I’m one of the lucky ones. I have a job and for now, it’s secure. I have a steady (if stagnant) paycheck and a 401K that is battered but still extant. Because I have this 401K, I get a monthly newsletter from the investment firm that manages it for my company.
Now, before I go on, I’m sure the financial wizards on this site have a lot of advice on how I could/should be doing this better. That, I think, is a topic I would be happy to explore, but maybe another day.
One of the articles in said monthly newsletter was a “how to spend less and save more.” Well, that’s practical. If they have advice, I’m certainly willing to listen, although I’m pretty sure Mr. Stormicats is about as financially savvy a person for the day-to-day penny-pinching as anyone I’ve ever met. (Me? I need a calculator to balance a checkbook.) So, let’s take a look…
A single opening sentence suggests cutting back on clothing expenditures, cable TV usage and “gourmet treats.” Hm. We’re shopping at Goodwill, our cable is at the bare minimum for bundled internet usage (internet alone, interestingly, would be more expensive), and so far this year I think our “gourmet treats” have been delivered Chinese (once), two bags of Lindor truffles (one each for our daughter and me, for Valentine’s Day, to be shared slowly by all over the next few months), and one quickie dinner because it was after 8 pm and we were all hungry, at the local (not national chain) hamburger place. Somehow, I don’t think we’re exactly going mad here.
So, nothing we haven’t heard before and already implemented. What other advice do they have for the working members of the 99%?
Refinance your home – but your credit must be excellent and your debt low. Love to, but don’t fit those parameters.
Make home improvements – gods above, wouldn’t I love to? The siding is falling apart, the garage is being held up by will alone, the furnace is state of the art from 1972 and the floor around the toilet is squishy. But, there’s that “if you have no significant debt” thing again. Come on, I’m an American worker in 2012, with a bashed up 401K and a salary that hasn’t seen significant movement in more than a decade. No significant debt? Let’s talk about the car wreck, the family deaths in other states, the emergency surgery, the last set of home improvements that ran 30K over budget because of unforeseen expenses (and ate up most of my inheritance from said family deaths)…
Plan ahead for college costs – see previous paragraph. Love to, trying to, but I sure hope Tall Girlcat keeps up her good grades; we’re going to need all the help we can get.
It just gets worse from here. Open a Health Savings Account (done it), maximize your 401K (done it), buy stocks, buy bonds, “consider a tax-loss harvesting strategy” (say, what???), conduct an annual portfolio review (which would assume I have more of a portfolio than my 401K), consider buying a second home… This is how to SAVE more and SPEND less?
What I see here is a TOTAL disconnect. These people are managing a workplace 401K and they have no idea how people in the workplace actually live. MANY of us are on shoestrings. Many of us are the remaining working spouse, the other having lost their job due to the economy. Many of us are dealing with gasoline flirting with the $4.00 mark, costs up, wages stagnant and credit cards at or near maxed out due to those things our paychecks just don’t cover… but these folks live in a bubble where the only question about money seems to be what they can do with it, not where it’s going to come from.
I’m sure someone will find benefit from this little newsletter article. I sure hope so. But all it made me want to do is shake someone and yell. So I wrote this rant instead. (Yes, this is a first diary, even though I've been around a while. Please feel free to edit tags, give advice, and so on. Thanks!)