Posted on 02/10/2024 7:03:50 AM PST by Phoenix8
Nearly half of Americans have $500 or less in their savings accounts, an amount that leaves them vulnerable to unexpected expenses, according to a GOBankingRates survey of 1,063 U.S. adults conducted in November 2023.
About 29% of respondents have between $501 and $5,000 in their savings accounts, while the remaining 21% of Americans have $5,001 or more.
Few hold much cash in their checking accounts as well. Of those surveyed, 60% report having $500 or less in their checking accounts, while only about 12% have $2,001 or more.
The lack of cash in either savings or checking accounts suggests that many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. This leaves them vulnerable to unexpected expenses, underscoring the importance of having an emergency fund, if they’re able to build one.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
That’s exactly the articles point.
People are making too much out of it. The basis of it is people have less money to save now then before. It’s MSNBC so the author won’t come out and admit the obvious cause which is Democrats have been in control for almost 4 years.
You don’t know what “median” means, do you. Sad
Yes. Insurance companies are nasty!
What’s a savings account?
That’s not far from where we are.
Oh, that’s because I drained it to make a planned large purchase and didn’t want to pull it from an investment account.
A place where money goes to die
I used to love listening to Rush especially when he pointed out that "poor countries are poor because of lack of capitalism, not because of lack of resources."
Well, for individuals, poor people are poor because of lack of capitalist thinking, not because of lack of opportunity. Anyone with a job can work and save their way out of poverty if they have the will and determination.
I am an elder at a working class church in a rural county. Sometimes I financially counsel our members. If I look at two families with very similar sizes and incomes, one will be financially secure and the other will be $50 away from a huge emergency. One has sound thinking and behavior and one has a terrible spending problem.
AND, to top it off, the ones with spending problems are usually socialists, wanting to spend more of other peoples' money.
Yes, the working poor are getting burried, but they are the ones digging their own hole...
If the business asks you this, ask if they give a discount for cash - a lot of them will.
I got 20% off plus free desserts from a catering service by offering cash, a discount at the tire place for cash - and also for a fence I had installed.
Always worth asking.
Perfect definition.
I have a couple of accounts with around $500. But those are not the accounts where I keep my money. Duh.
If something is going to cost more than $500, I just put it on a card and pay it off when I get home.
No one ever asks how they come up with these numbers.
Banks can tell you. I used to get the reports every month. Low balance, low activity accounts cost a fortune to maintain. There were a bunch of them. Then…there were the accounts with a million dollars in them. In a very low yield savings account.
People are weird with their money.
“Savings” or “savings account.” If I was asked how much money I have in a savings account, I would answer $0.00, because I haven’t had a bank savings account since the 1970s. If I was asked how much I have in savings, my response would be enough to live very, very comfortably for the rest of my life without ever having to touch the principal balance.
Not sure I totally agree with your figures, but when it comes to car repair, you better have a good deal more than 500 bucks to lay out & for home repair; much more than that. A truly poor person doesn’t have much of a chance these days.
Well, here’s another problem I see. I had some money in a savings at a time when it paid almost nothing. In order to draw some out for bill payment, I had to transfer that amount to checking. Well there goes your interest. I now use a checking account to pay the bills that require a check or credit card.
Interest on savings still is not that great, & if you have to draw some out to pay bills.....well, as I said.
Thanks for the tip.
Buy stock. At least invest in a 401k plan. That and social security will make retirement better. If married and no kids then bank the 2nd income or most of it. If kids then you will have more expenses of course. Live cheap.
I had invested $13,000 in Ford in 2009. It tripled in a year. I sold in 2014 as back then and since it has not done better. I have bought one stock at a time then sold to buy another.
apple, netflix, nvidia, and now AMD since sept 2018.
Had ups and downs but that $13,000 turned into seven figures.
At $172 a share the AMD stock will be worth seven figures after taxes if I sold. Right now I borrowed against the money I already had paid taxes on. The last 2 years I did not have to pay taxes. I live cheap right now but in a year or so I can afford a nicer place : )
I am not selling until Elon Musk has the Starlink IPO which will rocket UP and let me not worry at all about money. Maybe buy a seat on one of his rockets : )
I wish I had kept nvidia but amd did better at the time so I could retire in Nov 2021. Nvidia went up from $112 to $721 in about 16 months (oct 22 to now) ...
I would have a million more but at the time AMD was doing better.
I am hoping AMD which makes cpu, graphic chips and chips for AI will follow this coming year. Already up from $58 to $172 in 16 months. (oct 22 to now)
I and millions of others would have been better off if congress had not ruined the economy by spending 1/3 more and caused the high inflation and prices and job losses and tanked wall street stock prices.
Once Donald Trump is elected, the stock market will zoom UP!
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The Motley Fool: When Will Starlink IPO? Starlink didn’t have an IPO on the calendar as of late 2023. A November 2023 Bloomberg report said that SpaceX was discussing an IPO of its satellite internet business, which could come as soon as late 2024 or 2025.Dec 20, 2023
$20 for a hamburger, coke, and fries yesterday. The only reason I had itnwas because of a gift card. I received it as a gift. I would rather had cash instead, but a relative gave me a whole bunch of giift cards for Chrisrmas.
Eating out isn’t worth it and I don’t do it.
They were all restaurant gift cards.
It is all relative to expenses. A retiree renter in some areas only needs $600 to $1500 a month for an apt. and one can eat for less than $200 a month. And insofar as a Bible Christian obeys Matthew 6:31-33 than it can be much less for more, thanks be to God.
That is just not true. Whether by gene or lifestyle, centenarians in their last years of life do avoid or delay several common chronic conditions compared to their younger cohorts. They die of pneumonia or “old age” but not as much from cancer or diabetes.
The poorest people might pay higher consumption taxes but they also not coincidentally have higher rates of diabetes, stroke, myocardial infarction (heart attack) and cancer. Maybe the larger financial burden could be mitigated by a ‘pro-poor’ (i e wellness campaign) use of the tax revenues generated.
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