Comments on: How much do Americans save?

By: Website Profile: www.feedthepig.org « The Crafty Dollar

Website Profile: www.feedthepig.org « The Crafty Dollar — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 22:21:16 +0000

[...] literacy and the promotion of savings is the goal of the site. As you may know, Americans do not save money like the rest of the [...]

By: mandan@09

mandan@09 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:45:45 +0000

it’s not possible now a days to save money in huge amount but you could try to save enough for future to be one way smooth drive way. once you get on it you gonna find new ways to live.

By: GTD Things

GTD Things — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:52:58 +0000

well, it looks like americans are more concerned now about their futures, isn’t it ?

By: Kevin@OutOfYourRut

Kevin@OutOfYourRut — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:18:14 +0000

This is proof that even with the dark cloud of the recession, there’s a silver lining of positives in the background. The higher savings rate is probably paving the way for the next upturn, when yes it will likely fall once again.

But there’s a variable here too. Savings plummeted in the 90s and early 2000s largely because of the easy availability of credit, and an expected return of 15-20% per year in the stock market. The finance world and it’s media friends were telling all who would listen that savings made no sense in that environment.

So how much the savings rate declines in an improved economy will probably have a lot to do with credit and stock market returns. Historically, the middle and working classes saved as a means of survival to prepare for less generous times. We should always be doing that, but easy credit and double digit investment returns make it easy to abandon common sense. Since our society is getting older as the Baby Boomers age, we should be saving more anyway. Only time will tell.

By: JT @ Redeeming Riches

JT @ Redeeming Riches — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:05:14 +0000

The Great Depression had a huge impact the way people viewed their money. I’m not sure this recession is “bad enough” to get people to fundamentally shift their paradigm view of money.

When the economy is humming along and things are great people put less emphasis on saving and more on consuming. When things turn sour they emphasize the opposite. My guess is that we’ll see the same thing happen again.

By: Craig F.

Craig F. — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:29:18 +0000

I was looking at these numbers a few weeks ago and came to the conclusion that the ‘saving’ is actually just holding onto money until things seem to turn around. My feeling is that once the economy recovers (in the opion of hte masses) those dollars will flow from bank accounts to store registers. But, hey I’m no prophet. I sure hope these numbers indicate a fundamental change in peoples approach to saving.
Thanks for the great article.

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:27:34 +0000

What an interesting cycle this is. People don’t have any money saved because they haven’t been saving, so they panic when there’s a problem with the economy, then they save more. Then they’ll save less and less gradually and the next time there’s a bump in the road people will panic because they don’t have enough saved. Maybe if more of us had saved before the recession things wouldn’t be quite as bad.