According to U.S. News & World Report, Americans seem to have put themselves on a budget. Inspired by the recession, today’s savers are developing lifelong habits that will affect how they spend money long after the recession ends. Expensive vacations, lavish dinners, and even boutique coffees are falling by the wayside as people shovel more money into their basic savings accounts. Unfortunately, a global recession such as we are presently encountering is a very hard way to learn these lessons. A much better way is to seek out a comprehensive financial education that can help you manage your money more effectively, and prepare yourself for future contingencies.

The Great Depression of the early 1930s was caused to a large degree by unsound mortgages and nationwide foreclosures. Does this sound familiar? Back then, the government created the Federal Housing Administration to insure mortgages and to help people stay in their homes. The current economic meltdown has largely occurred due to the growth of risky mortgage practices over the past decade. In other words, the same thing that caused the Great Depression has caused the present recession. And Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in deep trouble. I’ll ask it again — will we ever learn?