There has to be a balance here, because if we assume that we are going to be alive later we may put off what we can do now, with the hope that we're going to do it later, but we may not have that opportunity. That does not mean that we don't save, that we don't allow for the possibility that we may be alive. However sometimes then what we think will make us secure keeps going up, and up, and up, and when we get what we thought would be secure, we go "Oh, well maybe this will happen and then it's not enough," and then we never actually do any of it. So we have to try not to miss the opportunities that arise along the way.
Going back to the Kamma Sutta, generosity is the source of wealth. According to the Buddha, we are born with good conditions, we are not born poor, because we have done generous actions in the past. We have opportunities for wealth arising because we have done generous actions in the past. If we want future financial security, it's important to know how to be generous in the present moment and then opportunities tend to arise for us that we didn't actually foresee.
So, if we have a few hours a week, maybe even while we're trying to put something away for the future, it may be a good idea just to do some generous actions, like charity work, because it may actually help in seeing what we already have and taking more confidence in sowing beneficial causes for our future security. We need a balance here, also. If we give too much away, then we may become in need of someone else's generosity. In the scriptures, the Buddha went into depth about a layperson's responsibilities. I never learned these lists, but he talked about giving a part of one's income to religious people, being generous in that way, giving some part of one's income to people who work for you, some part for the family, and putting some away for the future. He did talk about putting away for the future, but if we put all of it away without actually seeing what we can do to be generous in the present, then we're only looking at the material security and not at the Kamma security.
Steve and I talk about two types of savings, the Kamma bank account and the regular bank account. So if we remember the Kamma bank account as well, then we may actually find that things arise by themselves sometimes. We have a strange sort of life in that a lot of the things arose for us which we didn't plan, we just had a lot of good intentions. Probably some people thought we were pretty reckless, too, in some of the things we did, because when we went to Thailand we had no idea where we were going, apart from going to practice, and things just arose as they arose.
We also know of people who spent a lot of time putting away money for financial security and putting off their mental development, and when they came to old age they saw that the financial security couldn't give them the refuge, the deeper refuge, that was needed as their body and all these other things were disappearing. These people were very skilful in the regular world, but they didn't put enough time and effort into the side of mental development. When we develop ourselves mentally, we don't need as much to be secure, we don't need as many material things to be secure. We're content with less, we're easy to support. We'll often see people, monks and nuns, who've never had any children, but because of their mental development young people want to be around them, and so they have help in their old age, even though they didn't have children, which usually people view as there to help them.
So remember the Kamma bank account as well, and remember the opportunities to put a little bit of "present moment" generosity, some parts of your day, to developing your mind in the present, not putting off for tomorrow what you can do today.