The value of money can never be underestimated. In a recent national survey, more than 96% Americans agreed that early monetary savings would help secure a more fruitful and stable life in general.
Saving is a way of insulating oneself from some key enemies to financial security like emergencies, poor spending habits, and inflation. The many symptoms of poor financial standing can also have a long term emotional impact as well. While the average youth today thinks more about short-term financial goals such as purchasing a new pair of signature shoes, owning a new Ipod, or a brand new car. However, statistics show this trend is changing and that more and more are starting to realize the importance of keeping a personal savings and budgeting.
Long term monetary goals in general are active dreams attached to a written financial plan of action. In order to achieve them you must have a level of discipline that goes beyond the ooh wee purchasing frenzy of the average budget tender person.
I have outlined some informational tips on how you can start saving money to help insure a strong financial standing today and a stable future. These tips are also designed to help you understand why savings and budgeting should be higher up on your list of priorities.
Reasons for Saving:
1. Saving for your Future and Present Needs - Saving today will provide you with flexibility in your finances. Perhaps you have heard that a penny saved today is worth a dollar earned tomorrow. Now with the recent decline in the dollar this is not necessarily as true but suffice it to say that the penny you save today will help you live better in your retirement. 2. Saving for Sound Investment Needs - You may not be very enterprising at the moment. You may not even know exactly what you want to do with your money. Preparing for the not so obvious opportunities of tomorrow hardly ever enters the mind of people. It is wise to start saving as young as possible but if you have never really saved money you should at least start some kind of plan by the age of 25. This will provide you with more opportunity to discover what you really want to do at a later time, handle unexpected financial issues or crisis, or perhaps buy your first home or first investment property. Foregoing a few wants today will help you accomplish your needed goals in the future.
3. Saving for your Golden Years - The average elderly person retires with less than $1500 a month coming in. Couple that with a number of medicines and visits to the doctor on a monthly basis and you have a cocktail for poverty living. As a result, many elderly choose to delay retiring until they can afford it or choose to work jobs at the local discount store to try to handle additional Medicare and Medicaid fees. Many of them have to choose between the meds they desparately need or the bills they also have to have in order to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
Keys to Reaching your Saving Goals:
No matter how good our plan and intentions are from savings, we can still be subject to things, patterns or behaviors that can derail us or diminish our effectiveness. We should also take heart doing these times because we will never be perfect in our endeavor to save all the money we want to save because life just does not work like that.
1. Reachable - Goals should be something that we can actually accomplish. They should not be so hifalutin that you can never achieve them no matter how hard you tried. Set your goals to be like the steps. A little step here and there will eventually get you to the top but it will take a degree of patience and hard work. Goals are not achieved with a freebie mentality. 2. Consistency - A goal is something that needs to be carved in stone. You cannot change them every time something new and more exciting crops up. There’s nothing wrong with having more than one thing on your list. In fact a notebook of goals would be more appropriate. The more goals you set the more of a chance of hitting more of what you want out of life.
While we need to focus on the present, we also need to take hold of our original intent and continue until we hit our targeted savings amounts.
Also remember, a modest reserve of 20% of your income set aside over time will allow you to breath more easily in terms of whatever financial challenges you may face in the future. Experts say that you should have no less than 3 to 6 months set aside in order to prepare for a financially challenging setback. If you haven’t begun such a fund the real question is do you want stability more than that hot new plasma? Waiting just 6 months may mean you get will get a 50% discount on the coveted item.
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