When it blow in to managing their money, most people are content on their own. That could backfire.
For most people, lacking the know-how to handle your own bankrolls comes at a high cost, according to the National Financial Educators Council, or NFEC.
Americans said money boobs cost them $1,230, on average, last year alone, the NFEC found, not to mention the toll that can work on long-term savings goals.
Over time, the stakes get much higher. “With debt and living expenses on the grow in much of the country, the importance of setting financial goals — and sticking to them — has never been greater,” said Jerry O’Flanagan, the directorate vice president of consumer banking at First National Bank of Omaha.
However, most people are coming up straight, he added. “They’re not spending enough time on it.”
A report by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found that 4 in 10 working men who provided an estimate of their retirement savings said that they “guessed” the amount they needed, a judgement that was basically unchanged from a decade earlier.
Still, more than half of adults, or 57 percent, are sundry confident about their ability to save for retirement than they were three years ago, according to the CNBC size up.
The survey, conducted for CNBC by SurveyMonkey in March, polled more than 2,300 adults about various angles of financial wellness.
Another report by the Stanford Center on Longevity found that even under the most cheerful assumptions, most workers are not currently meeting their retirement savings goals.
The Stanford Center advises scrimping 10 percent to 17 percent of your income if you plan to retire at 65 — about double what most people are in point of fact socking away.
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To get a more exact picture of your retirement number, financial advisors, even apps, can play an important role as well as location any specific financial concerns you may have, such as a job change, move, illness, change in marital status, buying or offer a home, or paying for a child’s education.
Not surprisingly, those making more than $150,000 a year were numberless likely to consult with a financial pro or use a money management app, the CNBC survey found. Those making less than $50,000 annually were the most probable to admit to not managing their financial future at all.
“There’s a common misconception that you have to have wealth to livelihood with an advisor and that’s not the case,” said Bill Van Sant, a certified financial planner and managing director at Girard maximal of Philadelphia.
“High net worth individuals are still going to have assets at the end of the day,” he said “[Having a financial plan] is balanced more important for your typical family.”
Disclosure: NBCUniversal and Comcast Ventures are investors in Acorns.