The solution to this largely a matter of a shift in attitude. Start saving 10% of your salary right now and stop buying new clothes, eating out etc. Having a buffer is way more important. There are plenty of resources for learning how to live frugally. The benefits of having a cushion, however small, are enormous.

Of course, that doesn't take away from the other points you mention. But it's by no means an unsolvable problem for the average comfortably-living individual.

The actual trick is probably to make most of your savings in other places - a smaller house/apartment with less "stuff" to fill it might feel just as good, ensure that you always have some form of pre-cooked food in the house to avoid the temptation of takeout for no reason other than having no energy to cook, figure out whether you can spend less on transport (do you really need the big new car for the one time a year you go on vacation, or could you rent a vehicle or take the Greyhound/Megabus/etc for that weekend?), figure out whether you actually need the latest flagship phone and an unlimited data plan (maybe consuming netflix, youtube, and spotify on the mobile network isn't such a great idea?). These are big-ticket items and it's almost always possible to save significantly on them without changing your lifestyle if you're "comfortably living".

The general point is that when you were 22 and earnt bugger all you could still live, now you're 32 and earn a lot more, you live a lot better but never started saving.

You should be saving money but you're not. So force yourself to revert some of your positive life-style changes as you actually can't afford them yet. Do it at source, set up a standing order to automatically take the money out just after pay day.

Start small, say 1%, and increase it every 3 months maybe?

To be honest, the first statement you get of your savings where you earn interest instead of paying it is quite refreshing. And you feel a little smug and a little more mind-at-rest because you know you can deal with disasters.

There is also the fact that we know the French health care system, the social aids you get if you loose your job, and your family will all come into play for some category of problems.

And there is the gamble for more comfort vs responsibility. My generation really don't want to take any kind of responsibility for anything, including society, the planet and their own life.

But even if you consider that:

- saving 10% of my income will not, in any way, let me live through my retirements. Not at half of my current life style anyway. And I do earn more money that most people.

- those are people in a very comfortable situation. Now take people with children, a loan and a standard job, and you have a much less simple picture.

- most people have been told the story that the retirement system will work, or that we will make it work. Beside, they don't thing 30 years ahead for anything.

- a lot of people won't make rational choices in their life. Taking a loan they should not, making a child they can't afford, getting married with the wrong person... Expecting people to save is already at another level of planning. We failed at educating people, but we also told them it was ok to do what they were doing.

- we have a huge value scale issue here. frugality, quality, solidarity... Those are not the thing that society promotes. Solving the retirement problem is not just an economical issue. When banks are bailed out, medias scream "money and consumption" and Trump rules the most powerful country in the world, convincing somebody to not go for take out is quite hard.

- fixing and cookie are getting a lost art.

- things do cost way more. 10% is a lot for some people.

Although I find it very peculiar that my parents could live the life my friend live, but afford children, have saving and yet now have a retirement.

A 30 years old single person with no children an a job that doesn't have a loan or crazy spending habits should not have to choose between savings and pleasures.

In UK housing has become much more expensive as a proportion of earnings, and wage rates seem to have declined in real terms.

sounds like you need to learn to live more frugal, then.

learning to not consume blindly but instead responsibly is just as important as saving money.

Although I'm not living the grand life. I don't own a car, I don't have children or crazy expensive hobbies. I cook every day, buy vegetables at the farmer market. I don't drink at all, or consume drugs, or smoke. I don't go out a lot. Once a week maybe.

Beside I find it very peculiar that my parents could live the life my friends live, yet could afford children, have saving and now have a retirement.

A 30 years old single person with no children an a job that doesn't have a loan or mad spending habits should not have to choose between savings and pleasures.

But yes, I don't deny I could definitely tune down my spending.

I'm not in a difficult situation myself. I don't have saving, but I have a nice life. I'm one of the person who can give away the 500 €. I'm more concerned that so many people around me can't.

While there is definitely an attitude issue here, it can't be the only one. I can believe there is a difference in the education my parents had. I can't, however, they were so much better planners than my friends are.

However, money is not everything. Living is France is very sweet, and the US lifetyle is peculiar. Also, I'm currently an independent dev, and the salary implied I signed a 5 years contract. That's a lot of constraints for me.

But yeah, compared to the US, dev are not well valued here. And you should see in Spain...

