Political Crossfire Forums

I've put aside about 30% of my income for the past five years, with the goal of building a retirement portfolio and emergency savings account. The mental stress this has alleviated is truly astounding... I can now finance my lifestyle for almost two years without working. This knowledge has allowed me to take risks that I wouldn't take absent savings, and has ended up earning me more money.

I've observed over the years while one's overall income does have an impact on one's ability to save it's not nearly as big of a factor of living below one's means and having a long-term view of things. It's a long slow process to build up a meaningful nest egg. Lot's of people do not have the knowledge or discipline to live below their means which means no savings for them. I really think a lot of it comes down to innate personality traits because my sisters were raised in the same household I was but they're both spendthrifts and I'm way on the other end of the spectrum.

To many live pay check to pay check, nothing left to save. For most that won't change.

I save nothing beyond max 401k. Maybe I could afford to save if I wasn't paying 5k a month to student loans. Thanks SHITBOOMERS!

1. Well at that rate sounds like your student loans will be paid off in short order, little less than 4 years at 8%.

2. Not Irrelevant, it's a private institution free to set it's own policies, tuition etc., just as you were free to choose them. If 80% of law schools won't get you a job, sounds like too many lawyers and law schools.

3. Ah, the hand out mentality, must have learned that from your boomer parents. Sure it's better for society as a whole to have an educated populace, it's also way better for the educated. People don't educate themselves for altruism.

4. Most of your generation isn't unemployed. Higher rates of underemployed and unemployment I'll buy but not most.

5. My generation got little more than your generation, quit your whining. Average debt around my time was $12,000, adjusted for inflation it's not that far off the averages now. Yeah a little lower in real terms, but not much. No student loan interest deduction for us either. Ours was non-dischargeable, this is nothing knew.