Nobody protects you anymore. In the past years there has been a lot of cases of underfunded pension plans in the USA, some of them resulted in bankruptcies, some of them were severely reduced. Companies are abandoning corporate-funded pensions in favor of defined-contribution plans such as 401(k)s, in which employees make contributions. The conclusion is you’ll have to take care of yourself because it is likely your company won’t do that for you anymore. The State won’t protect you either: the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp (which insures traditional pension plans) is deeply in the red (23 billion deficit as of 2005) and they are saying “we clearly do not have the ability over the long run to honor all the obligations we’ve taken on”. Maintaining your current lifestyle when you retire will depend solely on your savings and how you invest them.

In Argentina we’re having the same problem, only worse. The amount in commisions we pay to the local pension plans are among the highest in the world. We’re going to talk further about this topic in another post.

To control where your money goes. If you have an illness you do research and consult more than one doctor, if you were in jail maybe you would study law to learn how to handle your case better or to know if your attorney is doing well. And when it turns to the destination you give to your hard earned money, it should be the same.

Time is money, money is time. Start spending some spare time learning finance concepts. All the information you need is on the web, almost always for free! It’s not sky-rocket science, and it is an effort that can change your life completely for good. If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for your kids so you can give them a new world of opportunities. And maybe (as a lot of people like me) you find you’re keen on this topic!

To learn how the world works. It’s a capitalist world. Whether you like it or not we live in a world where the best way to gain full control of our lives is by inventing and maintaining our own cash machine that pays for our lifestyle. Imagine the value of knowing objectively how the country/ industry/company where you work is doing (if it’s doing well or if it’s having problems). And when a recession/crisis comes (they always come once in a while) you will be better prepared to defend yourself, or even have a strategy to take advantage of it.

To put your money to work for you. If you can save $5,000 a year and invest that amount to obtain a 10% rate annually on average during the next 12 years, you will make more than $100,000 by then (provided you reinvest all that money every year). And if you keep doing that for only 5 more years you would have doubled that amount! That is the power of compound interest. So the sooner you start, the better.

To achieve financial independence. Financial independence means not having to work for money anymore. For almost everybody that means being rich. The usual definition for someone who is rich is: “this person has/makes a lot of money”. But as Rich Dad author Robert Kiyosaki says: “It’s not about how much money you can make. It is about how much money you can save, how hard your money works for you and how many years you can live with the income.” So you don’t have to be a millionaire to reach financial freedom, it depends on your lifestyle level and sofistication. We’re going to talk about Kiyosaki’s controversial philosophies in this blog.