Maverick is a typical male American living the ever-so-appealing American Dream. He has a good job, a lovely wife, two beautiful children, a German Sheppard dog, a cookie cutter house, and a white picket fence. He makes a decent living with a good amount of extra cash to splurge with. He is able to provide his family with many of the better things in life, including restaurant dinners and vacations to the beach or to Disney World. Maverick is undoubtedly an intelligent man, however, he has a flaw that the majority of American citizens have today as well. Maverick is dismal at all things involving finance. Not to say he is senseless with his money, but he lives in the present rather than preparing for his future. Saving and investing money seemed
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M. Paula Fitzgerald, Nathan Haddad Professor of Business Administration at West Virginia University, has conducted research on potential factors that hinder the savings process. According to Dr. Fitzgerald’s research, Americans do not save enough money for their own retirement because they lack positive imagery for their future selves (Personal Communication, January 26). Maverick had never actually thought of living lavishly after his retirement. After all, he never exactly lived lavishly while he had a steady salary. If Maverick and his wife would have considered themselves leading a rather enjoyable lifestyle in their older years, they might have had more motivation to save up their extra money and put it towards retirement. Dr. Fitzgerald claims that another problem could be the way the governmental organizations communicate the importance of saving money for retirement (Personal Communication, January 26). As of now, the government and nonprofit organizations rely on facts and statistics that more so scare Americans with consequences of what their life could be like if they do not save enough money. Instead, a more effective way of changing the citizens’ mindset to save up is to provide them with positive thoughts and images of their potentially wonderful life after …show more content…
According to the research done by Dr. Fitzgerald and her teammates, Dr. Ellen and Dr. Wiener, retirement education materials typically use the approach of computing a goal that does not exactly take into consideration the sacrifices one will have to make in order to reach that certain goal (11). This method is brought into question because if the goals begin to seem unattainable from the start, then Americans are less likely to be willing to save their earnings. Because of this inconvenience in the education materials, Americans like Maverick will have to take saving into their own hands and figure out how much they can afford to continually set down. According to Mark Fried, the president of TFG Wealth Management in Newton, Pennsylvania, people who are 40 years old and older should try to save up to 20%, if not more, of their total income (Hellmich). If this goal is unattainable, Fried further suggests that then a target should be set and annual raises should continually be put aside. Many people do continue to rely on Social Security, a program that was developed to take the role of a social net to protect the extremely low end of the lower class. Unfortunately, many citizens are not completely educated on what exactly Social Security is. Americans need to understand that it is there, but it is only serving as a safety net
M. Paula Fitzgerald, Nathan Haddad Professor of Business Administration at West Virginia University, has conducted research on potential factors that hinder the savings process. According to Dr. Fitzgerald’s research, Americans do not save enough money for their own retirement because they lack positive imagery for their future selves (Personal Communication, January 26). Maverick had never actually thought of living lavishly after his retirement. After all, he never exactly lived lavishly while he had a steady salary. If Maverick and his wife would have considered themselves leading a rather enjoyable lifestyle in their older years, they might have had more motivation to save up their extra money and put it towards retirement. Dr. Fitzgerald claims that another problem could be the way the governmental organizations communicate the importance of saving money for retirement (Personal Communication, January 26). As of now, the government and nonprofit organizations rely on facts and statistics that more so scare Americans with consequences of what their life could be like if they do not save enough money. Instead, a more effective way of changing the citizens’ mindset to save up is to provide them with positive thoughts and images of their potentially wonderful life after …show more content…
According to the research done by Dr. Fitzgerald and her teammates, Dr. Ellen and Dr. Wiener, retirement education materials typically use the approach of computing a goal that does not exactly take into consideration the sacrifices one will have to make in order to reach that certain goal (11). This method is brought into question because if the goals begin to seem unattainable from the start, then Americans are less likely to be willing to save their earnings. Because of this inconvenience in the education materials, Americans like Maverick will have to take saving into their own hands and figure out how much they can afford to continually set down. According to Mark Fried, the president of TFG Wealth Management in Newton, Pennsylvania, people who are 40 years old and older should try to save up to 20%, if not more, of their total income (Hellmich). If this goal is unattainable, Fried further suggests that then a target should be set and annual raises should continually be put aside. Many people do continue to rely on Social Security, a program that was developed to take the role of a social net to protect the extremely low end of the lower class. Unfortunately, many citizens are not completely educated on what exactly Social Security is. Americans need to understand that it is there, but it is only serving as a safety net