nest egg
noun phrase

- a sum of money that has been saved or kept for a special purpose

(Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)

---
WORD ORIGIN

Nest egg refers to money or investments earmarked for some future purpose. The term most commonly refers to retirement savings.

In chicken farming, a nest egg is an artificial egg in a nest that is used to trigger the hen’s instincts (in particular, to lay eggs there instead of somewhere else), despite the removal of the real eggs. Such eggs are commercially available from farm suppliers. Nest egg also conjures the image of a mother bird caring for its young offspring until they hatch.

According to figures from the World Bank, the Anglo Saxon countries - United States, United Kingdom, Australia - are some of the world’s worst "egg nesters". In these countries, personal savings rates (calculated as disposable income minus consumption expenditures divided by disposable income) have steadily declined over the past two decades.

Economic experts are especially alarmed at the current situation in the U.S. as personal savings rates have sunk to as low as .6 percent in recent years. In effect, this means U.S. consumers are spending more than they earn, causing some observers to label the U.S. a nation of spenders.

Germany on the other hand could be called a nation of savers in comparison. Personal savings rates have generally stayed around 10 percent over the past several decades and unemployment figures are among the lowest in Europe. One could call the Germans a nation of nest-eggers.

---
SYNONYMS

capital, cookie jar, equity, estate, funds, goods, holdings, kitty, mattress, means, piggy bank, money for a rainy day, reserve(s), resources, riches, stake, stash, valuables, wealth

---
PRACTICE OWAD TODAY
Say something like:

"With customer demand on the rise, we’ve decided to invest part of our company's NEST EGG in more production capacity."