ORLANDO, Fla. – A new survey from Fidelity Investments found that about two-thirds of Americans want to do better with their money in 2025.
News 6 Anchor Lisa Bell spoke with CBS News Business Analyst Jill Schlesinger to figure out how to achieve that goal.
Bell: Those findings are not surprising for a lot of people, but walk us through this survey and the results.
Schlesinger: You know, Fidelity’s been doing this for 16 years, and for 16 consecutive years the top resolutions are to save more, pay down debt, and spend less. Not surprising, right? But there is a big change from a year ago. Fidelity said respondents are more focused on short-term savings goals in the coming year than long-term goals like retirement. That is why almost 80% of respondents say they want to beef up their emergency reserve funds. That is a goal I wholeheartedly embrace. Remember, you’re trying to get 6 to 12 months of your living expenses in those emergency reserves.
Bell: So, what do you think is behind that finding and how do you begin to tackle it? So many people are dealing with all sorts of expenses right now. Where do you even begin?
Schlesinger: Well, let’s talk about why that’s the case. I think what happened was that as the inflation spike really hit people, they had some money on hand. They spent down their savings and so now they’re trying to replenish, which is great. It’s much better to replenish those savings than to start going into debt doing something else. So that’s the way to start the process. I think it’s important to try to make our resolutions or any financial goal as concrete as possible. So let’s look at saving more. It sounds like a great idea, right? Isn’t it a better alternative to contribute 6 percent of my salary to my retirement plan and then go ahead and do that? And maybe instead of reducing debt, why don’t you write down how much extra money you’re going to pay towards that outstanding credit card balance or student loan and then automatically transfer that amount for spending less? You’ve got to determine where exactly you can cut back and by how much.
Bell: So having some concrete numbers and goals to strive for is key. We do know that credit card debt and defaults now are near record levels and that certainly raises a lot of concerns for a lot of people with the current state of borrowing. What do we do about that?
Schlesinger: Well, I mean, look, the problem with these credit card bills that we are facing is that the credit card, the actual interest rate you’re paying, it’s come down a little bit since the Fed started cutting interest rates, but it’s still over 20% for a lot of people and heading towards 30% for many. So, again, you’ve got to try to make this again concrete but also doable plans. So you’ve got to figure out some amount of money extra that you could throw at that balance. I know this sounds like sacrilege, but if you are contributing to a retirement account, maybe you pull back to your company match while you increase the amount you’re using to pay down your debt. Every little bit will help you. Look, these balances are starting to creep up. We are lucky that the job market has remained robust, but you can’t count on that forever. We are going to have a recession someday. We just don’t know when it’s going to come.
Bell: All right. Got to be healthy and wealthy in 2025. I like those goals. Jill, thank you, as always. You can see Jill regularly on CBS Mornings and the CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell.