A recent survey performed by Northwestern Mutual found that, when it comes to Financial fears, the 2 biggest that most Americans have are 2 things that happen to practically everyone.
Their study, the 2015 Planning and Progress Study, surveyed more than 2000 people back in January in order to get some insight about the way Americans consumers feel about their finances, and one of the questions that they asked was about the Greatest Financial Fears that US adults have.
On the list were things like identity theft, loss of employment, poor credit and having to claim bankruptcy, among others. Interestingly however, the top two greatest financial fears that most Americans half are having an unplanned financial emergency (#1) and having insufficient funds to retire comfortably (#2).
What’s most interesting about these findings is simply that, as far as having an unplanned financial emergency or facing retirement are both concerned, they literally happen to everyone at one point or another. (Obviously the unplanned financial emergency could happen at any time and the fear of facing retirement without enough savings would only happen after a person has retired, but you get the idea.)
In fact, out of the top 5 fears that were noted in the survey, 4 of them were either about financial emergencies or retirement.
Which begs the question; if retirement and financial emergencies are a concern, why not just plan for them ahead of time? Indeed, knowing that both of these 2 events are inevitable, the logical reaction would be to plan ahead, would it not?
In this case these fears can easily be neutralized by opening an IRA, 401(k) or other type of retirement account for when retirement does arrive, and setting aside money in a savings account (6 to 12 month’s worth of bills is a good idea) for any type of financial emergency that might arise. Both of these solutions will not only reduce the chance of either one happening, but also allow any fearful consumer to meet their fears head-on.
The point being is simply this; knowing your financial fears gives you the control over them. What you do with that control is up to you.