Deep Dive: Jason Fichtner on Why You Should Save Today
July 17, 2022
Sellgren has collected questions about savings and retirement. The questions are not just for young people! They are not just for old people! They are for everyone.
“You need to start saving today. In fact, you’re already a day behind.” Jason Fichtner opens boldly in this Great Antidote podcast with our host Juliette Sellgren.
You’ll learn about saving, paying off big expenses, where and what 401Ks are, what’s up with different IRAs, and how reliant you should be on the US Social Security program.
Jason Fichtner is the vice president and chief economist at the Bipartisan Policy Center and this is his second time on the podcast. His first appearance was in February 2022, Jason Fichtner on Social Security.
Juliette has questions for herself, friends and family. For example:
- How much should be in my emergency fund?
- How do you get a 9% return? (Or at least more than 0!)
- Is a Health Savings Account (HSA) a good place to save?
- When should I retire? (What if I love work and want to do it forever?)
Fichtner and Sellgren talk about how your age, circumstances, and goals should influence your savings but also the importance of habituation and the power of compound interest.
Key Quote:
We talk about the three-legged stool of retirement. The three legs of a stool that makes it stand and sturdy are your personal savings, an employer plan, which could be a defined contribution plan that you're saving and their saving too, as well as social security. Those are the three legs of a stable retirement. Now, if any one of those is wobbly, the stool wobbles. So, social security will be there in some fashion. Just don't expect it to be everything for you or to be nothing. Just know that it's part of it. And you should save to make sure that you have social security as part of your needs, but not for all of it. And then save for the rest.
Fichtner also speaks at the end about how he’s changed his mind about. When he was younger, he thought a $30K job would be enough for his whole life.
Key quote:
There was a point in time where I believed that if I just made $30,000 a year, I'd be fine for the rest of my life… That was in my high school junior year when I was taking an econ class… I thought making 30 grand a year is great for the rest of my life. It's not…When you are 50 your expenses are a lot different than when you are 16.
The guest
- Professional Profile
- Tweets at @JJFichtner
-
C-SPAN videos
Related Great Antidote podcasts
- Jason Fichtner on Social Security
- Josh Rauh on the Pending Public Pension Crisis
- Thomas Hoenig on Inflation and the Federal Reserve
- John F. Cogan on The National Debt
-
Rachel Greszler on Paid Leave
Related AdamSmithWorks
- Caroline Parrish and Karen Yancy's What Would Adam Smith Think? The Causes and Consequences of the Great Resignation
- Marko Veckov’s Adam Smith on Labor Markets
- Maryann Keating's Adam Smith on Wage Taxes and Labor Force Participation
- Alex Aragona's Adam Smith on the Interests of Labor and Business
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