I understand you know that yourself, but the past is the past - my grand parents were suffering through wars.

But it would be unfair to blame entirely the current generation for their situation. I don't think another one would have ended up in such an entire different situation. Life does cost more. Society does push to consume.

I think it's just that given that the economy is probably going to be shittier and shittier, we should take the opportunity of our current still nice lives to prepare.

But yeah, we don't.

The truth is - you are born - now play the cards you are dealt. If you complain about the cards - then you are already about to lose before the game even started. Maybe next card dealt to you is Leukemia - now you will complain to yourself "why me of all the people - what have I done to deserve this?" while you wish your only problems still were being in a financially worse position than your parents. I think that's what you are doing.

Retirement on the other hand...

Now that I reached a milestone (even if I did kill the account from 300->0, 250->0 a couple of times in emergencies) I intend to increase how much I put in there. 10% of my salary is a lot to do without, my wife doesn't work, we have two kids and a mortgage and a (useless expensive) car. But the €100 I simply didn't miss, and the €200, that will get me to the next milestone, when I'll jump to €300, and so on and so on will all soon arrive.

Does anyone have any advice in this area? How can I keep the value of my 10% savings in 30 years time with low risk?

I don't want to go to an IFA. They sell me a product.

If you really want to keep it for 30 years the tax advantages of a pension are unbeatable and your employer is obliged to try to default you into one.

I have opted out of the mandatory pensions as I had debt to pay off and it makes more sense to invest in that. I'm not happy with the risk profiles of the investments they offer as well as even the low risk one has a shit return.

I'm looking for something different. TBH I'm making a reliable £300/month clear profit for a few hours effort on ebay buying and selling crap which over time has a better investment return sticking it in a low interest account that sticking a portion of salary in high interest.

That's working for now but I want something that requires less effort :)

Your eBay endeavors are basically allocating your capital to a closely held business, which is perfectly reasonable though like you said, likely unscalable.

This is not the response you wanted, and I feel terribly sorry for it, but it's something that keeps creeping up when inflation/investment discussions flame up. So, to help, and this is just my very personal suggestion: grab a reasonable amount of your "savings", enough to make an impact (>$5k), but not enough to ruin you (<$100k). Put that into a low-fee stock-trading account (Robinhood, Fidelity, etc.) — wait for one of the very, very big ones (NOT Snapchat), like Amazon, or Apple, or Microsoft to dip a bit below the average going rate for the past few weeks/months. Like Amazon, it's been hovering around $1000 for a bit if I remember correctly, now it dipped below it and everyone wants/expects to see this go over again. Find an opportunity that will net you 3-5%. Amazon was at $955 yesterday, if you expect it to go up to $1000, that's 4.7% of gain (ignoring small fees). So, like many, you'd buy a good chunk of that. Once the order is through, you set two more orders, one for $670 (that's your panic sell), and one for $1000. Then you wait.

This either takes a few days, it may take a year. It doesn't matter, if you end up with 4-5%, you take out your original investment, and you leave in whatever dollar amount you just gained. Rinse, repeat.

There will be lots of people advising you against this, and that's absolutely correct. If there was a simple system to follow to guarantee you to make all that sweet sweet money, then, by definition of the market, there would be no such system any longer. That said, this strategy has served me (personally) very well over the past 10 years, and I've made much, much more than 5% over the years. The "magic" of it is that you can get out tomorrow, or you get out in five years. If you don't need the money to live, then you are not in a hurry. This allows you to wait until the time is right.

The single-biggest enemy here, again, is our own greed. I usually aim to net a meagre $200-$700 before I sell. Even if the stock keeps rising like crazy, I normally get out after $400-$500, and rarely let it sit any longer. It's one of my rules (and others may think this is stupid, which is just as valid as me having that rule).

And I speak from experience:

I've once had a tough year, after several years of just making easy money on an ever-rising market. So, I invested all I had into Netflix. It was a 'jumpy' stock, but I figured if I time it out right, I'll end up with way, waaay more than my regular 3-5%. I could possibly make a decade of progress in my otherwise tame (but perfectly steady) stock investments. Then, Netflix dipped 40% or so, and it stayed there for quite a while (days, weeks, months...) — and I didn't have a panic-sell in place then. To make it worse, I even doubled-down as any panicked idiot would do, and Netflix dipped further. I didn't log in to my stock account for well over a year, if not almost two years I think. Then, one day, it had made its way back to the original price. I got out without losses, promised myself to never break my own rules again, and continued without a hitch after that. But, holy moly, had I needed that money, I'd not have been in a good place.

