After reading the article, it is clearly skewed toward people who are younger, and are living a “normal American life.” It is also geared toward a “recession”. We, the two of us in this household, and most others in this Club, are not “normal Americans.” You “Youngsters” need to balance your financial needs with a greater view toward the future when you may not have an income. Us “Oldsters” are in our future.
The two of us are retirees, mainly surviving on Social Security – which means Paycheck-to-Paycheck. Yes, there is some other income, but it would be rapidly depleted if we were to rely on it for our basic expenses.
I agree that young people (for me that means any one who is working and not nearing retirement) should be investing to build their retirement savings. However, knowing my family as I do, there is too much Paycheck-to-Paycheck happening. There is little liquid savings, and too much credit card debt. That needs to be remedied, for my daughter’s family, with a different attitude toward purchases. They live too much in the “now” while still not being extravagant.
For us oldsters, it does not make sense to start or increase our investing in long-term financial projects. We will not see the rewards. We, personally, do NOT have a credit card; we use a debit card and do not carry a lot of cash with us. We have a savings account, attached to our checking account, with enough for one month and it covers possible overdrafts for unexpected items or large purchases. We also have a HELOC which can be used for the purchase of large items for the house.
However, at home, I stash money whenever we can; plus some in the car for an emergency purchase. We live in a small town, (3,000 people) and the bankers can identify us by our voices over the phone. There would not be enough cash money in that small bank to carry all of it’s clients through a month. If we needed cash, the bank would not have it. If there was an EMP, or other crisis, we could not get cash from the bank nor would we be able to use the electronic banking system (Debit/Credit Cards.)
I am trying to build up to over one month’s worth of cash in the house. We use the cash to pay local contractors for odd jobs. We use the cash when we travel. We are saving the cash for a time when, for whatever reason, there is none in the bank. You never know when, or for what reason, that may happen.