Like I told you on Monday, it’s Women’s Money Week. Each day there is a topic for bloggers to write about. There’s main content on their website (I’ll be published on the site on Saturday.) and bloggers around the web are writing about the topics as well. I’ve wanted to post a few this week myself.
Today’s topic is Saving and Investing.
I don’t know a lot about investing, except that you should do it. Since I don’t know about it, I’m going to make sure that I educate myself very soon and get started on it.
My history with saving money is sketchy. I have never had a savings account that was more than a couple of hundred dollars and I have never had one for very long.
I have always known that I should have a savings account but the actual rationale just didn’t make sense to me. I really can’t explain why a savings account didn’t make sense, it certainly does now.
You need to have a savings account because:
1. You can’t predict the future. (Tweet This)
Yep that’s pretty much the only reason you need! You have no way of knowing what is going to happen in your future.
Take my story as an example.
I graduated college and was a special education teacher. I thought that I would always be able to get a job. I didn’t worry about unemployment.
Yes I was naive and uneducated. I was overly confident that I would be fine and could always “fix” things in the future.
When I left my husband, it was due to safety reasons and it was sudden. I moved to a new town to live with my mom. I wasn’t able to get a teaching job. And then I wasn’t able to get any job at all. A savings account would have stopped me from charging on my credit cards to pay for my divorce as well as other living expenses.
A savings account that is adequately funded can save you when unemployment hits (or a family emergency as in my case).
And no one wants to think about it happening but if you even slightly think something may go wrong with your marriage or that there is a possibility that your husband could be irrational during a divorce, please put money aside. I don’t like advocating lying to your partner but I know of a number of women who have been burned by the husbands they thought they could trust.
More than anything, make sure you are educated. Make sure your children are educated. And stay aware.
This post is part of Women’s Money Week 2012. For more posts about Savings and Investing see Saving and Investing Roundup.
I also blog at A Five Star Life. I write about anything that comes to mind but try to focus on finding the good in daily life.
Your story is a great example of why we all need savings, even when life seems wonderful at first. Sorry to hear about the circumstances, but so glad you got out safely!
Christa(Quote)
That’s what I keep repeating to myself: you don’t know what the future holds, save up! Unfortunately for me, it doesn’t work too well because I spend exactly for the same reason. What if I die tomorrow and I never saw the Great Wall of China! You know… and here I go… to China!
Aloysa @ My Broken Coin(Quote)
Twitter:
on March 8, 2012 at 6:45 pm
That should be enough to scare people into saving – You can’t predict the future. It’s funny that at university, no one ever said that unemployment is a reality that you could face. No one wants to talk about what bad things could happen. If you want people to be prepared, you need to talk about all possibilities – both good and bad.
Dannielle @ Odd Cents(Quote)