MoneyMinding Monitor

This blog posting was written in response to an article I read in Macleans Magazine[1]:

“Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the man charged with resuscitating the world’s largest economy, thinks we all need to be smarter about our finances. “As the global economy continues to experience extraordinary turbulence . . . the need has never been greater for initiatives that help consumers learn to manage their money wisely,” he told a conference on financial literacy this week. Big Ben should be careful what he wishes for.

NPD Group issued its latest consumer sentiment survey last week and found that most Americans remain convinced the economy is in the toilet, but their spending plans are edging back up. As NPD said, consumers appear to have “reached their cost-cutting limit.” In other words, we’re getting frugality fatigue—and thank goodness.

We might’ve saved ourselves a lot of pain if we were all more financially literate a few years ago: If all consumers wait for definitive signs of recovery before venturing out to make major purchases, then the economy will never recover. Fear becomes self-fulfilling, and prudence self-defeating.”

Hence the reason I’m so passionate about how everyday spending makes us all wealthy.