Why You Need To Stop Worrying About Saving Money

You still need to worry about saving money, for those emergencies like the dead car, the surprise injury or illness, or something as mundane as lost luggage, crushed smartphone or stolen laptop.

You may think you have plenty of time for filling that 401K, but time runs fast, and unless you get in the habit of contributing substantially and regularly, it often never happens. And the only way to significant savings for the 401k is compounding interest and time.

Thank you for rationalizing my current pro life! In all seriousness, it’s exciting to see so many of my peers heading toward entrepreneurship. I was blessed to attend a business school that offers a major in this and was taught by venture capitalists and business leaders (public school, check it out future college students! http://www.csom.umn.edu). I’m sick of opinion articles like CNN’s http://bit.ly/orWvVD that label Millenials lazy and entitled when, in fact, many of us are working our full time jobs, getting our Master’s part time (or self-learning new skills), AND delving into new, possibly profitable, ventures. With pensions and company retirements all but a thing of the past it’s important for young professionals to have a plan, but in the ever-changing technological clime it’s not the most important thing to focus on in your early career.

Long comment, thanks for sticking through this one:

I tend to agree with what is posted on Brazen, but I have some questions about this article that somewhat counter what is implied here. I agree with the article as a whole – learning now > saving now. However, am curious about these side-projects you mention, and their role in “success.”

A little background: I have a relatively fun job, probably the most glamorous (used lightly) one I will have while working for someone else. It uses many different skills, allows me to manage myself and many of my work responsibilities, and my employers believe in personal and professional development and are willing to fund it fairly generously. That said, it is somewhat low-pay and takes different time commitments throughout the year. In the fall, I spend nearly every waking weekday moment at my job (traveling domestically) and many weekends working at least 5 hours per day. In the winter and early spring, I spend about 11 hours per day. Late spring, about 8 hours per day. Summer, about 6 hours per day.

I would love to have a side-project. As a matter of fact, I have ideas constantly flowing, especially in the fall when I spend ~3-4 hours per day driving. However, time is a major challenge, both in general and with the fluctuations in my schedule. In your opinton, is the purpose of a side-project to bring in money or to develop professional skills? With the demands of my job, I am developing a lot, but it is not generating an extra income.

Also, more on a philosophical level, I question your definition of success. Sure, we are presumed to be high-aspiring young-professionals because we are reading this blog post. That doesn’t mean we all define success in the same terms, or even that one person would define success the same way two different days in the same week. Can you elaborate more on what you consider success for the purpose of this article?

“As a recent college grad, your most important job is to learn as much as humanly possible, gain as many critical and desirable skills as you can”

Actually, in any functioning society (not ours) your most important job as a GRAD is to use the skills you just paid for to generate wealth and a standard of living for yourself. Again in a functioning society (not ours) a grad would have a reasonable chance of gainful employment and wouldn’t have to “begin learning as much as humanly possible” after half a decade or more of expensive schooling. If “college / uni” didn’t give you these so called critical and desirable skills. Why did you go? It’s not a rite of passage. It’s a place to buy the training to get employment.

Why can’t you learn and discover at your 9-5 job? You may think of it just as “going through the motions”, but for me I learn and grow every day at my regular office space job.

They pay me well too. The risk vs reward is just not enough to justify the “free spirit” approach described in this article.

If you don’t start making a habit of saving when you’re starting out, guess what happens: You spend all your paycheck on immediate things that may or not be necessary, and have little to show for it.
If you finally get that great paying job in your 30s or 40s, guess what happens? The new house/car/furniture/computer/stuff for the kids and etc. At that point, for the most part, the thinking is “I’ll start saving next paycheck/month/year/when we pay off the house/car/furniture.

At that point, any idea of saving substantially from your great paying job goes out the window.

Look around at GenX and the older Gen Y and then tell me it isn’t so.

Forming good habits at the right time is perhaps as hard as keeping, but not as catastrophic as not developing them at all.

I’m quite shocked at how bad the advice to not worry about savings is. Normally I find Brazen to be a source of momentum and good, non-conventional advice. But this one is a bomb. Saving is simply the single most important thing any of us with a job can do. It doesn’t need to be done in spite of finding a rewarding career, improving a skill set or finding your passion, but it does need to be done. What happens when you lose your job? Your car gets stolen? You need to have surgery? Your mom dies? Or any other of things that people never assume will happen, but do, everyday?

It’s never too early to start saving, even if it’s just a few percentage points of your paycheck. And waiting til 40 or 50 to even start? You’re screwed. Most experts recommend at *least* 22% of your income be put into savings. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/multimedia/retirement/ (Shameless plug, but it’s fitting. Americans are just not prepared.)

“I guarantee that you will watch your savings account magically grow beyond your wildest dreams.”

Yes, and I have a bridge to outer space for sale. Has anyone payed attention to the markets over the last few weeks? Retirees are watching their savings be wiped out, and may not live long enough for the correction to restore their savings. Yes, you need to find rewording work. No, it’s not necessarily going to pay handsomely. It’s definitely not going to ‘magically grow’ for the vast majority of people (example b: the income distribution in the U.S. lately. The top 20% of Americans hold 84% of the income.) Yes, you always need to save.

Worrying about your 401(k) in your 20s is not a bad thing, because it’s likely a percentage of us will either outlive our savings or become so sick we burn through it. Career fulfillment and savings are not either/or, if/then scenarios.