Ask Yourself These Questions:
- After receiving a salary, do you:
- Rush to the market to buy a nice jacket you saw?
- Buy a big present for your best friend’s birthday?
- Set aside a part of your salary to achieve your goals?
- Are you someone who likes spending or someone who likes saving?
- Do you often give up on something you want?
If you find yourself buying everything you see at the market after getting money or if you tend to spend more than you save, your future financial stability might be at risk. You need a budget. A budget helps you decide, plan, and use your money to achieve your goals by showing your income, expenditures, and savings.
The Importance of Saving
Saving means not spending all your money and setting aside a part for a specific goal in the future. It involves regularly or occasionally setting aside small or large sums of money and sometimes giving up immediate wants to achieve future goals.
Before Saving, List Your Items in Two Categories:
- Needs and their costs: Essential items such as food, water, electricity, and clothes.
- Wants and their costs: Non-essential items such as cosmetics, cigarettes, etc.
If you don’t have enough money to buy everything listed, it’s better to give up some of the wants. Distinguish between necessary expenses (needs) and optional expenditures (wants).
Tips to Save
- Set aside a bit of money from every income (monthly, weekly, daily).
- Do not buy a new item if yours still works or can be repaired.
- Buy fewer presents for your family. Discuss with them to agree on your support.
- If possible, spend less on social ceremonies.
- Keep less cash in your wallet; leave it in a safe place like a bank account or mobile money.
- If you send money to your family members, do not send all your money. Keep part of it for your own needs and emergencies.
- Always keep your long-term goals in mind to remind yourself why you save.
Remember
Saving is a need; saving is a security for the future.
By managing your money smartly and prioritizing savings, you can achieve your financial goals and ensure a secure future.
Thank you for sharing, its short notes but with a big impact to us and to our clients.
One of the areas we should work on is to build the culture of savings, not only through compulsory and voluntary savings, thus Loan guarantee funds but also using banks, mobile money from their own means to save for emergencies and future investments, just a little but continuously.