USU students finalists in national video contest

Still of Natalie Howe's video "Save 10 Time Machine".

LOGAN – Online voting has started for the Save 10 organization’s video contest. The nationwide contest invited contestants to create videos to encourage people to save for retirement with the winner receiving $10,000. When the top 10 finalists were announced, not just one, but two Utah State University students had their <a href=”http://save10.org/#voting” target=”_blank”>videos</a> selected.

Paige Rood and Natalie Howe, who both grew up in the same Cache Valley neighborhood, ended up taking the same economics class at USU. It was there they first heard of the contest from their professor, but it wasn’t the prospect of winning money that made the two interested in participating.

“I thought, ‘That sounds kind of cool, its a competition, but I’m not aware of how many people enter it,’” Howe said. “But then my professor said, ‘If you do this competition, if you enter, then I will give you guys extra credit.”

Rood also said it was the extra credit that originally peaked her interest, but added that she believes in the Save 10 organization’s mission: Helping people save a minimum of 10 percent of their income for retirement.

“It’s a big problem,” she said. “A lot of people are going into retirement with not enough money.”

Howe’s video is called “Save 10% Time Machine” and shows her traveling to the future to see how different her life will be if she saves. Her 16-year-old brother helped her film it one afternoon.

“He filmed the entire thing on his phone,” she said. “It took us only a couple of hours, I’d say four to five hours. It really didn’t take that long.”

Although her video extends the same message, Rood delivers it in a different way. She wrote a song about saving for the future, recorded it, then made a music video called “Sally’s Lemonade.”

“I tried to think about my favorite commercials, the ones that stick in my head,” she said. “I started to notice the ones I remembered the most were the ones that had musical jingles.”

Ten percent of the contest’s results is determined by public voting, which lasts from February 10 to February 19. The videos and voting links can be found <a href=”http://save10.org/#voting” target=”_blank”>here</a>.

After filming the video, Howe said she set up a retirement fund. Both she and Rood said if they win they will put aside 10 percent of the winnings to save for the future. Rood said she wants to use part of the money to fund an LDS mission.

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