One of the amazing ways humans affect their lives is through their daily habits. Our habits arise from the little actions we engage ourselves in daily. These little actions when we engage in them repetitively, compound come to form our habits. When a habit has successfully been formed by us, it no longer takes much effort from us to carry out such action.
We have different habits in different areas of our lives. You may have heard of reading habits, sleeping habits, eating habits, etc. There is another very important habit that exists but only a few individuals ever bring themselves to develop it. This habit is the “Savings Habit”. The savings habit was mentioned by Napoleon Hill in his book, The Law Of Success and he referred to it as one of the fundamental secrets of the wealthy and one of the essential laws of success.
What Is Savings Habit?
Savings habit refers to the art of regularly setting aside a certain amount of money by an individual out of the total amount available to him or her per time. Saving is usually done with the hope of having enough for the future.
How To Develop Savings Habit
Set Targets For Yourself
Humans naturally enjoy reaching attainment or milestone. You can use this to your advantage in developing a savings habit. Set financial targets for yourself on the amount of money to end the year, month, or week with. This will help you define upfront how much out of your income needs to be set aside in savings to reach such targets.
Growing up as a kid, setting targets was the primary way we learned to save. I remember when I bought my first transistor radio while still in Primary 3. I first asked questions about the price of it and when I had the information, I set a target for it. I would put away a portion of every money that comes into my hand, including walking to school sometimes to save my transport fare. This wouldn’t have been possible without having a target to work with. So, to help you in developing a savings habit, make sure you always have a target you are saving up to meet.
Decide Ahead of Time What To Save
When you have set your financial target for yourself, you will need to determine what portion of your income needs to be set aside to meet the target you have. When you have already decided on what portion of your income would be set aside for saving, it helps reduce or even eliminate the amount of time you need to decide what to do with every money that comes to you.
Keep Track of All Your Financial Transactions
Keeping track of all your financial transactions will help you in developing your savings habit as it will help you understand the true state of your finances and gauge your inflows and outflows. It will also help you know whether or not you are working in line with your financial targets.
Set Up A Savings-only Account
An effective savings habit requires discipline and one of the ways you can further discipline yourself is by setting up a savings-only account. This account could be in the same bank where you bank or in a different bank. When opening this account, ask your bank to not issue an ATM card for the account and also to block access to USSD banking. The only way you can withdraw from this account will be through the use of withdrawal slips. What this will do for you is that when you remember the stress of going to the bank and queuing to make withdrawals, you will be discouraged from making such withdrawals, thereby helping you save more. I used this method during my NYSC and I was able to save up to 250,000 Naira before the end of my service year.
Use Savings App
With the advancements in technologies, there are now many Fintech companies that allow you to save money through their apps. Such apps include Piggyvest and Cowrywise. The apps have various features that will help you save more. You can check them out and decide for yourself whether or not to make use of either of them.
Closing Thoughts
A good savings habit requires discipline. And to develop the kind of discipline required to continuously put away some funds as savings will takes time and patience. So, if you get started today and see yourself struggling to keep up, don’t stop, keep on at it. It is only a matter of time.
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