Sipping umbrella garnished fruity drinks in a beach chair with beautiful scenery off some costal island. Traveling through the Amazon rainforest on a zip line. Hot air ballooning across the country.

These could be exciting retirement ideas or fleeting dreams. One thing is for sure, social security has reached unsustainable levels, and if you’re under 40, chances are, without reform, there won’t be much waiting for you down the road.

Students should save now, since Social Security won’t be there in the future.

Most freshmen are 17, 18 or 19. Add four years to that, give or take for graduation, and a newly transformed population of 21-23 year-olds are ready for the “real” world. And with average life expectancy in the United States peaking at 79, according to an annual report by the World Bank, not many people are thinking about retirement. Most people will deem retirement important to consider around 30-50 years from now. Between YOLO-ing and Carpe-Dieming, people are busy thinking about the now.

So why should you care now as a student?

According to a report published by the Social Security Administration, reserves for the combined Social Security fund will be depleted. Now, that statement has a lot of weight. Unfortunately, there is a lack of education about Social Security alternatives and fear mongering in the media. While the report is ultimately simple, the implications are not.

Projections from a decade ago suggest reserves would be depleted in 2042. This year’s report suggests that, based on current projections after 2033, benefits will be greatly reduced, not completely wiped away.

“Yay!” you say. “At least there will be ‘something’ there for me in the future.” Let’s say, hypothetically speaking 10 years from now, the current projected year of depletion, 2033 changes to 2023.

That means in 2023, officials would be announcing that the reserves are nonexistent. Some of us will barely be in our thirties and will be discovering that all those taxes that have been taken out won’t be appropriately distributed back to us.

Now this isn’t a critique of the existing Social Security setup. I only offer critiques when I am also willing to supply a remedy.

A simple first step to working toward this problem can all be boiled down to one word: Save. Just save some amount of money and do it consistently. A good benchmark is 10 percent. Save 10 percent of everything you make and don’t touch it. I know it may be hard, but I promise you – it is not impossible.

I mentioned the media being big proponents of fear mongering. But I honestly think you should be afraid. However, you should be afraid for different reasons. The fear should not be over whether or not the benefit program will run out. Instead the focus should be on saving so we can teach ourselves early on a new way to live.

We need to be able to distinguish the difference between wants and needs and consider whether or not living on less cash really equates to living ‘less.’

Think of saving in your twenties as exercise for the Olympics of retirement much later on.

If you teach yourself to save now, it will contribute significantly down the line.

While the monetary compensation is less significant, in the end, the simple act of living on a little less will adequately prepare you a lot more for the future than simply doing nothing.

Fran Walker is a senior finance and accounting major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at fwalke01@syr.edu.

Published on September 9, 2013 at 1:07 am