Why Some People in Younger Generations Aren't Saving Money--And What to Do About It

It comes down to several reasons, but a lot of adults today have not grown up learning how to save money. I'm 24 years old, and the message I seemed to have gotten all the way through school was "borrow your way to success." It sounds dumb when you put it that bluntly, but most people my age think you need a credit card to survive and that being in debt your whole life is practical. The sad thing is for every person you hear about that gets in debt over their head, there's probably another 10 or 15 people that are stuck in a paycheck-to-paycheck cycle due to having so many minimum debt payments.

The solution to this developing "crisis" is education. How much money you have in life is directly connected to how you think about money. I grew up near the poverty level, but I've spent 5 years of my life so far just studying how money works from different books and being willing to listen to people who have it. The result of that is that my income has tripled since I graduated college, with the biggest percentage of that increase honestly coming from what I learned outside of college.

That's not to say college is bad (I did learn things as far as increasing my income). You just have to keep in mind that there's a conflict of interest that if they teach you how to manage your money wisely, you're not going to rack up as big of a student loan or use a credit card on their campus. Not all colleges look at it like that, but I went to one that even got paid by credit card companies to market to their students. You have to be a smart consumer, even with your education.

You can go out and spend less on what I spent on two college textbooks and buy a library of financial books at a retail bookstore that will help you a lot. If you're on a very tight budget, go to your local public library for free. Some of my favorite authors that I found helpful are Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosaki, Dan Miller, Napoleon Hill, Og Magdino, and John Maxwell.

Reading will not only increase your knowledge, but it will help you get your hope back. Both spending and saving habits have a lot to do with emotion, sometimes more than they even have to do with math. I think sometimes that people give up on themselves too quickly, and the guilt over that just causes more emotional spending. When you get a plan and some goals in life, making the decision to start saving gets easier because there's purpose behind it.

It's not going to be some overnight thing, but if enough people just took charge of their lives on an individual level this can be greatly turned around. No one's going to make the decision for you. You just have to start and be persistent with it. I can tell you my life is dramatically different than it would be right now if I'd stayed in the same way of thinking where I was before. I hope this helps you, and best wishes to you!