Friday, September 3, 2010

pay time and saving money

I don't think I have ever held a job in which I was paid weekly.  Once every two weeks or once a month, yes.  As a grad student, (not a time of much wealth),  I was paid once a semester!  That was tough.  It ought to be fine.  You get $100 a week or $400 a month or $1600 for four months - what's the difference?  The longer the period, the more carefully, rigidly you absolutely must save.  At the end of a period, you are quite out of money and have been for days.  Suddenly, you are handed a good-sized sum.  It was hard not to splurge, at least a little bit.

When I was young, I used to read about savings and investments.  I was unhappy with myself for not saving more but at the same time, I felt saving $5 a week or $20 a month was pitifully small.  I have never been in real poverty but I do now realize that when I made sufficiently small amounts, there wasn't much point in saving.  Having a little bit aside is always important but any real savings probably needs to wait until the income is adequate, or close to adequate.  Certainly, thinking of myself as a failure before much saving is a good possibility is not called for.

The best saving we ever did was with our credit union.  We arranged for a reasonable deduction to be made before we even got paid so that deduction was just one of the others, such as taxes and retirement.  There was nothing like online accounts then and to get any of the money, we had to make a special trip to the actual building, which was not on any of our usual routes.  We never felt that we "had" the money since it was gone before we received the check.  We naturally planned to use what was left as a matter of course.  That worked very well.

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