Building an emergency savings fund is a difficult task for Americans. Both the economy and the way we're psychologically wired may be to blame.

When faced with an unexpected $1,000 expense, more than one-third of Americans would borrow the money, according to a new Bankrate survey. That may include tapping their credit cards, seeking money from friends or family or taking out a personal loan.

Most would not turn to cash savings because they don’t have it, the personal finance website found.

Fewer than half of Americans, 44%, say they can afford to pay a $1,000 emergency expense from their savings, according to Bankrate’s survey of more than 1,000 respondents conducted in December.

That is up from 43% in 2023, yet level when compared to 2022.

“We’re just not wired to save,” said Brad Klontz, a certified financial planner and expert in financial psychology and behavioral finance. Our brains are instead programmed to focus on our immediate needs.

  • Snot FlickermanEnglish
    19•10 months ago

    The only thing I’m taking from this is that your friends (and by extension, rich people in general) are bad at managing their money, and they project that on to the poor.

    • bluGill
      -12•10 months ago

      The important point here is you cannot project this statistic on the poor! Maybe poor have problems, but there is no way 40% of the US is that poor. The majority of that 44% has a spending problem. If you want to make a statement about the poor you need to study the poor and that means you won’t study everyone and talk about 40+%.

      • Snot FlickermanEnglish
        11•10 months ago

        Dude go jump in a wood chipper, please.

        I’m poor and I have cancer meds that cost $16k a month. You literally don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. I can’t spend money on anything extra if I fucking wanted to.

        So you’re better off being used as kindling. Because you’ve got no evidence your position is true other than your feelings.

        Man, fuck your feelings, put them in a wood chipper, too. Come with some data or fuck off into a wood chipper.

      • @[email protected]English
        4•10 months ago

        My guy, you can’t just dismiss the stat because it’s so high. The fact that it’s so high shouldn’t trigger skepticism, it should trigger alarm.

        • bluGill
          -1•10 months ago

          I’m not dismissing it. However I am dismissing the idea that this has anything to do with poverty. That later is what most people commenting seem to be assuming and that is not supported by the data we have.