A short YouTube talk by Steve D Valentine explaining how lack of savings creates an obligation to stay in undesirable jobs and proposing a simple habit to avoid that obligation: start by automatically saving a small percentage of each paycheck (advice: 5% into a separate bank/credit union and don't look at it). The clip emphasizes delayed gratification and building the financial habit of setting money aside over time.
Questions this video answers
5% (set as a direct deposit into a separate bank/credit union).
Chapters
We can avoid that obligation if we start with something small. What happens when you don't have things in savings is you are obligated to keep the job you have and you don't have the freedom to make the choice of, I don't want to stay at this job anymore. A toxic, I have some savings, I can move, I'm okay. If you don't have any savings, you don't have a reserve, you are constantly obligated and obligation creates resentment. So when you feel obligated because you have no way out, or you don't have another job lined up, or you don't have safety, you're obligated to stay put in that job because you don't know what's next. We can avoid that obligation if we start with something small. Say your paycheck. We're going to divide it up in percentages, but we're only going to start with one right now. I would encourage you to just take 5% of your paycheck and your direct deposit and deposit it into a bank that you don't normally use. So go find a bank that, you know, maybe a credit union, something that's a little smaller, whatever you want to do, and just start having a direct deposit of 5% put in that. And don't look at it. The reason being is that you're going to go through, you're going to turn that drip on that faucet on and it's going to start to drip in that bucket. It and over time it's going to start filling up. And the purpose of this is that it's delayed gratification and you're creating something that is going to rock your world over time, which is the financial habit of taking a percentage of your income and putting it aside for something that you really want.
