Knowing what they do about today’s state of financial affairs, most Americans say they would have put away their plastic and saved more to brace for The Great Recession, a finance survey shows.
TD Ameritrade found 56 percent of Americans reported they would have done things differently in terms of how they managed their money if they could go back to the time before the recession of 2008-2009.
• 71 percent report they would have spent less and saved more;
• 65 percent report they would have lived within their means;
• 60 percent report they would have taken more personal responsibility for managing their money.
Survey participants also admitted they relied on credit cards frequently and allowed their debts to mount, with 60 percent reporting if they could go back in time they would have paid down debt and 50 percentreporting they would have paid for purchases in cash instead of plastic.
“Americans seem to have been taken off-guard financially with the downturn of the economy,” said Stuart Rubinstein, managing director of client engagement at TD Ameritrade. “And while it has been a tough lesson to learn, it’s a promising sign that we’re acknowledging what went wrong …”
The survey polled 1,088 adults between 22 and 80 years old from Sept. 28 through Oct. 19, 2010.
