Bringing money into your everyday parlance is just as important whether you’re earning or not. The blatant reality we’re bound by requires you to not only have money but also makes it a must to learn its ways. Dealing with money is often like gripping sand; so much of it ends up escaping and you’re left to survive with just a few grains. Here is a list of things you could try practicing from now to never find yourself in a shortage-of savings (SOS):
- TALK TO YOUR PEERS:
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As Robert Cialdini said, “people look to what others do in order to guide their own behaviour.” So, instead of presuming that all is well in your friends’ lives, which is misinformation gathered from their respective social media, talk to them. Be vulnerable. Finance doesn’t have to be taboo; split a medium pizza and discuss whether they’ve got a student debt. Often, learning from their growing mortgages and debts, we may find more courage in dealing with ours.
- PRIORITISE SATISFACTION OF THE SOUL (also SOS):
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Spending on material things leaves with you extremely short-lived satisfaction; in all fairness, those culottes don’t even make sense to buy given your climatic conditions. Instead, focus on spending money on experiences. Experiences often leave you with some kind of learning, as inadvertent as it may be. Investing things that save you time is another good way of spending your money. For example, save up to buy a dryer instead of buying a bunch of wonky socks, which by the way, you’ll have to dry yourself.
- ONE TIME CHANGES:
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We, as a species, like momentum. Routine habits like caffeine in the morning or ‘Taco Tuesdays’ are hard to stop from manifesting. So instead, take a day off to reorganize your spending. What I mean is, figure out where most of your money is going and make some one-time changes in your regular habits. You could perhaps unsubscribe from newsletters that get you to buy “limited” merchandise, delete food delivery apps to prevent untimely indulgence or “go thrifting”. The logic, as Wendy de La Rosa puts it, is that “you can’t spend on what you can’t see.”
Wisdom like ‘save 30% of all that you make’ or ‘the more money works for you, the less you have to work for money’ are important to know but hard to remember. Instead, pay heed to that which you can actually act upon. As always, everybody’s habits are different so it is important to analyse what works for you, as quickly and as precisely as possible.