That adage has proved true for an elderly Illinois man who accidentally gave away his entire life savings when making a clothing donation to his local Goodwill.

 

The 80-year-old man, who didn’t trust banks, had kept his life savings of $13,000 sewn inside the lining of one of his suits. He is currently appealing for the money’s return so that he can care for his wife, who has Stage 4 cancer.

 

Goodwill spokeswoman Dana Engelbert said the charity has searched the Moline store where the man made his donation but could not find the suit in question. "We’re sorting through the donations that came in at the time," Engelbert explained. Goodwill employees are also searching through bins of donated clothes transported from the Moline facility to a regional warehouse in Iowa City.

 

"We’re hoping it’s still there and we can find it for them," Engelbert said, "It’s their life savings. It’s important."

 

The man’s daughter, who says he is remaining anonymous because he is "devastated and embarrassed" by the story, is offering a $1,000 reward for the suit’s new owner to return the cash.

Retirement? Ah, I can’t wait to read those Golden Years. Let’s see, I’ll be 59 in February, meaning I have only another 6 years or so until I hit the deck chair and the beach. Wow, I can hardly wait! Dream on. Unless you have been saving for those Golden Years since you were in your twenties I have news for you. And if you have been saving all those years, I have other news for you.

 

Seventy-five percent of small business owners said that Americans are so financially unprepared for retirement that it’s becoming a crisis, according to a survey by Nationwide Financials released Monday. Still, less than 20 percent of small business owners say they offer employees a 401(k) or other employee self-funded retirement plan.

 

Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about retirement as the economic downturn stymied income growth and wreaked havoc on investments such as stock portfolios and homes. More than three quarters of middle-class Americans said they don’t think they’ll be able to afford to retire until they’re 80, according to a recent survey from Wells Fargo. And two-thirds of Americans ranked not having enough money for retirement as their top financial concern in a recent Gallup poll, up from 53 percent 10 years ago.

 

Despite the retirement anxiety, only 11 percent of small business owners said they plan to offer an employee-sponsored 401(k) plan in the next two years, the Nationwide survey found. And while nearly 80 percent of small business owners say having a retirement plan is important for attracting more qualified employees, more than half say it’s too expensive.

That’s why some members of congress are trying to get a bill passed that would encourage small business owners to pool their resources and offer plans that are less expensive than single employer plans, potentially making some of the administrative responsibilities easier, according to Nationwide officials.

 

The US isn’t the only country where small business owners are struggling to offer retirement options. Due to the economic climate, the British government recently decided to delay auto-enrolling workers at businesses with fewer than 50 employees in pension programs by one year, according to the Telegraph.

 

Start thinking today about an alternative to retiring. It’s a difficult project and requires creative thinking. I was hit with enforced retirement at age 63. At that stage I was aware that the retirement clock was ticking faster than usual and I was busy feeding money into my pension fund as fast as I could. I thought that I would like to work until I was about 70. The engineering company I was managing was closed down overnight and I found myself on the sand on the beach, no deckchair.

I sat on that beach for about 6 months with a pen and notebook, writing down every crazy retirement and money making idea that flashed across my mental screen. Today I am a writer.  

By all accounts retail sales broke records during the Thanksgiving weekend; they brought much needed relief, boosted the long-suffering economy and raised retailers’ hopes for the best holiday shopping season ever. According to the National Retail Federation, sales were up to $52 billion from $45 billion last year. A record 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites over the Black Friday weekend, up from 212 million last year. The average holiday shopper spent about $400 over the weekend, up from $365 last year.

 

These figures augur well for sales today, which is known as Cyber Monday for all the online promotions. Cyber Monday was the biggest online shopping day of the year in 2010. Online shopping is increasing in popularity as the Black Friday in-store frenzy reaches unheard-of levels, including incidents of gunfire and pepper spray.

 

More than half the adult U.S. population, meaning about 123 million people plan to shop from the safety of their office or home computer today, NRF says. Cyber Monday was the biggest online shopping day last year and reached $1 billion, according to Web-tracking company ComScore. The Monday after Thanksgiving used to be the first day many people had high-speed Internet access when they returned to their offices. Most people who use office computers now have high-speed Internet at home and likely on their mobile devices. But retailers step up the Web-based promotions so much that consumers are now conditioned to keep shopping anyway.

 

Retailers have tried to figure out "what’s the new deal that consumers just can’t pass up for Cyber Monday," says John Squire, chief strategy officer for IBM Smart Commerce, which analyzes the transactions on retail websites. Many retailers are planning to offer Cyber Monday deals during lunchtime to cater to office-based shoppers, says NRF spokeswoman Ellen Davis, who named the day in 2005. Some are expected to offer 30% off everything, something seldom seen in stores. "While the Cyber Monday trend began with many people shopping from work, it has evolved into a day where people shop for deals as soon as they get up in the morning and right before they go to bed and almost every hour in between," Davis says.

 

Big Black Friday weekends aren’t always a sign of consumers’ confidence in the economy: The previous top weekend was in the depths of the recession in 2008. But this year’s holiday shopping was more of a splurge than a frantic search for cheap necessities. "Many of the purchases this weekend were for ‘self-gifting’ and many more discretionary categories than we saw in 2008," Davis says.

 

Despite some backlash against earlier store openings on Thanksgiving, the trend is sure to accelerate due to the response from shoppers, Davis says. "Consumers vote with their feet and vote with their wallets," she says. "Midnight is now the magic hour for Black Friday shopping." So of you feel left our after Black Friday, you can make up the loss today. Fire up your computer and start searching…