This year marks the 300th birthday of United States Founding Father Ben Franklin, who was born on January 17, 1706. A printer, statesman, and inventor, he was famous among other things for sayings such as “Time is money” and “A penny saved is twopence clear” (”A penny saved is a penny earned”).
He loved Boston, where he was born, and Philadelphia, where he worked and lived, so when he died in 1790 he left each city a sum of $4,400 (£1000) with the condition it remain invested for 200 years. When the cities cashed out the investment in 1990, each sum was worth more than $7 million, a testament to the power of compound interest. (These investments weathered the Great Depression!)
Get out of debt as soon as possible, so compound interest isn’t working against you, then start getting compound interest on your side. The sooner you save, the more you’ll have in the end.
Sources: Vanguard, Wikipedia
March 20th, 2006
One of the principles that seems to be common across many personal finance books is to “pay yourself first”. That is, you should set aside a specific percentage of your income for saving, investing, or debt reduction. It should be a constant percentage that you stick to each month. For example, if you decide to set aside 10% each month to “pay yourself first”, — whether to savings, investment, or debt reduction — you have to simply learn to live off of the other 90%. Contrast that with the attitude “I’ll save whatever is left at the end of the month.” Nothing is ever left at the end of the month!
If you don’t make paying yourself a priority, it won’t happen. (By the way, buying yourself a new pair of jeans or taking a trip is not paying yourself.) If you *do* make paying yourself a priority, you’ll learn to live on less and the income you set aside can work in your favor.
If paying yourself first is such an important principle, why shouldn’t your personal finance program encourage you to do it?
February 13th, 2006