Experts: Young People’s Debt Skyrocketing:
A recent survey of MetLife clients and employers found that 40 percent of workers ages 21 to 30 had not begun to save for retirement — and many young adults have little clue how to even begin doing so.
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One example of the financial pinch: Student loan balances for the average college graduate were $18,900 in 2002, more than double the amount a decade earlier, even when adjusted for inflation, according to researchers at Demos, a nonpartisan public policy group. Their analysis of the most recent Federal Reserve data available also found that average credit card debt for adults age 24 to 34 was $4,088 in 2001, an increase of 55 percent since 1992.
I believe that student loan debt is good debt and not necessarily a measure of the problem — I myself still carry a balance — but perhaps it does reflect a trend of increased overall debt. Credit card is the bad kind.
Don’t let this happen to you. As I’ve often written about, our generation cannot count on Social Security to be there for us when we retire. Now is the time to plan for our future. If you don’t look out for your future self, who will?
Save, save, save!
