How do you think paying your retirement? With your credit card?
Probably in a few days, you will receive your credit card account statement of the holiday season. Maybe you are like many people who are not able to pay their credit card in one payment. When you look at your credit card account statements, how much money do you plan to save for your retirement?
If you don’t have the money to pay your credit card, do you really think to have some for your retirement?
A significant number of people turn to debt consolidation services to be able to pay their debts and avoid bankruptcy. This service is useful, but it demonstrates that many people have no economy and retire being poor.
According to surveys, many people pay their Christmas gifts with their credit card, even if they don’t have the money to pay them at the time of purchase. They’ll have to pay them over a period of several months after Christmas. This fuels the debate about the retirement plans and in what conditions these people will live their retirement.
The problem is mainly that many people retire being dependent on social assistance from the government to survive.
The government must plan for retired workers
The previous facts demonstrate that people cannot be fully responsible for their situation. The government must step in and take some of people’s responsibilities for their retirement.
People don’t like paying taxes. They prefer to manage their finances. However, many people don’t know how to manage their finances and even less how to plan their retirement. If it wasn’t about the social assistance of the government, they would be homeless.
It becomes clear that the government must plan for people who don’t plan. Even with education, finances remain an emotional area and people love spending. We live in a consumer society where credit is easy to obtain. It’s also easy to get into debt.
Conclusion
There is no doubt for me that the government must step in to ensure a minimum income for people when they retire. Educating people and developing financial management measures help people, but it’s not enough. What we’re more likely to see is many people continuing to depend on the government’s welfare and being in a situation close to poverty during their retirement.
If you really want a good retirement plan, think how you use the credit and that could say a lot about the quality of your retirement.
2 Comments
The example you took “credit card versus preparing for the retirement period” is very good. For many people, it is hard to manage correctly their credit card. I think that they do not know “How” to pay their current purchases every month so the debt increases every month. The retirement plan is important but for many young people it is too far in time, and when it is time to think about it, it is almost too late. How can we give more “Education”? It is heavy and costly on the shoulders of the financial institutions. Even if government publicizes on the subject, does the people hear and listen to the message?
Thanks Carole for your comment. It is very meaningful. To answer your question about the education, I believe education should be done in school.
Furthermore, a few years ago, I thought about a concept for starting people early in their lives with a credit card with a limit of about 100$. During many years, people would have to use a very limited credit card. The goal is to allow people to make mistakes early. That way, they would learn how to manage the credit to avoid making the big mistakes later with credit cards with thousands of dollars. During these years, people would not get bad credit score for not paying in time. It is part of the learning process.
This is what I call “learning by experience”. For many things if life, it is always better to start small.
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