Читать книгу Smart is the New Rich - Christine Romans - Страница 8

We'll more fully explore these questions, how to answer them, and how to get there in the pages ahead. Planning a budget means recognizing how far you are from these goals. You have to know what is coming in and going out before you can slot money for investments, real estate, and retirement goals. Write down every little expense – including the price of your morning bagel, change for doing laundry, the amounts for phone/Internet bills, and what you shell out for entertainment. Track your spending, make realistic goals, and be consistent. Once you're on track – with housing costs in line with what you can afford, high-interest credit card debt paid off, and student loan payments automatically paid each month – the next step is building wealth.

Throughout human history, civilizations endured because people planned for the future by socking away a little of today's wealth for the next year. They saved some of this year's crop to plant again the next year to guarantee stability (and wealth) for coming years. Eat all your seed corn now, and you'll starve later. It sounds rather Game of Thrones, I know, but, really, unless you budget, save, and prepare, you're leaving an awful lot to luck.

That's a bleak way of saying that Americans spend too much and save too little. On average, Americans save about 4 percent of their income each month. The savings rate has slowly improved since the Great Recession ended, but it still is not high enough. A reachable target is 10 percent, and those Fidelity 401(k) millionaires put away 14 percent on average, starting young.

As you prepare your budget, if you can't get to 10 percent right away, start more slowly. Squeeze just 1 percent out the first month, then 2 percent the next month. Ratchet up the savings, and trim the spending bit by bit.

“You've got to save every penny.”

– Carmelo Anthony, New York Knicks, CNN March 2012

I often hear from readers and viewers that they don't have any money to save, that their finances are out of their control, and that until they get a better job or move to a different city or pay off their student loans, they can't save another penny.

I always circle back to the advice from my friend and frequent CNNMoney guest Ryan Mack. He's the president of Optimum Capital Management, and he is a true believer that anyone can make a budget and find money to save in it, no matter their circumstances. His mother raised two sons with scant money, sometimes on public assistance and in public housing. She made it into the middle class, and Mack uses her example in his own business to inspire anyone to build wealth. He says wealth is built slowly and surely through the little daily decisions we make with our money. He says all of us have a responsibility to be “good stewards” of our finances. Mack explains: