A lot of us find it burdensome to cultivate this habit of saving money. The first thing which may have come to your mind is that you don’t have enough money to save. If you think this article is about to further highlight that, you’ll be surprised to find that how much you earn, is not to blame this time. What other reasons might cause you to find yourself on this side of the savings wall?
- Your taste keeps increasing
You probably first complained that you weren’t earning enough for starters and couldn’t possibly save any money. Now you got a raise or business started booming and you still wind up broke! It’s probably because you started overindulging in the finer things in life- expensive clothes, hair, restaurants, jewelry, luxury cars or whatever the case may be. All this while, you could have increased your net worth – the value of these things depreciates with time. Start building your liquid asset base with an investment account that doubles as a way to save money and learn to find satisfaction in the simpler things.
- You keep comparing yourself to others
So, you’re the only one in your group who isn’t driving a Camry, so you’ve not been to all the expensive places and so what? If you can afford it easily, without debt or risk of going broke, go right ahead to spend as you wish. But if you know that you cannot, please stop yourself before it’s too late. Envy is a deadly sin which makes people do very bad things.
- You have poor spending habits
As soon as money gets into your account, you can’t seem to keep things calm right? When you splurge on frivolities and completely forget about your bills or personal goals, the result is an extravagant lifestyle without the funds to keep it up. While it may not happen overnight, your habits determine the quality of your life. Consider taking short classes on personal finance management or downloading simple personal finance tools to help you navigate your expenses.
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- You procrastinate
You don’t pay yourself first. Take a certain percentage of your salary, and allocate it to savings- savings is for you and all your big plans. Think of it as your mini salary. The remainder is what you’ll be left with to use for bills and other expenses. Bad savers are often procrastinators, so they continuously tell themselves they’ll save later. Set workable reminders to do this every month if need be.
- You are way too nice
Are you the family ATM? Do you freely lend money to anyone who asks? It would be harder to save money if you honestly try to keep up with every demand people around you have. Work to get over your fear of being seen as the “bad guy”, and practice saying “no” every now when it is unhealthy and detrimental to your peace of mind. Work out how you plan to lend money, especially if you know that the money is unlikely to come back. If it helps, decide a working percentage of said amount that you are comfortable losing.
If your life has been so great for you money-wise, you probably won’t think much of savings but if your life is sort of unpredictable and cash is not so abundant, just one emergency could knock you off your feet. Think how peaceful your life would be if you took the bold step and started saving today.
Kanu holds an MBA from Stanford University, a master’s in Journalism from NYU and a bachelor’s in Engineering from Calvin College. His career has included time at Konga, Amazon, The United Nations, Esquire, CNN, and Black Enterprise magazine. Armed with a strong conviction that you can live a great life no matter how much money you have, JR founded REACH Technologies, www.reach.africa. His company builds software to help young people and companies to manage and grow their money.
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