Can you afford not to save?

A recent survey by the Independent Finacial Advice Promotion (no idea who they are either but they sound important) suggested that seven out of ten UK adults cannot afford to save any more money than they currently do.

To me this seems a worrying trend, especially given the circumstances in which our current generation find ourselves. Let me explain.

Prune Juice

Now, the guy in the pic might look like a bit of a nut but he is in fact Aubrey De Gray, a genetist from Cambridge University. His recent research has led him to believe that humans can eventually live to 1,000 years of age. He explains how below:

Ageing is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably be able to address ageing just as effectively as we address many diseases today.

When we get these therapies, we will no longer all get frail and decrepit and dependent as we get older, and eventually succumb to the innumerable ghastly progressive diseases of old age.

We will still die, of course - from crossing the road carelessly, being bitten by snakes, catching a new flu variant etcetera - but not in the drawn-out way in which most of us die at present.

So, will this happen in time for some people alive today? Probably. Since these therapies repair accumulated damage, they are applicable to people in middle age or older who have a fair amount of that damage.

I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.

So, before you all rush out to sell your shares in Saga lets see what this could mean to you and your future. There are two real possibilities here.

1. Firstly Mr de Grey could indeed be a few slices short of a full loaf and his prophecies of eternal youth may be misguided but the notion that we will indeed live longer in the future seems inevitable. Even if we live an extra 5-10 years on average this will need to be paid for. Are your current savings going to cover you?
2. Alternatively the venerable professor could be spot on in which case we can look forward to a population expolosion and scenes of apocolypse on a grand scale as we clamour for the remaining land on this humble rock we call home.

So, next time you're out ransacking the shops pay some thought to the future and ask whether your future self will really appreciate that gold plated loo paper?

Until next time,

BW