That was her answer to us.

“I wish I would have saved more money,” she said.

Huh?

My friend and I was dumbfounded.

Both of us was expecting an answer more along the lines of “life choices.” Things such as decisions over which university to attend, decisions on career paths to pursue, and perhaps even decisions over previous relationships.

—

About five years ago, I was working as an assistant to radiology technologist at a radiology clinic. Basically, I stuffed my butt in a dark room and developed x-ray pictures. Occasionally I help out the technologist with a client, but generally I roam around in the back, contemplating the meaning of life (aka sleeping) in an almost pitch-black room.

I worked alongside a friend of mine, who happened to be the boss’s son (starting to see how I got the job?). We were about 18 at that time.

One of our co-worker, a 30 something technologist, had recently gotten married. My friend Peter and I attended her wedding along with many coworkers. It was jolly good fun and it was even more interesting (for me) to see two people committing to a life together.

Days later after the wedding, we were all back at the clinic, chit chatting and enjoying the unexpected down time due to he lack of clients. It’s funny to think about it now, but because of the recent marriage, our co-worker suddenly seemed a lot older in our 18 year-old eyes.

The topics went from where the honeymoon will be at, to future living arrangements. The Q&A was all very interesting to me and Peter, since getting married felt like something that will be decades away.
It was Peter that popped the question.

“Hey Anna, so thinking back, is there anything you would have done differently? Anything you regret?” he asked her.

“Well…” Anna hesitantly answered, “I wish I would have saved more money.”

We must have looked like two confused idiots.

“What? Why?” I asked her. “How much do you make again? About $44,000 a year right?”

“Yeah and um.. with your husband’s income, that’s about what, another $40,000 to $50,000 too, no?” said Peter.

Not having enough money was a difficult concept for two little boys back then. The fact is, Peter was working for free to help his dad, and I was working because it was summer and I had nothing better to do. We didn’t really need the money (or so we thought), and saving earned income was a concept far from our minds.

“Yeah, we do have an okay amount of income,” Anna told us, “but the problem is, we haven’t saved enough money through the years.”

“I think eventually we’d want to buy a house and start a family… the down payment for the house won’t magically appear, raising kids is definitely no money saver, and then you have the eventual college tuition. Somehow among all of that, we’ll need to save for retirement too…”

Anna went on for awhile, telling us the many, many reasons why she wishes she had saved more. From our previous reactions, I think she realized that we didn’t really understand the importance of saving.

At the age of 18, my attention span was incredibly short; but here I was, seeing a drastic change in someone that I’ve been working with for months. I could tell that Anna was being very serious about her concerns; that these had been on her mind for quite some time. I listened to every single word she told us. That night, I told myself to never get into a position, where I would regret not saving enough money.

Unfortunately, like most things in life, real lessons are mostly taught by experiences, not the words and cautions of others. As that summer ended and my life in college begin, Anna’s lesson to us on the importance of saving faded from my mind. Long story short, I piled up some nice credit card debt and almost made the continual mistake of living beyond my means. Eventually I woke up from fantasy land and realized that if I didn’t change my lifestyle, I would be doing myself a serious disservice.

Many people, at a certain age, will learn the importance of saving money. Although a lot of them will know it, many of them will not practice it. There are always plenty of reasons, and many of these reasons will be perfectly good ones. The unfortunate part is that, until a person really learns the importance of saving, the lesson will eventually catch up to them.

It wasn’t until recently that I remembered Anna’s words to us. It has taken a couple years and a couple of mishaps, but I believe I’m finally understanding a bit more about what she was trying to tell us.