When I was divorced and on my own with 2 little boys, I told all the "old guys" at work that I couldn't afford to join the company savings plan. They all harassed me by saying that I couldn't afford NOT to; the company matched contributions up to 7% of salary at that time... free money. So the next time I got a raise, I joined the savings plan and for 28 years I never did a thing except bump that percentage with each raise I got. I invested in company stock which split a couple of times during those years, and rolled dividends back into the account. I retired at 60 and get a tidy sum in dividends each quarter and never touch the investment account. I wish I could thank those "old guys" who steered me in the right direction. If I could give a young person just one piece of advice it would be to take advantage of any savings opportunity; you will never regret it.
Yeh, when you're young the future is a concept that many of us lack the capacity to understand. It's not a matter of being irresponsible, it's a matter of having (or not) perspective. At that stage of life, the future is like trying to understand the concept of Infinity for many of us. One of my brothers had a son and a daughter, with the girl being the youngest. When I was making good money, I'd give each of them a $100 VISA gift card for Christmas. By the end of the day, the nephew had used it to buy himself a new gaming monitor or something along those lines. The niece always deposited hers into savings. "Grasshopper, thy name is Brother" said the ant. My oldest sister's husband was a member of MENSA (a society of people with extraordinarily high IQs), and he was horribly irresponsible with money. They were always living on the financial edge. So it's not a matter of intelligence, in the classic sense of the word.
God bless Dave Ramsey. Although....I gave one of his basic books to my oldest and she said, I can't possibly follow this man's suggestions. The first thing he said was I had to give up my daily latte. At least my other two are tight fisted as their mother.
I will freely admit that my investment "success" was simply because the payroll department took my savings out as a payroll deduction before I ever saw it. If I had been responsible for saving money after it was in my hands I'd probably still be working today.
Actually I have not decided this,as it is pure fact. You can not fret and worry over something or someone you do not have control over. Do not waste the time, when you could be doing something useful
I have decided that all the ads i see - all the sponsored stuff I see on the internet are directed at me. Why else would I see - things you eat that do not help your blood pressure- are you bloated today? Signs of CHF, too much of this leads to that. Your breathing wrong, you have have been eating this fruit wrong all your life. Feeling down today, this is why. I mean the lists go on. The ads are suppose to somehow be related to your interests. I never asked for their advise. I just wanna read the news people Do you ever feel like your being harassed without cause in your own home?
I can relate to that, @Hedi Mitchell , and I think that most of the ads are aimed at us, for whatever reason. It might be something we wrote here on the forum, or looked up on the internet, or maybe even saw on television (for people who watch television). Since I started drinking the mushroom coffee, I am now seeing ads for that, and all I did was write about it on here and order from Amazon. I can understand why they would have information about what I am buying, but it would be harder for commercials to interpret what i am writing on a forum, I think. No matter what, I think that we are all being watched by artificial intelligence monitors and probably have been for longer than we have realized.
I get things I showed interest in on youtube. So I have to actively search if I want to see something new. I search incognito on line. So I don't generally get ads.
I have decided - it is apparent to me that the media of any source, along with all the other lying cheating, greedy higher ups clearly want us dead. However They have to at least make an effort to appear caring,in order to reap their quotas for cash. Science has now decided that hot flashes could very well lead to cardio problems, and alzheimer's. They feel these flashes could be life threatening. They being the only real threat to our lives. For me, I am like a good overly used electric recliner, all me buttons may not work, but can still move up and down, and still have most of me stuffing. Of course once my stuffing starts falling out - its adios amigo - time fer the dump ground.