I’ve been thinking a lot about how often we’re reading stories about personal finance and money in the media. It’s something that’s dominated news coverage around the world for several years now given the economic conditions and increased willingness of people to incur debt. This year is shaping up to be no different. As the leader of a company whose sole focus is helping people save money and achieve better financial wellbeing, I support more attention being paid to the topic.
What I wish I’d see less of are stories about how to beat the stock market and ones with headlines that make saving for retirement sound impossible. Everyone’s individual situation is different, but the one piece of advice I bet could help most everyone is to keep saving or start saving in some way – be it $10 a week or $100 a month, and to keep your finances simple – simple enough for you to understand and to manage on your own.
I know it doesn’t sound sexy or sophisticated, but I can guarantee that it works. It has for many of our close to two million clients, especially those who have taken some simple steps to build their savings effortlessly through an automatic savings plan, or stretched their savings further by avoiding or reducing unnecessary and excessive fees for financial products.
At this time of year particularly in Canada, the market is flooded with voices, opinions and advice on everything from picking mutual funds to RSP contributions and what products deliver the best tax savings. I hope ING DIRECT’s voice stands out to Canadians. I hope we can help put things in perspective, eliminate some of the confusion and anxiety around saving money, demonstrate we offer a different choice and advocate the importance of saving without making it seem impossible.
I’m personally committed to reaching as many Canadians as I can to spread this message. I want to be part of your conversations about money, and encourage you to reach out to me via this blog, my Peter Aceto Facebook page www.facebook.com/savingsceo or on Twitter @CEO_INGDIRECT, to start a dialogue about achieving greater financial wellbeing in your life.
