The envelope system is a method recommended my many financial professionals (including Dave Ramsey) for making a quick and easy budget. The above video is a short, straight-forward introduction to using this system.

Stefan Sagmeister recommends a powerfully different way of thinking about retirement. For most people, retirement looks like this:

Grow up and learn for 25 years, work for 45 years and at the end take 15 years of retirement.

Sagmeister arranges his life differently:

Instead of taking the 15 years of retirement at the end, he chops off 5 retirement years and intersperses them throughout his working life.

Impractical, you say? What if you saved enough money to cover all your expenses for a year in advance?. Would you do it then?

The mini-retirement is a powerful idea, and one that I’m trying at the moment. As I type this I’m in the middle of a mini-retirement in Hawaii, taking time off from my career and planning the next move in my life.

It’s one of the best decisions I’ve made. But more to come on that in a future blog post.

For now, watch this TED talk and think about a mini-retirement for your own life. What would you do with it?

John Gerzema gave an interesting TEDx talk on how customers are dealing with the current economy and how communications technology is making capitalism better.

Some of the highlights:

• Spending is at its lowest in 63 years
• More people are using debit cards than credit cards
• Americans are holding onto their cars for longer than ever: 9.4 years
• Library membership is now at 68%, the highest rate ever
• 30% of homes in America are now built by owners

A graph the personal savings rate of Americans from 1929 through the present day:

Also the total debt of the United States since 1918:

How people are dealing with the stress of the current economy:

And to answer the question presented in the title of this post:

• Dentists report replacing more fillings because people are grinding their teeth due to stress
• Gun sales are up 25% since January of this year. (presumably due to fear of uncertainty)
• Vasectomies are up 48% (presumably due to the cost of having a child)
• Shark attacks are at their lowest point since 2003 because of people taking fewer trips to the beach

The people over an common craft have make a cute little video about how and why to save your money.  Check it out below: