Hello, everyone.
I welcome you to my blog. One thing I have tried to practice but found so difficult to make a habit is the habit of saving, but I learned my lesson the hard way, and what I thought was difficult to make a habit eventually became something I do effortlessly. I used to claim that I do not make enough to come and start setting some aside in the name of savings, so whenever I made some money, I spent it all at once without even thinking twice until I fell sick and needed medical attention. It was urgent, but I had nothing saved. I called friends and family for help, and no one was willing to offer help. Some were promising to come through a week or two later, but I doubt I would have lasted that long if I had waited.
I scraped and managed to raise just enough for treatment, and since then I have made having some money set aside as savings very important because if I had some savings, I would have gone to the hospital for a medical checkup a lot earlier than I actually did because I know how much I suffered before I was able to raise the money I raised. Having some money set aside for savings is important, and it does not matter whether you earn enough or not; try to have some money set aside just in case emergencies come knocking. You will have something to start with before help comes.
Saving is hard; you have to be really disciplined to be able to do it and do it well, and if you are not disciplined enough, you just have to come up with means to help you stay grounded and make it happen because if you keep making excuses, you will find yourself not doing anything, and you keep finding yourself in tight corners that, if you had savings, you would come out of quicker than when you have nothing to start with.
Since savings can be really hard, especially when you don't earn enough and you find yourself in a country with an unstable economy, sometimes you find yourself going back to the money you intend to set aside as savings. What I do is lock some portion or part of my earnings up, and that way stop myself from having access to it until the time I set that access to be granted to the money. Another way is sending the money to a bank account that I no longer have much access to; there is no ATM card for the account, and then the SIM linked to the account was stolen and has not been changed, so withdrawing or taking money from that account requires me to go to the bank, and when I think about the stress I will undergo when I do that, I just let it go and find another means to solve my problem.
My response to the India United prompt, and you can join here