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We are an independent, advertising-supported comparison service. Our goal is to help you make smarter financial decisions by providing you with interactive tools and financial calculators, publishing original and objective content, by enabling you to conduct research and compare information for free - so that you can make financial decisions with confidence.
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At Bankrate we strive to help you make smarter financial decisions. While we adhere to strict editorial integrity, this post may contain references to products from our partners. Here's an explanation for how we make money. Bankrate logo The Bankrate promise
Founded in 1976, Bankrate has a long track record of helping people make smart financial choices. We’ve maintained this reputation for over four decades by demystifying the financial decision-making process and giving people confidence in which actions to take next. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. All of our content is authored by and edited by , who ensure everything we publish is objective, accurate and trustworthy. It's why over 100 million people — not to mention top publications such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and CNBC — depend on Bankrate as a trusted source of financial information every year. Bankrate logo Editorial integrity
Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. Key Principles
We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers. Editorial Independence
Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information. Bankrate logo How we make money
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money. Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service. Editor’s note: Bankrate published a newer version of this survey on Sept. 23, 2020. Please for more recent data and analysis. More than a decade into the longest economic expansion on record, almost two-fifths of people said in a new Bankrate poll that their main financial priority was just keeping their heads above water on living expenses rather than saving money. Nearly as many of those surveyed said that they’re not following financial budgets, according to Bankrate’s September Financial Security Poll. The lack of financial preparedness highlighted by the survey could spell trouble for many households, whether concerns about a global economic slowdown manifest or not. Financial advisers say people without a budget and savings are often less equipped to handle financial emergencies in their own lives. “Every household that doesn’t have sufficient savings will be living on the edge when a recession arises, and in a sense, they’re living on the edge even before a recession arises,” says Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate. Keeping your head above water
Economists within the next year to year and a half. A downturn could mean many companies will cut jobs as lenders become more reluctant to approve loans and new lines of credit. The combination could leave unprepared families scrambling to make ends meet during income interruptions. But Hamrick points out that families who aren’t financially prepared could be left struggling even in good economic times because they’re not ready to handle emergencies such as an unexpected medical bill or major home repair. Among survey respondents in the nationally representative poll, 38 percent said their top financial priority is “just staying current on living expenses or getting caught up on all the bills.” Almost 3 in 10 respondents (29 percent) said their chief priority was “saving more money,” and 19 percent indicated they were mainly working on paying down debt from products like credit cards and student loans. Bankrate conducted the survey released Wednesday via telephone by SSRS on its Omnibus survey platform. Interviews were conducted from Sept. 3-8 among a sample of 1,017 respondents. “For people who have a sense that they are current on their bills, the logical next step would be to save more money,” Hamrick says. “Some individuals are spending more money on things than they ought to be. Other individuals are essentially trapped because their incomes aren’t higher or their living expenses are high.” Difficulty of saving at lower incomes
The percentage of people who say their top priority is saving money steadily increases as income brackets go up. For example, 19 percent of people who make less than $30,000 say their top priority is saving, while 39 percent of those who make $75,000 or more say the same. “Those with really low incomes or really limited resources don’t have many options,” says Sara Croymans, an educator specializing in family resiliency with University of Minnesota Extension. She suggests those who need help creating a budget or understanding how to get out of a paycheck-to-paycheck cycle seek financial assistance through an , their financial institution, state agencies or . “Everyone’s situation is really unique,” Croymans says. “We ask them what are their priorities, what’s most important to them and what they’re willing to sacrifice to get what’s most important.” How to increase your financial literacy
Millennials who graduated during the last recession and its aftermath may be . More than half (51 percent) of adults between 23 and 38 said they were not using a budget, Bankrate’s survey finds. Paradoxically, millennials were also the most likely to say their top priority is saving money. Thirty-five percent of young adults were focusing on saving versus 30 percent of Generation X, 20 percent of baby boomers and 27 percent of the silent generation. As of 2016, only 17 states required students to take a personal finance course in high school. And only 20 states required an economic class, according to the . “I’m concerned about the lack of economic knowledge and financial literacy putting people at a disadvantage even without a recession,” says Anna Lusardi, chair professor at the George Washington University School of Business. shows wealth inequality between individuals can partly be explained by the different levels of financial knowledge. Knowing how to create and maintain a budget is a starting point, she said, but people need much more skills and information to successfully manage their money on a day-to-day basis and the long term. The financial world from understanding our student loans, to taking out a mortgage to buying a home and even funding our retirement can be complex. “If we don’t teach these concepts, people have to learn them by themselves,” Lusardi says. “You’re at a disadvantage if you don’t have this knowledge because you’re making financial decisions every day.” Create a budget live below your means and save more
You can t yourself by sitting down and looking at where your money goes every month. It’s best to look at about six months to a year of expenses captured by receipts, credit statements and bank accounts to get an idea of where your money is going. This process can help you see areas where you can cut back as well as plan how much money you’ll need each month for necessities. It’s crucial to develop a plan to live below your means rather than above them, which creates a constant cycle of borrowing and stinting on or avoiding savings. If you are able to set some money aside, many experts suggest automatically diverting a portion of your paycheck to a through direct deposits. This pool of money which will accrue over time and earn interest will serve as your . Experts recommend you have six months to a year of your expenses set aside in this fund. There’s no reason to go it alone. A make budgeting easier so you don’t have to sit down each month with a shoebox full of receipts. And your financial institution, or a can help you with the process. Methodology
This study was conducted for Bankrate via telephone by SSRS on its Omnibus survey platform. Interviews were conducted from Sept 3-8, 2019, among a sample of 1,017 respondents. The margin of error for total respondents is +/-3.37% at the 95% confidence level. All SSRS Omnibus data are weighted to represent the target population. SHARE: Adrian D. Garcia Related Articles