Set a Goal, Make a Plan, and Save Automatically: America Saves Week
Reading Time: 2 MinutesLast Updated: March 2, 2017
Saving for the future is a vital part of ensuring a secure retirement. American Savings Education Council and America Saves coordinate the annual America Saves Week. Started in 2007, the week is an annual opportunity for organizations to promote good savings behavior and a chance for individuals to assess their own saving status.
For years, Social Security has collaborated with America Saves Week to promote our shared mission of helping millions of people save for their future. This year, America Saves Week began on February 27, but people like you are striving to save every day.
The 2016 annual America Saves Week survey assessing national household savings revealed:
- Just two out of every five U.S. households report good or excellent progress in meeting their savings needs.
- About half (52 percent) are saving enough for a retirement with a desirable standard of living.
- Only 43 percent have automatic savings outside of work.
- More men (74 percent) report progress with saving than do women (67 percent).
- Those with a savings plan with specific goals (55 percent of the public) are making much more savings progress than those without a plan (23 percent).
Knowing this, it’s never too early to start planning for your future. Set a goal, make a plan, and save automatically. Savers with a plan are twice as likely to save successfully. Pledge to save for America Saves Week at www.americasaves.org. Share what you’re saving for suing the hashtag #ImSavingFor.
You may also want to visit www.myRA.gov if you do not have retirement savings as part of your job. myRA is a retirement savings account from the Department of the Treasury designed to help you put aside money for your retirement. You can invest in the fund according to your budget, putting you in control of your financial prospects.
Social Security’s “People Like Me” website has tailor-made information for preparing for your future. Our richly diverse country is made up of countless backgrounds, ethnicities, and nationalities, yet we all want the same thing — a secure future. You can see many of the diverse people we serve at www.socialsecurity.gov/people.
Younger people need to know, the earlier you start saving, the more your money can grow. Our website for young workers at www.socialsecurity.gov/people/youngpeople/saving.html has many resources that can help you secure today and tomorrow.
Veterans and wounded warriors, as well as their families, sometimes face unique obstacles when saving for their future. Our website has life-changing information at www.socialsecurity.gov/people/veterans.
After more than 80 years of success, we know that Social Security will always be there for you. Securing your today and tomorrow will always be our priority.
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Tags: retirement, social security, veterans
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Jim Borland, Acting Deputy Commissioner for Communications
Jim Borland, Acting Deputy Commissioner for Communications
Comments
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Bill B.
People don’t save money because they know once they get old the tax payers will ( not wanting to ) make sure they have a place to stay and food to eat.
Marc
You are either misinformed or a cruel, insensitive, selfish jerk to make such a stupid – yes, stupid – remark.
bloompedia
ok i like it… thank you for information…!!!! http://www.bloompedia.com
Walter T.
I have multiple sclerosis social Security $735 a month helping me and I would create a savings. a savings. I’m 54 years old now.
Sherrie
yes, there should be a set time of work before someone is able to collect social security. No one should be able to collect unless they put into the system. Welfare should pick up those people who don’t put into Social Security AND welfare should just be for a certain length of time until the person is working unless a person is disabled. That also should be checked to be sure the person is really unable to work. People need to work…..It is good for everyone to do something and not just collect a check unless you are of social security age which is what it was intended for. Period.
Joe W.
Gee thats how it works now. So far the arm and leg won’t regrow. Don’t you think we should be for each other instead of nastilly sniping away at each other. Either we hang together or all hang separately.
Marc
@Joe Williams: Hear, hear. These mean, greedy, selfish, petty people. They kill me. And the stupid thing is, the Social Security system, particularly with respect to the SS Disability part, already does everything this jerk says they “should” be doing, including getting as many disabled people back to work as are at all able. Clearly, these whiners don’t ever read anything on this site besides this blog, and that only so they can post their nasty snipes at anyone THEY feel to be “undeserving.” My most fervent hope is that every single person who accuses disabled people of being “too lazy to work” and/or “faking it” will get pancreatic cancer and die hideously and painfully, but relatively quickly, and with no health care. So that they, too, can know how it feels to be scorned and abused for having the audacity to become sick or severely injured to the point of disability and losing everything. A pox on all of them!
Marc
Um, there IS such a formula. Have you ever bothered to read anything on this site beyond this blog, eg, the requirements and restrictions on collecting ANYTHING??? It’s all here.
Sharon M.
office off of two Notch
Sharon M.
you have my plain,
mathew p.
we would have more in saveings if you would quit giving ss to all the dead beats one should have to pay in at least 8 years to be able to sign up no more freebees we paid in from day one every body should have to do the same lazy no goods starve
John
Yep, start saving early and at today’s rates, .1 to .3 % interest, you might have a few hundred bucks in 40 years.
Phyllis B.
This website has taught me a lot about how important social security and our country is to me as a semi-retired accounting person. I am learning new things every day by reading quietly. Thank you.
AKA
If this website and particularly this article taught you something and you are an accountant, thank God you’re not my accountant.
R.F.
Thank you Phyllis, for your positive comment and for using our website and our online services. Your feedback is greatly appreciated!
Joe W.
Ok, after years and years of getting disability at just over what Medicaid allowed I am in deep debt for medical bills. How can I save anything for the future with all these judgements? They’ll take it.
Marcel
This is the first article on this SSA site that actually has valuable, actionable, information.
Saving for your future is YOUR responsibility, not the government’s !!
So start your savings plan now by establishing goals; like giving up the Starbucks over priced coffee drinks, giving up smoking, no more poisonous soft drinks, especially the diet soda, and so on. Cut down your cable TV premium channels, walk more, get off the couch, eat healthily and avoid prepared foods. Not only do they cost more, most are loaded with fat and salt.
Take charge and control of your life, remember it is nobody’s responsibility, other than you!!!
Marc
@Marcel: Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck because for the past 40+years salaries have remained flat while the cost of living has increased exponentially; rents are out of control, utilities, food, gas, medical, everything. Don’t forget those who lost jobs and couldn’t find another due to outsourcing and automation, or simply corporate greed cutting personnel for profits. When you’re in a low-rate job, or holding down 2 or 3 part time, low wage, no-benefit jobs, you simply do NOT buy “Starbucks over priced coffee drinks,” cigarettes, “poisonous soft drinks…and so on,” or “cable TV premium channels.” Hard enough to pay the rent, utilities, gas to get to all those jobs, food, etc. How are they supposed to save anything? For myself, I worked 2 and sometimes 3 jobs since I was 15 while going to school and raising a child as a single parent until I finally became an attorney (it took years.) Then I worked only 60-70 hours a week, but for a better salary, and had a house, car, and 401(k), saving for my own retirement as you feel all of us should. 15 years before retirement age I was stricken with a horrible disability I did nothing to deserve, and was promptly fired as my reward. By the time I was finally approved for Social Security, which I’d paid into “bigly” all my life for just such an occurrence, I ran through my 401(k) trying to be “honorable” and pay all my bills – but it ran out, and ultimately I lost the house, the car, my medical insurance, my credit, and my spouse, forced into bankruptcy and foreclosure. I went without treatment or prescriptions because I couldn’t afford the $1400/month COBRA and then waited another 2 years before I was eligible for Medicare after finally getting SSDI. I can’t get any help because my SSDI is just barely more than the cutoff for anything. Medicare isn’t free, by the way; I pay premiums, deductible, and 20% of everything that’s covered, and that’s not much; plus I pay deductible, premiums, co-pays, AND 100% in the “donut hole” for Medicare prescription coverage, too. No dental or vision, that’s all out of pocket 100%, and I pay income tax on my Social Security. Please tell me again, just exactly how was I not “responsible???” May you be blessed with a horrible affliction and lose everything as I have, and may you enjoy the same scorn and abuse you heap upon people like me, and retirees who PAY INTO the system all their lives. Selfish, greedy, cruel person. You aren’t fit to wipe the boots of these people you criticize.