As an adult newly carving my way through the real world, I have done my best to make intelligent decisions weighing the responsibilities of being out on my own. A large part of that is managing money. I’ve been intentional about saving money. After all, my parents raised me saving.

I learned from an early age to rescue long lost pocket change, left to fend for itself on a deserted sidewalk, making it feel right at home in my elaborate change bank. It was really cool…I could drop a coin in the slot and a system of levers would carefully gauge the weight and, with perfunctory clatter, would expertly sort the change into the appropriate column by monetary value. Each of these shining columns of wealth were graduated, making it clear how much the cache of cash was worth. When the glorious day came that the columns were filled, mom and I would make a trip to the bank on the corner and I’d make a deposit and the process would start over again.

So…we’ve established that I think saving is important. I opened a money market account with emigrantdirect.com about a year ago at 5.5% interest with the convenience of an online FDIC insured account seemed like a fantastic deal…which it was. I could save my money AND not loose money to the rate of inflation. I went back to my account to see that the APY had since dropped to 2.75%. I checked the inflation rates, and they have not been below 4.0% since the beginning of the year. Crap…I’m losing money just by having money…and I don’t even have that much. And I need to save…what if my car would crap out on me? Or the furnace would die? The government wants me to spend and stimulate the economy…splendid. I’ll pay their stupid $600 economic stimulus back to them in taxes in the coming year.