A wise man once said that life will teach you a lesson at the right time and sometimes those lessons are painful but needed the most to mold us into a better person.
As a child, we were dependent on our parents, but when we start earning we get a sense of independence, now we can get whatever we like or want and we often find our parents saying
“Don’t spend money on things you don’t need”
When my earnings were less I used to manage everything including saving a good portion of my salary savings, but soon after my salary increased I was tempted and curious to buy expensive things, and spend money on things that were not useful to me but I purchased them anyway coz why not.
After the salary raise, I never focused on savings and then one day when my father needed money for his surgery I saw I had 8000 INR (108$) in my account and this was the most painful lesson from life to me.
That was the time when I realized how stupid and irresponsible I was. Many of you will disagree with me by saying it's my money and I get to spend it however I want to and that’s exactly what I used to think at that time.
But as you are growing older, you see your parent will now retire in few years and the responsibility will fall on your shoulders, be it your sibling's education, your marriage, or your parent's medical expenses, etc.
When a person gets this sense of responsibility things change, you start looking at things from a different perspective, you are now fighting your temptation to hit the buy button for all those items in your cart.
In life whatever you want to do, you will need money at every stage, spending all that amount on useless things for social status is meaningless because you cannot pay medical bills or EMIs using that social status.
Warren Buffet once said, “If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need.”
You need to start thinking about your future from the moment you get your first salary, speak with your parents for better investments or saving plans because they have seen the world more and can guide you better.
Here’s what I did to get back on track
1. Create a savings plan
I made a saving plan based on my current salary and EMIs I was paying, just like how I used to do when my salary was less. I made sure that every month when my salary gets credited I transfer a portion of that to a different saving account I had in a different bank.
2. Fighting my temptation to buy useless things
How I fought my temptation to buy new things was, I used to add everything in the cart and saw the total amount and transferred that amount to my savings bank account.
I started asking myself do I really need this and how will this improve my daily life?
3. Get a life and health insurance
Life insurance is extremely helpful if you are considering long term investments. Get in touch with your parents or anyone from your family who has detail knowledge on this and then go for what fits your need.
4. Gold investments
The price of gold in the market is always appreciated, so investing in gold bit by bit is also a way of savings, there are many plans by reputed jewelers, you can get in touch with them OR ask your trusted local jeweler too.
You will surely thank yourself when you see your bank balance and savings rise, you will feel proud of yourself for doing the right thing, having a strong bank balance and investments means you can help your family and yourself in any circumstances.
Your hard-earned money is the one which will help you out in tuff situations of life. Enjoying life and savings should go hand in hand, train yourself to avoid the temporary temptation.
I hope this post was helpful to you, do share your tips on how you save money in the comment, and do share this with your friends who have just started earning.
