When Billy was only six his grandmother taught him to save. She gave him a shiny quarter every time he visited her. He was so happy, and she explained that saving small amounts will help him to achieve big goals.
His parents moved and he hardly saw his grandmother again, but later after graduating from college and struggling with his finances his Grandmother’s lessons came back to him. He got his penny jar for shiny quarters and change, and he began saving. At first, he could not figure out how to save because he was not making enough money. He paid rent and bought groceries and he did not have enough for anything extra, not even transportation to travel to work.
He decided to have a little chat with his boss, and he got a small raise. That is when his grandmother’s lesson with shiny quarters came back to him. He decided to put 3% into a savings account and he made it automatic. The bank withdrew the funds as soon as his paycheck hit his account. As time went on, he started a mutual fund and that was automatic too. He was paying himself first. The change he saved along with the coupons he collected, took some money off his Grocery bills.
Later, he was sharing a cab with one of his neighbors and she said, I put away $400 every month. He was astonished, how? Billy Is learning that savings is a function of income and he will have to learn more to take advantage of all there is. Billy is lucky to have had a grandmother to teach him at a young age what some of us do not learn in a lifetime.