At this point, someone would usually say, the smart thing is to diversify, to spread the risk. But to me, spreading the risk is like watering things down, you're also watering down the profits. I'd rather know a lot about one stock, at most two stocks (I never do more than two), and watch them carefully, vs. having 15 stocks in my portfolio, where I barely keep up with the basics. Again, that's just me, everyone is different. Also, having small investments in many stocks (vs. one or two stocks) may drive up fees quite a bit, depending on how fast you (have to) move.

If you don't want to risk this, then funds and or an index, or a work-place matching investments type-of-plan may be best. It's other people doing the same thing for you, and you pay them a fee, regardless of performance. Which never felt right to me (I still advise to do this if you don't care about stocks or actually taking care of the money).

I still firmly believe that someone who continues to save hard, and keep that money far away from your 'usual spending money' will almost always beat someone trying to optimise their investment strategies.

Oh, lastly, you obviously have to pay tax on short-term gains. So this will come into effect as well. Depending on your location/tax-jurisdiction, this will be handled differently and it may make sense to optimise based on that (>1 year investments).

Just my 2 cents.

"There will be lots of people advising you against this, and that's absolutely correct."

It's merely a personal tale of what works for me. I'm not a financial advisor, and I am not here to teach nor preach.

Your concentrated stock exposure requires someone to be a professional trader, which generally speaking is a losing game for most of us.

For reference, I am plugging a fair amount of cash into a savings account when I come across it and avoiding unnecessary luxuries. That in itself has netted me a fair amount of cash and flexibility. Not spending it is better than saving it.

I'll read further into the investment side of things. I really want to get 50% of my cash reserve into something with a better return at the moment.

Currently I am taking 1-5% of that and netting £300/month profit which totals about a 11% a year rate but the effort is quite large for this.

If everybody started saving 10% of their salary, the decrease in consumer spending would put deflationary pressure on the economy. That could, in turn, lead to a few different possible scenarios depending on the economic policy decisions of the government and the central bank:

1. If the economic authorities refused to respond and decided to "let nature take its course" on the economy, the reduction in consumer spending would lead to businesses shuttering and people losing their jobs. Maybe instead of 1/3 of people not saving any of their salary, 1/3 of people just wouldn't have salaries in the first place.

2. The central bank can lower interest rates thereby making it easier for people to borrow. This easy borrowing would provide an incentive for people to spend. This could counteract the effects of whatever was incentivizing them to save in the first place. Or maybe we'll end up in a situation where people think they're saving, borrowing, and spending all at the same time and what's really happening is that they're "investing" in some kind of asset bubble that they don't know is a bubble.

3. The fiscal authority borrows and spends money into the economy to make up for the drop in consumer spending (and, if distributed well, that money circulates and boosts consumers pending too). This fiscal expansion route is kind of the opposite of the monetary expansion route in scenario #2. Here, the government is going into debt in a stable and controlled manner. With the central bank lowering interest rates (#2 above), you're encouraging the expansion of private debt, which is unstable and can collapse.

I don't make economic policy, but if I did, I'd tend to lean toward option #3. Of course, it entails the central bank and the country's government working together to make it happen. The ECB would have to encourage (or at least allow) the EU member nations to go further into debt. In the case of America, the Fed doesn't have that kind of control over the government. If Congress decided to take on massive government debt and spend new money into the economy, the Fed would have no choice but to take the necessary actions to keep prices stable (raise interest rates, etc).

Well, that turned into a little rant about things I care about. I guess my overall point is that if Everyone started saving 10% of their salary, it would be a huge shock to the economy, and probably not a good one. And what happens next would depend on a lot of things that I think about a lot.

Anyway, solving this "problem" is not just about a shift in attitude toward saving. At least not in the general sense. I do agree with you that it's not an unsolvable problem for an average comfortably-living individual.

Worry about that if it happens, because it almost certainly won't.

I'd give 500€ away to someone. I have done before on numerous occasions. The problem is not solidarity, it is trust and the human condition. If I give that money to someone, it'll turn into an iPhone or be smoked before something productive is done with it even if it is mandated for education or essentials to get someone out of a hole they are in. People are stupid and irresponsible.

