Jananas

ING’s latest savings campaign is based around the tag line “there’s no such thing as saver’s remorse”. North America has moved from a savings- to a consumption-based economy spending more than we make. This is nothing new. Trying to get the public to focus on saving money is a good thing. Its especially good as we enter an economic downturn. ING gets to play the benevolent corporation card because look, look they’re just trying to help us get back on track and weather out this storm. Great. If the campaign is successful then they will see an increase in the number of deposits and so can lend out more money in the form of loans and mortgages.

All that is well and good, but this campaign irritates me because there is such a thing as saver’s remorse. Take an extreme example. Say someone is obsessed with saving for their retirement and is spendthrift to ensure that they can save ‘enough’ money. Assume that they pinch pennies and are able to save 50% of their income (actually put money away, not just pay down their mortgage/debt). Over their lifetime they develop a habit and culture of not spending money. They retire at 65 and they aren’t suddenly going to start taking first class flights and six month vacations to Florida to escape the Canadian winter. When they finally reach retirement they will have a huge amount of money saved relative to how much money they will need to support themselves in retirement.

Saver’s remorse isn’t something that sets in tomorrow. Its something that is felt 40 or 50 years down the road when people realize that they spent so much time focusing on saving money that they can’t enjoy it when they finally have access to it. Life is about balance. Yes, you want to save money. You want to be able to support yourself during your retirement. But, you also want to enjoy your life while you are living it. I know that this is a more detailed point that the majority of the people seeing this advertising campaign will understand, but it still bugs me because saver’s remorse does exist.