Early in my career, I was critical of those who failed to save, tut-tutting over their short-sightedness and lack of discipline. Today, I’m more willing to cut the world’s spendthrifts a little slack.
Why? Over the past four decades, I’ve often been asked for financial advice not just by readers, but also by those I’ve known well. Some of the advice was followed, some wasn’t. But in every case, there was no change in the person’s basic spending and savings habits.

$244,750 or $87,572 take your pick.
The Vanguard 2024 How America Saves report, says those number are the average and median 401k balances among their 401k participants aged 55 to 64. 
For those folks time is running out.
Is there a valid excuse for that level of savings? Rarely. 
What are people thinking? Consider that many, perhaps most, of these folks have an employer match as well. 
I maintain that we humans have a serious flaw in our ability to plan and act with the future in mind.

When I was working full-time, I always saved the maximum to my 401(k). Before my employers had a 401(k) plan, in the early 1980s, I saved the maximum to an IRA—a princely $2,000. Pretty soon I felt rich. I had $40,000 saved.
For this reason, I always pay attention to changes in plan savings limits. And there are higher savings limits for 401(k) plans in 2025, plus a new “super catch-up” category. For those who are interested,

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.

During my teen years, I loathed the feeling of pockets empty of money. I was happy to forgo most spending on food, entertainment or the other sundry treats that entice kids to part with their treasure. Instead, I liked to keep my pockets full–or nearly so.
Later, as my wife and I began our life together, we owned the adult equivalent of empty pockets—depleted savings and retirement accounts with a zero balance. On top of that,

In addition to my dad, my mom wanted someone else to know of a stash of cash she had hidden in the hem of the bedroom curtains. A fall resulted in a hospital stay and rehab for mom, and my dad needed to move in with me due to his health. I went upstairs to retrieve mom’s mad money and found an envelope with 70 neatly stacked $100 bills.
A few years later my mother in law was forced from her condo by a fire.

I have a high-yield savings account and several CDs at Marcus bank, owned by Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs and named after one of its founders, Marcus Goldman. I originally discovered Marcus bank while perusing rankings on bankrate.com.
Marcus is an online bank and a member of FDIC. All accounts are insured up to $250,000. Marcus charges no monthly fees. There is no minimum balance to open a high-yield savings account, but a minimum balance of $500 is required to open a CD.

When you make out the form to contribute some of your income for a 401K or Roth 401K, your HR department will default to setting equal deductions for each pay period in the year. However, you can change this.
You can request a larger dollar amount per pay period so that your 401K contribution is complete before year end.
This can be helpful if you may be leaving your job, voluntarily or involuntarily, before year end.

I recently heard a fascinating discussion about millionaires.  A financial advisor was speaking to an audience and made the comment that billionaires have jets and millionaires have two used Toyota Camrys in the garage.  His point was that millionaires become millionaires by living below their means and that most millionaires whom he has met live modestly.
He went on to say that there are an estimated 24 million people in the United States who are millionaires. 

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.