Guess What Americans Are Doing? Saving More!

Image by Daniel Y. Go via Flickr

Today's news was interesting. In the last few months, there has been a steady increase in savings rate in the US. At one point in recent years, it had been negative. See an article here in the New York Times: Consumers Increase Savings While Spending Less

So, I'm thinking this is great news!

After the recent financial crisis and given the ongoing uncertainty, people are making sure that they are more conservative with their money, doing the absolute basic minimum of personal finance which is making sure that they have adequate savings, and really making substantial steps to get themselves back on their feet.

However, some economists argue that when people save "too much", the economy takes long to recover because businesses need the revenue to employ people etc. OK, I see the point. But, consider this:

There is nothing wrong with saving. Saving is the absolute basic minimum of personal finance. You don't have to invest (which is to take on risk with the hope or expectation of a return). You don't have to borrow (which is to take on debt). But you do have to have money to spend for the basic necessities of life and that comes from earning and saving.

If you want to get higher returns than what you can get from savings, and are willing to take the risk of losing all your money, then you invest.

Saving is not investing. I repeat, saving is not investing.

Saving is what you do when you place a deposit with a regulated financial institution at a stated interest rate applicable to that deposit and that deposit is insured up to a limit by a Government agency (such as the FDIC in the US and the JDIC in Jamaica)

If you want to buy things that cost more than your income, then you borrow and pay a premium for that money not being yours. That is what debt is - other people's money and you are using it. If you can wait, it is better to save for an item than go into debt to buy it. Why? Because debt costs money. That money is called interest and that debt interest will in most cases - unless it is concessionary debt - exceed your after tax interest on savings dollar for dollar. So after all your time spent saving, you would be effectively losing some of that interest every time you use any form of credit.

Now, back to this debate between savings and economic recovery.

Now, as I understand it, in the US people lost the ability to access credit - many of them through no fault of their own. If you don't have your own money - which is savings - and you don't have credit - either because of the banking crisis, the new lending standards of the bank, the credit rating system, or because you owe too much money - then what are you going to use to consume? You need savings.

Massive borrowing fueled unsustainable levels of consumption. Would some economists prefer that the economy "recover" by people borrowing which they might not be able to do anyway? Would some economists prefer that other people - who are fearing job losses - use up their savings to consume? Because when those savings are depleted, people will have no money to consume, and will have no savings and possibly employment income to qualify for credit to then consume. At some point, the economy will run out of people who have money to consume.

Why, in this time of record job losses, and market uncertainty should people not save more? Now, I love consumption as much as the next person but I have zero interest in unsustainable consumption. Unsustainable consumption, unsustainable debt with limited, zero or negative saving is how we ended up in this global mess.

No matter how you look at it, consumption gets a hit.

In order for an economy to be sustainable, there has to be a balance between consumption and saving.

We cannot continue to live in an interconnected global economy with such great information asymmetry - where so many people do not understand the basics of personal finance:

• that savings are absolutely mandatory;
  
• that savings are NOT investments;
  
• that you have to evaluate investments not just based on hot tips or recommendations but based on your individual risk profile, needs and age in life;
  
• that debt eats away at your hard earned interest and needs to be managed
• that you should only take on debt in accordance with your realistic ability to repay, and fully cognizant of the true cost of debt
  
• that expenses (and hence consumption) must be managed so that they can be paid from earnings without depleting savings, savings goals and ability to save. Remember the "Pay Yourself First" principle, you must save before you do anything else!
  

I could go on.

In order for anyone to prosper, as we have seen, everybody needs to be at a basic minimum level and it is up to education reform, advocacy, and helping each other that this financial literacy will be achieved. It has to start from a very young age.

If you spend money, you must know how to have money to spend - that is, to save.

It is said that those who weathered the Great Depression were the conservative spenders and the aggressive savers. Although we are not in a Depression, we would sure like to avoid one. The only thing we are certain of is that we are living with uncertainty. And if you don't know if and how much money you are likely to earn in the immediate near future, isn't it prudent to adopt some conservative spending and aggressive saving habits?