WHEN I WAS GROWING up, I’d receive Series E savings bonds as birthday gifts from my parents. It was the start of many to come. My parents had great respect for savings bonds and, as I got older, I came to hold them in high regard as well.
Savings bonds never offered the highest interest rate. At a defense plant where I worked, a guy in the accounting department questioned my bond buying. He noted that savings bonds paid less interest than the certificates of deposit then available.

I HAVE MY MOTHER to thank for my good savings habits. She opened a savings account in my name when I was a kid. She also made sure I had a Christmas Club savings account every year. I was required to make deposits regularly.
I didn’t mow my neighbor’s lawn, have a newspaper route or sell lemonade on my front lawn. Instead, the money I saved came from the allowance my mother paid me.

I VIVIDLY REMEMBER my father explaining how small sums of money could grow exponentially. Using the example of a penny that doubled every day for a month, he showed how it could grow to more than $10 million. Indeed, as Albert Einstein didn’t say, “The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.”
Many authors tout the benefits of saving beginning at a young age. Radio personality Dave Ramsey and his daughter Rachel Cruze,

I’VE ALWAYS BEEN a saver, and perhaps even pathologically frugal. Growing up, it pained me to spend money, even on food when I was hungry. Today, I have more than enough money, but I still resist paying full price for food.
Perhaps I’m just genetically frugal, or perhaps my feelings about money reflect my parents and my upbringing. My mom once shared that her aunt predicted that she’d make lots of money, but it would be like grains of rice and slip through her fingers. Meanwhile,

JEFF WAS A NEW engineer who began his nuclear power career a couple of decades ago as part of my group. He’d graduated from a middling engineering school with a stellar grade point average. Quiet, though not shy, he had a serious demeanor.
Jeff had a goal of purchasing a house as soon as possible. Needless to say, this was a tall order for someone just starting his career. He lived a spartan lifestyle,

WHAT DOES IT MEAN to “live within your means”? To answer the question, we first need to define “means.”

If your gross income is $60,000, that income isn’t your means. For starters, you need to subtract income and payroll taxes. To live within your means, you need to spend no more than your net income—income after taxes and other withholdings.

I’ll go further and suggest that your true means are your income net of monthly savings for retirement and financial emergencies.

SOME FRIENDS WERE recently discussing their investment performance. I couldn’t contribute to the conversation—because I have no idea what our investment returns have been.
The fact is, I don’t find performance information all that valuable, plus it’s relatively hard to calculate since you have to account for both price changes and dividend or interest payments. To be sure, investment returns are useful if you’re looking to determine whether a mutual fund manager is adding returns in excess of a benchmark index,

I’VE BEEN SAVING almost my entire adult life. Early on, three books put me on the path to financial success, helping me to reevaluate how I was living.
The first was The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach. This introduced me to the concept that small, automated savings could lead to big results, thanks to compounding over long periods. Albert Einstein reportedly said, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it,

COMMENTARY ABOUT America’s wealth inequality seems to be everywhere. According to Wikipedia, as of 2021’s fourth quarter, Federal Reserve data indicate that the top 1% of households hold 32.3% of the country’s wealth.
Meanwhile, Pew Research Center reports that the median wealth of the richest 20% of American families increased by an inflation-adjusted 45% between 1998 and 2007, while the median wealth of middle-income families rose just 16%.
And then there’s the Federal Reserve Bank of St.

WHEN I WAS A YOUNG engineer, I supervised a charismatic worker named Neil, who was a sort of pied piper to the younger engineers and technicians in our group. He was about 20 years older than us and loved to dispense advice like a guru.
His quirky advice usually had a financial component. For example, he recommended that we single guys marry women with curly hair, as that would save tens of thousands of dollars over the course of the marriage,

THIS SIMPLE EQUATION is arguably the most important in personal finance: income – expenses = savings.
Think back to your early paychecks. Most of your after-tax salary likely went toward housing, food and maybe a few debt payments. For many of us, little was available to save each month for the first year or two of our working lives.
Then one day, on the last day of the month, there was money left over.

I GREW UP IN A SMALL three-bedroom home, the youngest of 14 children. I was always sharing a bed with one older brother or another. My father drove a garbage truck for the county and my mom washed dishes in the school cafeteria.
Money was hard to come by and, when it was in hand, it needed to be spent wisely. My parents engrained in me the importance of education, although neither had a high school diploma.

IT’S ONE THING TO talk to folks about the power of saving regularly. It’s much more profound to see it in action. I was reminded just how powerful saving can be during two recent meetings with financial-planning clients. In both cases, we looked back at 2022 and calculated how much the clients had saved.
In the first case, the clients had saved diligently throughout the year. They increased their 401(k) and 403(b) contributions, they opened and funded 529 plans,

JEFF BEZOS ONCE asked Warren Buffett why everyone doesn’t just copy his example when investing. Buffett famously replied, “Because nobody wants to get rich slowly.”
The magic of saving diligently, coupled with decades of compounding inside tax-advantaged accounts, can ensure financial freedom. In fact, young married couples today have an outside chance of accumulating $10 million by the time they reach the new required minimum distribution age of 75.
To reach the $10 million jackpot,

MONEY IS OFTEN TIGHT for those in their 20s. Yes, that first “adult” job typically pays more than any previous job. Still, finding money to save and invest can be tough. After handling all the other big expenses of early adulthood—house, wedding, student loans—there just isn’t much money left over.
That’s my dilemma and one facing many others in their 20s. How can we make extra money without getting a second job? My fiancée and I focus on earning money just by living.