The Virtue of Savings

If you are a teenager thinking about how to maximize the benefits of your first paychecks, you should read this. I am writing so others can benefit from the lessons learned from my own mistakes. If you are thinking about saving, then you are on the right track. Keep it up. But you also need to think about what you're saving the money for. It's good to have a goal for the money you save. Because it's just as easy to go spend that money on something not so important if you don't know what you're saving for. That was the mistake I made.

When I started working I found that it was very easy to save money and I took it for granted that I'll always be able to save money. So when I finally realized all these different ways I could spend the money I stopped thinking and started spending. All because I didn't have a plan for that money. In other words, you can save money for saving money's sake, but you would still not appreciate the value of that money you saved, which puts you at risk of wasting that money when the wrong moment strikes.

Start with simple goals. For example, you want to save enough to buy a Dog. Yes you're saving it to buy something, but that's still a goal. And the trick is to not spend that money on something else before you can buy the dog. Another example of a goal is to save until I reach $500. Then I will allow myself to spend $200 of that money on buying presents for say Mom and Dad. Notice, saving money itself is a goal, but it's not enough to make you appreciate the value of that money
unless you think about what you can use that money for.

As you get older, you'll possibly be saving for a new computer, a trip to Europe ($2000), a car down payment (in the thousands), college spending money for one semester ($500 was enough for me back then, but you might want to have say $1000), etc. As you get older your goals will probably increase in monetary sum (there is nothing wrong with that). Saving for down payment of your first house, for example will take you possibly years as opposed to months.