by Janice Heath

Created on: April 23, 2010

So why should you save your money when spending it is much easier and more enjoyable? Unless you have a salary, business or trust fund of a size that allows you to spend at will and still have plenty left over for the necessities of life, there are definite benefits associated with learning how to save your money.

It is reasonable to expect that there will always be expenses in life.  Inevitably just as your bank account is low, you come across another large or unexpected bill.  Perhaps you have an accident or become ill.  The car breaks down.  Taxes are due.  You need to buy a birthday present for your Mother or your child.  If you have some money saved, none of these occasions will be a financial problem.  

Saving money also saves you a lot of stress.  If you have money put aside for contingencies, then you can meet your bills as they become due.  Worrying about not being able to pay the bills, or failing to pay the bills and dealing with the attendant stress of the phone calls asking you to pay, can be totally avoided by saving sufficient money to cover expenses.

Most people have a dream.  For some it will be a holiday, for others a house in the country or by the beach.  Maybe there’s a plan for college for yourself or for your children.  Perhaps you’d like a shiny new car or have a desire to contribute to worthy causes.  Saving money for something you want means that you are fixing it into your future, you have a plan and will make it come to fruition.  

Once you have learned how to save your money, you can enjoy watching it grow.  Through the miracle of compound interest, over time your money accumulates more money with no further effort from you.  In this way you receive interest and then more interest on the interest.  Surely this is a much better plan than being in debt and paying interest to the bank.

There are two major commodities in life, time and money.  Usually you save one of these at the expense of the other.  Sometimes you spend money to save time, for example if you have your lawns mowed by someone else.  Sometimes you spend time to save money, such as when you cook your own meals instead of buying fast food or going to a restaurant.  When you go to work you are spending your time in order to receive your salary.  

Who would you rather be: The person who is always short of money and complaining about how hard it is to make ends meet?  Or the person who has learnt to put some money put aside and is therefore able to make wider choices about the way they live their lives?  Learning to save money, preferable early in life, but really at any point, can get you to a position where you can afford to spend your time, and your life, in the ways that really matter to you.

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