Paul Rosenberg – You work long, hard days, but you never have enough to be secure. Your husband or wife probably works too, and yet you still never get ahead. Now think about this: Your great-grandparents worked hard, and they did get ahead. You work just as hard, but you don’t make the same progress.
Was great-grandpa really that much better than you? Not likely. So, how was it that he could get ahead on one income, but you can’t?
Take a good look at this graph: The top line shows how many years of living expenses your great-grandfather would have accumulated as a hard-working young man. The bottom line shows what you can save.
After working for five years, great-gramps had seven years of living expenses in the bank.
Doing the same things, you’d have less than two.
You’ve probably avoided this comparison , because it makes you feel bad. If so, that was your big mistake, because it was never your fault.
When great-gramps worked hard, he kept the money. There was no income tax and no sales tax. (The government survived anyway.) There was no Social Security tax either, and the streets weren’t full of starving old people. Families were able to take care of their own.
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