I can't believe #weekend-engagement is already 4-years old. It's been a while since it started as a commenting engagement and it evolved into posts that give you an interesting thought exercise to come out understanding yourself a bit better.
Onwards on the topic of my post for this week, I think I have talked about savings before, but not the actual explanations for each of the things I do related to it. Since I don't have a job, my ways to get money vary and what I do with the little I make is simple actually. But my 3 to-do's to save money are simple:
Set sights onto something
Saving money is cool, but it needs to have a purpose. Saving for the sake of doing it is boring and can make anyone anxious. Be it the case that you want to have money for emergency even gives it the purpose of being that, money for emergencies. So a good idea to save your pennies is to make it a fund for something. I have done it several times already.
When I was younger, my brother and I saved money for videogames. It was what was left during the week of high school. Once we had enough, we went for the game we wanted. After he went to college and I still had some years of high school ahead of me, I started to save more and by my own. Most of this was spent on mandolin strings and other things. But my sights were always of a goal for saving.
The big achievements of these savings have been during my short adulthood when I managed to get enough money to buy myself a laptop for work. Then, I got a new one last year, thanks to my brother and a plan of saving. Lastly, the new phone I have was a thing of saving my Hives and spending them wisely.
Having an empty wallet
This might not work on country were the currency isn't as devaluated as Venezuela's fiat. But the idea is that we face some problems on payments. There are new methods. It used to be worse and sometimes we remember why our country lacks on many things. Not carrying cash usually means you don't have money to spend on other things. Maybe you only carry enough for transportation. When I do this, it's never in my wallet.
And you might ask about cards. And here I will tell you that there are places in this decade of the 21st century where you can't pay using a card of any kind. This helps you save money as you can't actually get anything from there. Yes, I have pissed up people at places where you can't pay by card leaving stuff on their hands just because they don't accept that method. Their fault, but good thing I didn't waste money.
Going out when needed
Having to go out a lot means there are many expenses to cover. Also, cravings need to be in check. Since I don't go out of my house that much, I can save as much as possible. This doesn't mean I don't get to enjoy some quality time among friends. I have been going for beers with a literary group after some gatherings and it's been totally justified. It counts as a cultural activity.
This also ensure I'm not using money on things that aren't necessary, ergo coffee everyday; snacks; the list goes on and on. As the previous points, I do buy snacks and go out for coffee once in a while. But it isn't something I would spend lots of money on. Maybe like 10$ a year on each item. And that is saying a lot.
Extra tips
Since a lot of my income comes from Hive, some of it goes to savings and some of it to Hive Power. That's another interesting way of saving money. It's even better than other methods. We have some cool APR % on both options that are up for consideration.
There lots of ways of saving money and each work accordingly to the lifestyle of everyone. For me, it's just a thing of keeping up with my grandpa's advice about saving with a purpose in mind. Anything else just add to the fund of life.
- Photos 📷: taken by me (Redmi Note 13)
- Editing 🎬: by me, made with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.
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