Robber: “Your money or your life.”
[pause]
Robber: “Well?”
[pause]
Jack Benny: “I’m thinking it over!”
That’s an old joke about being frugal. Sometimes, we are faced with that exact question, in other terms, and we have to come up with a logical answer. Chances are, the pause will be longer than it was in the joke.
The real joke is that, at some point, your money is your life. The problem with it is that you don’t always know when it will come to fruition. My advice to young people would be, “assume that the time is tomorrow.”
Generally, we go through life thinking that we will live forever and that we can continue to live the way we always have. It’s difficult to see into the future and imagine a time when we will have to get by from week to week with nothing but what we have saved and what little the federal government will be giving us.
I remember (back to my marriage again) sitting in our living room, making out checks for our bills, and writing one for $50 to American Century to contribute to my IRA. The wife sees it and says, "What's that for?"
When I told her, she replied, "What do you need that for?"
You wouldn't think it would be difficult to explain, but it was for a 30-something who was overly concerned that he wouldn't have enough saved for his retirement and thought that an extra fifty bucks here and there could actually amount to something.
For the record, the S&P 500 was at 420 in 1992. It sits at around 2,800 today - so you tell me.
It was discouraging, so say the least, that I thought enough about my (and her) future to dare invest money in such a scam as the stock market. She worked for the state, and had some 503[something] state-funded retirement plan to lean on. My counter-argument was "well, don't depend on the state government to take care of you in your retirement." Hate to tell you, but I was right. The state is having difficulty funding its retirement plan and is in the process of cutting it. Nevertheless.
In a year or two, I found that she had taken a life insurance policy out on herself. Fine, I thought. Good thinking - in case you accidentally fall down a flight of stairs or that gun misfires into your face for some odd reason.
When I asked, "Who is the beneficiary?" I thought it would be a rhetorical question: "Why, you dear, of course," was my mythical in my head answer.
Instead, what I found out was that her sister was the beneficiary. OK, then.
When I asked, "Why?" [a reasonable question] I was told that "you don't believe in life insurance." I never reconciled that answer, and told her that she was not only the beneficiary of my insurance policy through my job, but also the beneficiary of my retirement plan at work AND the IRA that I had opened - as noted earlier.
The moral of this little tale is: Look out for yourself, because you're all you have.
I remember (back to my marriage again) sitting in our living room, making out checks for our bills, and writing one for $50 to American Century to contribute to my IRA. The wife sees it and says, "What's that for?"
When I told her, she replied, "What do you need that for?"
You wouldn't think it would be difficult to explain, but it was for a 30-something who was overly concerned that he wouldn't have enough saved for his retirement and thought that an extra fifty bucks here and there could actually amount to something.
For the record, the S&P 500 was at 420 in 1992. It sits at around 2,800 today - so you tell me.
It was discouraging, so say the least, that I thought enough about my (and her) future to dare invest money in such a scam as the stock market. She worked for the state, and had some 503[something] state-funded retirement plan to lean on. My counter-argument was "well, don't depend on the state government to take care of you in your retirement." Hate to tell you, but I was right. The state is having difficulty funding its retirement plan and is in the process of cutting it. Nevertheless.
In a year or two, I found that she had taken a life insurance policy out on herself. Fine, I thought. Good thinking - in case you accidentally fall down a flight of stairs or that gun misfires into your face for some odd reason.
When I asked, "Who is the beneficiary?" I thought it would be a rhetorical question: "Why, you dear, of course," was my mythical in my head answer.
Instead, what I found out was that her sister was the beneficiary. OK, then.
When I asked, "Why?" [a reasonable question] I was told that "you don't believe in life insurance." I never reconciled that answer, and told her that she was not only the beneficiary of my insurance policy through my job, but also the beneficiary of my retirement plan at work AND the IRA that I had opened - as noted earlier.
The moral of this little tale is: Look out for yourself, because you're all you have.
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