taking off mornings, afternoons, days and weeks, in addition to PTO and pregnancy leave. They don’t have to refrain as long as most of the other parents are doing it too.
They do need to churn “non culture fits” who help to keep their numbers high. It is a revolving-door churn-mobile job market where anything but hard work pays off, and many have opted out——many, many, many, especially when you must add in all of the outright job scams out there.
Prime-aged, Janet….Prime-aged.
We’ve tried navigating the many voted-best-for-moms office jobs that hire / retain a diversity of 98% moms—offices where interviewers ask you at the end of a long, hoop-jumping process if the wage, “including the free daycare,” that is insufficient to cover rent without spousal income or pay-per-birth, unearned income from government “is alright.”
“Oh, I am not a mom.” Click.
Someone in a comment line called it a “Work Program Economy.” You could call it a social-engineering economy or, in the seedier parts of the internet economy, a peeping-tom economy. A scam-casino economy would be a great catch-all description.
But the only thing that is needed is free childcare and free college for the new generations, even though so many people with a bachelor’s degree are currently underemployed. Then we need to bail out the Millennial grads, completely absolving their student loan debt since they are in the midst of the sex-and-reproduction years.
Never mind that the social contract says we are obligated to repay loans. Never mind that the Xers and the Boomers did this, sacrificing for it, including sacrificing retirement savings. That is one reason why 52% of Americans age 55 and over have no retirement savings.
They should adjust the Millenials’ loans to align more with what early Xers paid for college and to pressure colleges to reduce prices to reasonable levels for current students. But what they want is to absolve this one group of their debt, just like everything else governent does, favoring some group and screwing everyone else.
Working Families. Working Families
I have paid off a business loan equal in size (or bigger) than what most of these Millennials are screaming about, doing it in 5 years via sacrificing various things that I wanted. I also have a bachelor’s degree and licenses, but at no time have I held a job that paid enough for retirement savings.
It is an absolute joke to suggest that people with no second income and no tax-cash handouts from Uncle Sam for kids to boost up pay that barely covers rent can save enough to matter, especially since these are $10 to $12-per-hour churn jobs. Dual-earner parents with non-refundable child tax credits take most of the steady, decent jobs.
Many of the non-welfare-eligible, single, childless people who do have 401ks live on it between churn jobs. The UC money, meanwhile, goes to the same groups getting all of the other free stuff from government: parents with dual incomes and single parents with one earned income and other unearned income from government. The unearned income from UC is subtracted from the single-breadwinner moms’ expenses when they apply for other benefits.
This is exactly what most of the bailed-out Millennials will face: the churn-job-mobile without the student debt, but not with affordable rent unless they are top-20%er dual earners. There are about 2 majors that would guarantee a rent-covering job for any single, childless ones. The others have multiple earned or multiple earned and unearned income streams once they have kids. So, it won’t matter except to the politicians @ $174k handing out candy to some of the kids for votes.
You know that commercial with the fast-horse sales guy, giving one kid a pony and one kid a lump of coal. Uncle Sam is that guy.
Yup this is on of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, economic collapse. Also coming, disease and war.
The Socialists in America are using a state by state plan to conquer the US. They are not afraid of the millions armed citizens because so few are fighting back. Soon they will have complete control of all of the Military and Police. Look at where the FBI went under Barry the gay Muslim.
Just wait until they pack The Supreme Court and get rid of The Electoral College, then we will be as helpless as the people of Venezuela , China, or Iran. The Party will run everything and everyone.
ONLY 23%? The figure has got to be misleading. Most people I know of are in debt up to their eyebrows so I know they can’t possibly be saving for anything. I’ve always managed to save something for preps or any other purpose. Saving is never easy and it’s harder now than it used to be but NOT IMPOSSIBLE. As long as you stay debt-free a number of things are possible. If you don’t prep then you’re inept.
I realize this is not the 1950’s , but if you want to save money give up the entitlement idea that you have to go out every Friday night . Or any other night for that matter.
I’m Tired of CR-P articles trying to make poor people feel guilty.
The Poor pay nearly ALL the taxes — passed on by the 1% in higher prices and fees.
POOR People pay sales taxes, property taxes, fees, and all sorts of other government crap.
The 1% has multiple MANSIONS and other properties and if they want these WARS that (supposedly) protect THEIR property, they better PAY for the War Equipment because THEY sure as hell do NOT SERVE IN UNIFORM.
Give them a choice, THREE of their limbs or ALL of their money…..
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“Funny” how these BILLIONAIRE Leftwingers believe in Socialism and Sharing (YOUR) property………. but Their’s is THEIR’S ….. no WAY are they gonna share.
Time for the 1% and Corporations to contribute PROPORTIONATELY to the National Defense.
The Workers give their LIVES get maimed and killed.
The Workers Pay high taxes for ONE house with a MORTGAGE.
The !% and Corporations have multiple houses, pay ever decreasing taxes and enjoy the FAT of the land.
capitalism died the minute the Workers were forced to TARP/BAIL OUT the Bankers.
The Billionaires think they have a right to use their wealth to interfere in Our lives with their “social engineering programs”
I believe We have the SAME right to interfere in their wealth.
“Funny” how these BILLIONAIRE Leftwingers believe in Socialism and Sharing (YOUR) property……….
but Their’s is THEIR’S ….. no WAY are they gonna share.
Who is funding all these Socialist Groups that hate Our Freedoms and Our beliefs? Kochs, Buffett, Soros, Bezos, Gates, not happy with their riches they wish to OWN you.
These SCUMionaires do not even GIVE to charity. They establish tax free “trusts & foundations” where THEY control the money and get paid to do so and you actually subsidize them because you pay higher taxes to replace what they avoid. “The more money communists earn, the more they preach morality to others”
P.S. When they decide to step across the threshold/line with their wealth it is the same as trespassing into Your house and we have the Right to TAKE their wealth.
According to analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), 60 Fortune 500 companies avoided paying all federal income tax in 2018 (with their total average effective tax rate being roughly -5%).
These companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate’
Here’s an interesting article. ht tps://www.thebalance.com/what-is-average-income-in-usa-family-household-history-3306189
While the text is definitely left leaning, the tables which cover 1997-2017 are revealing. In these 20 years, the median household income rose from $55,218 in 1997 to $61,372 in 2017 which is roughly $6,000. The bite from taxes and other expenses have risen much faster.
Here’s another article from the same left leaning site; however, the charts are interesting. ht tps://www.thebalance.com/unemployment-rate-by-year-3305506
It’s pretty clear that people aren’t saving because there is little to nothing for savings. Most don’t know how to say no to social pressures that get them out spending; they aren’t taught how to refuse so they can actually manage their life. And commercial pressures push them, often unwittingly, into spending more all so that some corporation can get their hands on cash for their bottom line. It all sounds like a grand plot to impoverish the populace.
I’m quite glad that I was taught differently and passed that info along to my son who in turn is teaching his children. It’s not popular and even uncomfortable at times to be thrifty but it can be done.
I’ve often wondered if consumers suddenly stopped nearly all credit purchases and all impulse purchases, which stores would survive. So many depend on consumers regularly emptying their purses.
Who writes these articles? MOST Americans don’t make enough to live on, much less save any. Go to their food pantries and discount/Goodwill stores and interviews a few folks. Get educated. It’s bad out there.