Has society forgotten the importance of saving with a savings account?

Many people in our society are struggling financially. The values I learned from my parents are considered old fashioned today. During our childhood our parents stressed that if you wanted something you needed to save for it and if you did not have the money you did not buy it. A portion of any money that we had as children was placed in a savings account. This type of philosophy is not popular today.

When I was growing up there were many times that I complained about having the forced savings account. I would baby sit and worked for a local store helping to stock shelves after school. I did not think it was fair when my parents made me place a part of my earnings into the savings account. I remember my sister lying about how much she was paid for babysitting so that she could keep more of the cash. When my parents found out about the lying she had to place all of her next babysitting wage in the savings account. We also had to put part of the money we received for birthdays into the account. When I graduated from high school my parents gave me a beautiful watch as well as the passbook to my savings account. I could not believe the amount of money I had in the account. I did not understand that I was gaining interest on the money and I had no idea how much I had saved over the eighteen years. I was able to buy a used car to take along to college.

Most adults do not discipline themselves to have a savings account, let alone their children. Instead of valuing money in the bank, people value how high your credit limit is. Even the banks encourage the trend of placing things on credit. My parents would most likely have a poor credit score by today’s standards because they bought items with cash rather than on credit. Having money in a savings account was very important to them. They would go without before borrowing money for an item they wanted. As a result they truly appreciated everything they had because they waited until they could afford to buy it with cash. Today people seem suspicious of people that pay for things with cash.

I still have my savings account passbook from when I was a child. When I look back on the amount of money I had at graduation it does not seem to be that great, yet the lesson I learned will be part of how I operate my business affairs for the rest of my life. I also have an active savings account that I put money into every pay check. Some months the amounts are smaller than others, but they all add up.

Editors Comment: 

I hope you found this article about the importance of a savings account helpful. With today’s world everywhere you go people try to get you to buy things on credit because they know that, that way you are much more likely to buy. In the olden days people would go away and think about it and after that they might decide to save up for it over time, this meant that a lot of things they would decide against buying and as a result they probably had a lot les things hanging around that they didn’t use or need. It is also true, as the author of this article said, that when people saved up for things with a savings account they most likely appreciated those things more than we would if we had just simply gone out and bought them on credit. And of cause if we maintain a savings account we will not only benefit from the interests but we will also have something to fall back on if we find our self’s suddenly in need.