PS: An Indian friend of mine saved 20k over a year while making 42k and living in an expensive area. He had no car, never eatout, and had a lot of roommates, but he wanted to save up for his sisters dowery. You can still splurge a lot more than that and still build a nest egg quickly.

> Basically plan for 4.5% ROI

Warren Buffet notes that a nation's ROI overall basically can't exceed its GDP growth for an extended period of time. So if your country has a 1% to 3% growth rate and you're investing in an unsophisticated way, then 4.5% might be optimistic.

(It's still a thoroughly good idea to do the rest of your comment. I'd save most of my income even if my ROI was -10%, because money is more useful in large quantities, especially when you break certain thresholds like "can take 2-3 years off work when it's a good time to do so" and "can mix cash and and labor when joining a company to get a big equity stake" and "can buy tools and gifts without even looking at the cost if there's a productivity benefit" - cash is more useful/leverageable in large numbers than small for most middle class-ish people.)

Is it in bonds? Several cities and states are looking at defaulting on those. Even if they're corporate bonds, you're right back to being tied into the stock market again.

Perhaps you have it all in CDs. Probably a 20 year Cd if you're getting 4.5%. Fifteen years from now, the bank elects a new president whose new investment strategy is Beanie Babies. There months later, the bank goes under and you're praying that the FDIC steps in to bail you out.

If you're getting any ROI, there's risk involved and you can get wiped out the same way that the boomers did.

You blame people who fail to control their unhealthy eating decisions; why don't you blame people who fail to control their unhealthy procreating decisions?

That's not what I said.

I do blame people who make unhealthy parenting choices, i.e., who have kids before they're financially capable of supporting kids. I take no issue with that argument.

Rather, I took issue with the language in your original post, which seemed to imply that having kids at all is considered a high-end luxury. IMO, something's seriously wrong with any society in which that's categorically true.

Having kids at all is not a basic human need on the level of food, water, and shelter. It is a biological urge, similar to the urge for french fries.

Now, I don't personally think that eating a reasonable serving of french fries while getting adequate exercise is blameworthy; nor do I think that buying a Lambourghini while earning $10M/year is blameworthy; nor do I think that having children you can afford and care for is blameworthy.

I do think that it's silly for popular culture to have sympathy and often admiration for unprepared parents, but scorn and derision for indebted luxury car owners.

FWIW, I am childless and drive a VW.

Effectively you are telling the majority of people on this planet they don't deserve the right to have children.

This kind of "I'm going to make babies and you can't stop me!" attitude is what created the Iron Law of Wages.

Looks like, even here, that's something you just can't say http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

All of these things cost money, none of them are charitable, but it's somehow less ok to get in financial trouble over them, the further you move toward the end of that list. Why?

What?! Be frugal and spend beneath our means?!

This man is a subversive. He and his kind should be hunted down and silenced.

But the majority of people don't have any financial literacy... just look at the amount of people in debt. That's why, although "taking care of yourself" is correct, it's just not feasible for most people. Most people don't know about proper investment vehicles, inflation, dividends, tax shelters, etc.

It's like giving someone this mysterious "gun thing" to store their bullets in, and then acting surprised when they shoot themselves.

You have to take responsibility for your own investment decisions. This means not buying a McMansion and trying to keep up with the Joneses. This means not buying multiple huge SUVs and living in the suburbs and spending thousands on gas every year. This means not trusting some financial planner when they tell you that you should put 100% of your retirement in the stock market.

People need to think for themselves and take charge of their own financial future. The greatest generation did this - they grew up during the great depression and they understood that you had to save and not trust Wall Street. They understood that housing doesn't always go up. Their kids partied at Woodstock and forgot everything their parents told them.

The Greatest Generation benefitted both from social security and from the defined-benefit pension plans their unions won for them.

Edited to add: Also, many got to go to college for free on the GI Bill, and so entered the professional workforce without the debt burden that their children and grandchildren would face. Makes it easier to save.

Are we really so positive that everyone who is hurting in this economy made these kinds of irresponsible financial decisions?

Things could still happen, but if I was within a few years of retirement I would have taken most of it out of stocks.