Just a personal observation;
Whenever I try to advise people to save their money, I usually get responses like “What money? I can barely get by, lol” or “I’m broke, I have no money to save”. I know they’re exaggerating. They have a job, so they have money.
Saving money is important, especially when you’re just starting out and you don’t have much. It’s not about the actual money you’re saving; if it’s only $5-10 a week, that money isn’t going to actually make a difference, but you’re teaching yourself how to save.
You’re teaching yourself to be disciplined, to put money away and not touch it, no matter how tempted you are. You learn to walk past that shiny stuff in store windows. You teach yourself to steer clear of impulse buys.
People think “I’ll start saving once I’m making more money”, but I say if you blow through your whole salary at $30,000 a year, you’ll do the same at $60k or $90k.
I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but I just wanted to bounce this idea off you all. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Although I agree with you, I believe that if you are in that position, the best approach is to start small. Automate putting a small percentage of your income into a savings account or an index fund if you do not have debts. If you do have debts, automate paying a small amount toward them every month. This way it is out of your mind, and you are less tempted to spend it. This comes from the belief that changing your environment to reduce temptation is the best way to get rid of bad habits.
I forgot to mention automatic transfers 😞. Those definitely helped me out early on. This was before online banking was a thing. I had to call my bank and ask them to set up an automatic transfer on the 1st and 15th of every month.
