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Originally Posted by dead_battery

saving - saving is not bad

but imo the saving mentality can be partof the problem

unless you earn over 50k or something you will never be able to save enough to just coast.

cos what are you gonna do with savings? thats right, spend it till its gone.

not saying DONT SAVE just that some people have the mentality that its all they need to do or the ideal they should be aiming for, yet said people will never find themselves in a position where they have enough excess to save anything substantial.

better focus on smarter spending on shit that will last you a lifetime and education and skills.

dont get trapped in the mentality of just cutting away at yourself out of some misguided binge/purge guilt trip.

saving is good! it has many functions. the first one is to stabilize your finances. because your income goes up & down and it's never guaranteed, or your expenses might fluctuate from month to month, savings provide a cushion for those variations so you never run dry.

people today are brainwashed to spend all the money they get. that is the problem. when they have a small emergency or an inconvenience or they just want something they can't afford, they borrow money from someone else.

they borrow from friends and fuck their friendships, they borrow from family and strain the relationships. they borrow from credit cards and get gouged with interest. they borrow from payday loans and get trapped into a downward spiral of debt. they borrow from title loans and lose their vehicles. they borrow from their home equity and get underwater and end up in the street.

borrowing money is the fucking pits.

borrowing money turns you from a worker into a slave.

when you have savings, you borrow from yourself. you owe nobody, nobody owns you or dictates where and how you can use your money. e.g., for some bank loans, the bank needs to approve your loan, tied to a purchase, they can repo, etc.

if you have savings you have choices. you are free to quit a job. you are free to try a business, or pursue education. you are free to say "no." you are free to move to another place. you are no longer hand-to-mouth, fearing that the boss might wake up with a swollen hemorrhoid and fire you on a whim. savings give you power.

saving is only a start though. the goal is to make money work for you, i.e., investing, which basically means: buying a business or a piece of a business. it's the only way to make good use of capitalism. the problem is, the poors are brainwashed into thinking that investing is beyond their means. too hard/too difficult/ too inaccessible. it's a class problem. so the poor blow their money in gambling, "collectibles," drugs, status symbols, and all manner of nonsense, and remain poor, waiting for a miserable social security check when they are old and broken.

if that could change, and the poors dared to save and invest, and didn't get conned in the process, it would amount to a massive social revolution. all businesses would be employee-owned. capitalism would stand up on its head.

the other thing is that as you get older you get more opportunities to make money. if you have the saving habit then it just kicks in and you can build a sizeable stash and get financial independence. everyone makes 8 bucks an hour at the start. as they acquire skills, they get to charge more. but you can't wait to make more money to change your habits-- change them from the start.

saving is a really good habit. it's only the first step but without it the rest doesn't happen.

to call it by a different name: saving is the ability to LIVE BELOW YOUR MEANS. which puts you on a much safer position than the ones who are waiting for the next paycheck to keep the lights on. it makes a MASSIVE difference in how you relate to money-- namely, it makes you the master instead of the other way around.