According to new studies released recently, roughly a third of American adults don't have any emergency savings. As for me, usually I put 20% of my income into my deposite account and I have some cash for a rainy day saved at home. Do you have savings for emergency case or maybe for retirement? What part of your income do you save?
I actually save money through my 401k. the rest of my savings was a lovely gift, but I also have a great pension
It is better not to have any saving, because in case of emergency government takes your money first and help to those people who have no money. Only after you become a bankrupt government might help you.
E.g. medical emergency issues. If someone has saving, but no job and no insurance he has to spend all the saving first before to be eligible for government assistance. Since government does not provide Health Care, it effectively takes someone's money.
I strongly support the concept of ordinary people having savings. However, there are all sorts of government policies that same bent against those who try to save. One lawsuit and all your savings could be wiped out overnight. If you are poor and need financial assistance, often the government will not give you any assistance unless all your assets are depleted. This puts the poor in a bad spot, because if you do not have savings, you can't prepare for emergencies, you can't save to buy things like a house or car.
If the person has the money, why would it not be spent to cover their medical issues before getting government assistance? Let's say Bill Gates has a medical emergency, do you think he should get government assistance?
Of course and from VERY liquid to quickly to liquidate to have to wait a few days to investments not so liquid as in IRA's and 401k. Borrow only very short term, ie online purchase paid off end of month, or longer term as in mortgage or car, and make a big downpayment on those. NOT a set of tires, NOT dining out, NOT for vacation, NOT for new washing machine. Pay cash for all those things. Accumulate enough in the liquid and incrementally move up to less liquid by longer term investment. PAY YOURSELF FIRST, put it in savings!!! - - - Updated - - - If you buy medical insurance and then when you need to use it can the company say "OH you make too much money we don't have to pay it"?
and the only other assets (other than basic need sort of stuff) is gold coins. anonymous, highly portable, easily sold/acceptable anywhere, and never falling in value like a stone (the way all paper currencies have done, at some point). Gold did take a nosedive, back in 1980, if you were dumb enough to have bought it at $600 or so, 3-4x what it had cost just a year previous. The US govt deliberately dumped all of our gold reserves in a (successful) attempt at driving down the price from $800 back below $300. Notice, however, that they could not keep it there. It will never again fall below $1000 US per troy oz. It has, however, dropped from nearly $1800 to a bit under $1200 per oz, for a short time. Gold did hang around $300 for over 20 years, then it hung around $400 for almost another decade, so buying gold in an attempt to "make money" is a bust. it's a hedge against inflation and that's all it is.
Saving money makes you ineligible for government programs and benefits that save/give you money. The only chance you have to recoup what they force you to pay them is not to save money.
without a good pension, they say you need like 3 million dollars when you retire, in order to live a good life. luckily I have a damn good pension. if my investments do reasonably well, I'll have $600,000 when I hit 65 years old. so unlike many Americans, I expect to be relatively financially secure when I retire.
You don't have to earn .5% you can earn a decent return on your savings or at least part of it, only a portion needs to be for IMMEDIATE access. It's call money management.
Did your taxes go to pay MY medical insurance? Your taxes did go to pay for the government assistance.
I have a weird outlook on saving money: 1. Our currency is fiat. 2. It does not have an intrinsic value. 3. It makes more sense to use imaginary money to purchase goods that you can liquidate later. That being said, I save money. Have been doing a 401K for several years now, and it seems to be great. Took a loan out on that, which interest is paid back to the 401k, to pay off an eliminate two credit cards (cut them up, I use straight cash), and I have more in that than I ever have in a savings account. I am olso trying to beef up my savings account as well with regular contributions.
It isn't savings if you cannot access it--it is investment, which is not the issue presented. People can put a lot of money into certain vehicles and be penalized quite heavily if they have to withdraw any of it before they reach a certain age.
so learn how to make REAL returns on your money, instead of being lazy and settling for 1/2 of one percent per year. Buy some rental property, for instance. buy some railroad cars, open a small thrift store, add your human capital to the invested money and soon, 20k of investment is making you 40k per year, and you've got a (very easy) job that no boss can fire you from.
I'm self employed with two business partners, the state of California and the federal government. They save my money for me, I send them about 31% of my total net income every single year. Not the best business arrangement though, they have no problem sharing in the profit but for some reason, they won't have anything to do with sharing the liabilities.
