Saving Money

Start saving money

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Before I begin I would like you all to take a moment in imagining whatever it is you have your hearts set on acquiring, achieving or becoming someday. Take a moment, and think about it. Now, if you might have realized, the common denominator between almost all of those desires, involve having money;  be it travelling the world, achieving the height of success in your field, or maybe something as relatively simple as moving out, getting on your own feet and getting yourself an apartment. That is, personal budgeting is key and therefore a good sense of personal finances is nothing to underestimate by any means. Today I will be elaborating on the central idea behind that line of thought in an attempt to persuade you to think about starting to save up, be it for your dream home or for a rainy day at the very least.

Before I explore into the heart of the matter, I feel a personal note on why I choose to speak on the topic and it might help you relate more to the subject at hand. Personally, I admit that I have never really thought much about saving up or finances as far as my personal spending were concerned, partially because it is only now, for me as for most of you I imagine, that the reality of personal responsibility started bearing down on me. And let's be fair, we are not exactly teenagers anymore, on the contrary, we are actually well on our way to being adults or rather functioning members of the society so it seems fitting that the more personal freedom we feel we acquire, the higher the sense of responsibility it entails. So, as a result, what better place to begin exercising your sense of personal responsibility than managing your own expenditure and saving up adequate portions of your finances. While there are quite possibly an excess of benefits to saving up, for the sake of shortness of time I shall primarily be focusing on three aspects of your life that personal budgeting can greatly improve.

One primary aspect being, a sense of psychological happiness and well-being which tends to be something a lot of people strive for but underestimate the means to achieve, and yes, it could be something as simple as managing your budget and saving up. An article on the business insider by jenna goodreu, stated that there are 84% of American adults which say that having money saved up boosts their sense of well-being more than eating healthy foods, having an enjoyable job, or getting regular exercise (Goodreu, 2013). It tends to mainly be the feeling of security and stability one achieves by being in control of a rather important aspect of your life, along with the general satisfaction of feeling accomplished by following through with a particular objective in life, which in this case is being financially stable by saving money. An extension of this feeling could be more subjective experiences of happiness such as how one chooses to spend their money, be it an acquisition of materialistic goals such as a house or maybe a car, or using their money to achieve or experience something greater in life by which money isn't the ends but merely the means to acquire something non-materialistic. Another significant effect this has on your psyche is how it reduces your stress, at least with regards to your finances since the feeling of being financially insecure or unstable is what plagues most people through their adult life. An article by Joan E. Lefebrouve emphasizes on the effective way to reduce financial stress, which is to save some of your income for future goals, which includes having several layers of savings (E.Lefebrouve, n.d).

The second aspect I shall be talking about, somewhat ties in to the first although in a different sense, that is saving up for the future. If most of you have your life goals planned out ahead, you would know that they hardly tend to be things that you can achieve in a single day or even a year. Therefore, if you sincerely would like to achieve your dreams or goals, be it a vacation to a specific exotic location or maybe even just moving away to another country, saving and managing your finances now would be ideal. Especially if it helps prevent regrets later in life by not having done what you could and should have done. Catherine Collinson who is the president of the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies stated that Retirees were asked on how they would have prepared differently for travel in their retirement. Of those with regrets, more than half wish they would have saved more (Folger,n.d).  

 So the important thing here is to have goals set out to focus yourself on to motivation and to follow up said goals by being consistent and dedicated in your actions.

The final aspect, and probably the most important one in terms of how it might affect your life; is saving up so you might be able to get by any sort of emergency that might pop up in your life. Christina Kramer who’s is the executive vice president of CIBC (Canadian Imperial bank of commerce) stated and I quote

“Once you've experienced the financial challenges that come with a leaky roof or an unexpected car repair, the value of having some cash set aside for emergencies becomes clear," (Trumbell, 2012).