Everyone knows it’s important to save for a “rainy day.” Emergencies happen: appliances break, cars sputter to a stop, jobs are lost. But when your paychecks are not that much more than what you need to pay your routine bills, that’s a habit most haven’t been able to form.
“There is a pervasive, entrenched belief in this country that success is totally self-made,” observed Gillian White, a writer and editor for The Atlantic magazine and a panel moderator at NeighborWorks’ symposium at the Philadelphia National Training Institute.