This is Motley Full Answers. I'm Alison Southwick and I'm joined, as always, by Robert the Brokamp,

personal finance expert here at The Motley Fool. Hey, bro? Well, hello, Allison. In today's episode,

we have both Megan Brinsfield and Sean Gates joining us to talk about how to make the most

financially of 2021.

All that and more on this week's episode of Motleyful Answers.

So, Alison, what is up?

Well, bro, today I am not Alison Southwick podcast host and derider of Fitbit.

Today, I am Allison, two-handed economist and derider of Fitbit. Today, I am Alison, two-handed economist and derider of Fitbit.

So I know two jokes about economists and the punchline is essentially the same. One is variations on,

if you talk to two economists, you're going to end up with three opinions. The other is the idea of the two-handed

economists. As Truman lamented, give me one-handed economist. All of my economists say, on the one

hand, this, but on the other hand. So here we are in the middle of a pandemic. And on the one hand,

things are humming along in this nation. But on the other hand, well, so today I'm going to take a look at

both my hands on a few aspects of our economy. First up, the U.S. savings rate. Okay, what's the

savings rate? You calculate your income for a specific period, then you calculate your spending,

you subtract your spending from your income to

figure out how much you're saving, then divide that number by your income, multiply by 100,

voila, your savings rate. Much easier than that may be sounded. Now, for context, back in 2005,

the savings rate in the U.S. hit its low watermark of 2.2%. It was hovering around 7% prior to the

pandemic, and then the savings rate spiked in April to a whopping 33%. What? That's crazy.

It is crazy. Now, the most recent data from the Fed for November shows that the U.S. savings rate

has simmered down a bit

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