SmartyPig®

Saturday Night Live never fails to bring in the laughs. And in the clip we have here, courtesy of Hulu, Steve Martin, Amy Pohler and Chris Parnell are shown making light of a very serious personal finance situation afflicting many across the country - the old credit card mentality our customers constantly tell us they are trying to escape. Is SNL's skit hilarious? Yes. Our office was in tears. And the fact that it's obviously no laughing matter is what makes it seriously hit home.

Says Pohler while thumbing through Parnell's self-help book, Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford, "Look honey, there's a whole section here on how to buy expensive things with money you've saved." To which Martin replies, "And where would you get this saved money?" At SmartyPig, we've got your answer.

From the drawing board to our launch last spring until now, SmartyPig has been, and always will be about helping people save money for specific goals - items that otherwise, most could not purchase out of pocket. We simply want to help people move away from the "buy now, pay later" credit card mindset that has gone a long way toward ensuring our rough economic ride. We understand that credit cards aren't solely destructive and not everyone abuses them, but in this post from a few days ago it shows how delinquency rates are on the rise. Average debt has increased, while credit card companies continue to gouge customers with up to 24% interest in some instances. There's no way around the simple fact we all need to work on our fiscal fitness, we need to depend less on plastic, and we need to "Not Buy Stuff We Cannot Afford."   

Says Martin at one point during the skit, "So I buy something I want and then hope that I can pay for it, right?" Parnell replies, "No. You make sure you have the money, then you buy it." We couldn't agree more.