50% of Generation Y Has No Savings

The recent survey also found 18 to 34-year-olds giving themselves Cs, Ds or Fs in personal finance skills such as budgeting and effective savings. Further, they were mostly likely, among working age adults, to be putting no money toward retirement. "The survey was released by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, which polled 1,000 adults nationwide in March."

This is such a shame! I suppose the baby boomers are partially to blame for mentoring a life of spending rather than saving. But it's a shame, because

• those early years can be times for incredible savings. As I share in my book for that age, Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It, Warren Buffett started the habit of making and saving money before age 10, and continued these useful habits through high school so that he was able to graduate with today's equivalent (adjusted for inflation) of about $47,000.
  
• they're leaving themselves wide open for an emergency to put them into long-term debt. If you have no savings when you car dies; have no savings when you have an extended illness; then you end up borrowing and paying it off over the long-haul. These emergencies happen on average every 10 years or so, meaning we should plan for them.
  

What do you think?

Textbook for Personal Money Management

I believe in getting massive input before publishing a book. The more people who read the manuscript of Enjoy Your Money!, the more I saw a theme coming in like a mantra: "We've got to get this into the schools! Every young person needs to read this book in order to learn personal finances before they get in a financial mess!"

Thus, as I continued to rewrite, I included discussion questions, assignments, riddles, web-based teacher resources - anything and everything to make it easy on teachers and captivating for students.

If you're looking for a personal financial management text (for public or private schools, home schoolers and service organizations), see the appropriate page on the publisher's site to promote it as a personal finance text.