1. Save up a 1000 € in an 'Extreme Emergency Fund' LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT

2. Work out exactly where each euro goes each month and start cutting down your unnecessary expenses and keep to a strict budget

3. Pay off all debts (except your home mortgage) LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT using the money you would have frivolously spent

4. Fully fund a 'Proper Emergency Fund' to the value of between 3 to 6 months worth of expenses (depending on how much sick pay/unemployment insurance you have from your employer/country)

5: Invest at least 15% of your household income into retirement

6: Start paying off your home mortgage early

7: Use the excess money to build wealth

Do not skip over a step. If you need help let me know.

The thing is, most of the things you describe, I already do, in France, through taxes for health care, social aid and retirements. Then also insurances (for cars, flat, etc). Doing it myself would mean paying twice.

And since education is free and I don't have a car, I don't have a mortgage.

So my situation is not that bad. It can become bad if:

- the system fails. It will for retirements. It does for some health care / insurance / social aid situation.

- your issue arise outside of what the system takes in consideration.

Knowing that, setting up an automatic emergency saving wire is a good thing to do.

I don't believe saving for my retirement will help in anyway. I'll have to find something better, which I'm working on.

But again, remember than most people don't read HN or anything else than FB streams. They live their life as-is. Like my parents did.

The question is, why could they afford children, pleasures, and saving, while my friend can't. Neither my parents nor my friends are very good planners, but clearly their situation is vastly different.

If you or your friends couldn't spare 500 € to help a friend out I really wonder what savings you or your friends have.

The most powerful tool anyone has to build wealth (and help others) is:

* The discipline to live below your means (and avoid debt), and

* Your income.

If you are unencumbered with debt, and live as far below your means as you feel comfortable with, you can build a substantial amount of wealth if you have enough time.

As to affording children, and I can only speak from personal experience, but I've found that a dedicated parent will always find a way.

You're right that previous generations had things differently, but only with regards to globalisation... current economic disparity started to occur post 23 December 1913 with the Federal Reserve Act and post 15 August 1971 when Nixon unilaterally terminated the convertibility of the US dollar to gold.

If you really want to know why you will need to learn how money is created and the economic ramifications of a fiat currency (and inflation) combined with a fractional reserve system.

I think you can, if you think you can, and can't, if you think you can't.

In other words, it's a matter of belief, action, and continuing motivation.

Of course I don't know your exact circumstances but controlling your expenses is only part of the equation. If you've trimmed your expenses down to the bone it's now time to focus on increasing your income while maintaining low expenditure. Most people don't do this and their spending grows faster than their income does. The mentality you want to avoid is "Get a raise? Buy a bigger/better (x)!"

So until you control your income with the discipline of a general controlling an army during war, the amount of money you make is irrelevant. A great example is sports personalities or entertainers that end up broke.

Assuming you've got that discipline, a sure fire money making scheme is a second job but this is where you can get creative... such as going around your neighbourhood and washing windows/cars/lawn mowing. The internet has flipped this idea on its head so you could freelance late at night after you've tucked the children in bed. Whatever you do make sure it is bringing in cash right now and not some risky or highly speculative idea.

Imho you've got to earn the right to speculate and you can make sound decisions under high levels of risk when you know you got a properly funded emergency fund and pension.

But yeah, there was a reason why I emphasized LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT. If your life depended on you getting 1000 Euros in one week you would come up with the money. If your life depended on you getting 6 months worth of expenses you would come up with the money. If your life depended on putting 15% of your income each month into your pension you would do it... you get the picture.

The sad thing is peoples' lives do depend on this stuff but they don't act like it does.

This is the main thing. People seem to always have money for gadgets, eating out, vacations and garden variety never-to-return expenditure. Yet savings are always dwindling and in many cases most people are in debt.

Marketing has done a good job of convincing people to spend money in the present. Even the money they don't have.

>>People care about _their_ retirement, not about everybody's retirement, not how society will find a balance or how their neighbor is going to survive.

There have to be consequence for bad habits. Free money hasn't done well to anybody around.

Also expecting some one hardworking to part their savings to pay for somebody who has partied all life is not just unfair, its theft.

Some colleagues I have, take 10 vacation trips an year. Apparently its all about spending time chasing some hobby like photography. Apart from the fact that they spend insane money on camera and lens gear, you also have to spend money to travel, accommodation, food etc.

The funniest thing is most people don't use some lenses more than a couple of times. And they don't even see their photographs more than once. What's more, no other human will ever see their work.

All of this is fine and dandy during a phase when you are young, have energy and a job that pays well. All this money could go into a retirement fund. Someday its all going to end, and these people will blame government and societies for not doing enough about the 'free money' they think they are entitled too.

> It's also a cultural problem: enjoying ourself have been more important that savings.

It looks like the reason you have 0 saving is because you... simply refuse to save money and spend it all on leisure instead? (after necessities are met).

> But there is also another issue: individualism. The thing is, most of us could probably find 500 € to give away. But the solidarity is not strong enough for this effort.

What do you mean by individualism? That one should value individual rights such as freedom of speech, respect of individual property etc? Sounds to me like many freedoms are going away in France and civil liberties are always at risk. On the other hand, collective rights keep expending and these are extremely costly. When it comes to coerced solidarity, France sure is one of the world's champion. It seems to me that the reason you and your friends refuse to give to your friend is not because of too much individualism but because of too much collectivism, you are already paying so much in tax to support these solidarity policies that you are left with little money for your own leisure, let alone for your friends and you feel like you've already paid "your fair share" by outsourcing charity and solidarity to the State. But of course, as usual all problems in France are blamed on individualism and capitalism instead of the elephant in the room: the unfettered collectivism going on.

Yes, I clearly said it's part of the problem. Now "all" is exaggerated, as it's I don't see my friends living a wasteful life. They do get out a little, but no more than my parents did.

> What do you mean by individualism?

I mean that everybody is cool to do fun things together, but grouping efforts to help one-another does not come easily.

As for the rest, it's a very different debate I'm not in the mood to have.

The situation is fundamentally different though.

Unlike what happens in America, in France you are already paying the pensions of currently retired people. Which means you aren't supposed to save yourself, as future workers will (in theory) pay for your pension once you retire.

In practice, we know that it might not happen this way, which is why you might want to have savings, of course. But the current system means saving for your own retirement ends up representing twice what an American would need to save, since you have to 1. fund current pensioners 2. fund your own future pension. Americans only have to take point 2 into account.

In theory, according to the French system's design, not having any retirement savings is completely fine and is even the intended situation. Transitioning from our general contribution system to a personal savings system might be good in our period of stagnating population growth, but the transition itself is hard precisely because it means one generation will have to both contribute for others and save for itself. And it looks like it might be going to be ours. But it's a very different situation from what happens in the US where people just can't save, but they have no other way of getting a pension anyway.

Actually, that's exactly how Social Security works in the US. You and your employer collectively pay 12.4% on your first ~$130k of salary, which goes to support all the current recipients of Social Security.

Why is there a need to save for retirement then, if there's already a national contribution system?

[1] https://faq.ssa.gov/link/portal/34011/34019/article/3735/wha...

Then they/you can save. Don't blame external things on your lack of savings.

Say after me: If you are in the position you describe and aren't saving then you are choosing to live beyond your means.

I clearly mentioned there is a cultural/educational problem.

> But also the fact that our lives are very instable : breakups, job changes, moving in/out, make it hard to save.

It's not hard to save because of those reasons (for people in the situation your describe). Like, at all.

It's like people living paycheck to paycheck. Unless you're already so poor you're eating noodles and free store samples for nurishment, you can do this for just a while, and save enough to have one month's salary in the bank. (though probably you specifically don't need to be as drastic as this)

One month's salary in the bank means that when the car breaks (though you don't have one), or when you get fired, or have to move, you can have the means to "just fix the problem". And often being able to pay to fix the problem makes it much cheaper to fix the problem, in a virtuous cycle.

But you can't spend that on a vacation.

Yes I agree it's a cultural and educational issue in the end. This should be taught in schools.

I think it also hurts that in the US it's common to be paid weekly, or fortnightly. That means people never have even a full month's worth of rent and groceries, and they therefore never learn how to even informally have a budget. And you get things like people being able to afford eating out right after being paid, but not right before (which makes no logical sense).

But you know this, so why don't you do this already? You can save, you understand that it would be in your best interests, and you know how. So why don't you?

This won't mean much coming from an Internet stranger, but your reply really makes me be disappointed in you.