We had a chat with some Gen Z-ers about their savings habits and the worst hit their money bags have been hit and it was interesting. We hope you get encouraged after going through these responses.
Tomiwa says;
“I needed to generate 100k one time like that and the only way was to use my pocket money and starve. That was when I knew I was finished.
Oddly, I decided to take savings seriously in secondary school and put together about a hundred thousand naira. My dumbass invested in a scheme that crashed. Nobody to encourage me and I had to encourage myself by myself.
I’m very prudent with my savings now. I’ll grade myself 18 of 20.”
John thinks he’s getting somewhere;
“I don’t like oversabi, so I don’t get into debts and even if I like you, I’ll give you something within my budget without any big need to save towards it. Then I upped my earning power, as I believe you can only save well when you earn well. So currently, I have no money in an “account”; I have assets (crypto stocks & risevest) and na N10 dey my kuda😭
I’m encouraged though, because dormant money will be spent in no time, plus I feel safer this way. I don’t think my savings have reached the level of “fuck it, I’m going to blow money” and I’ll grade myself at 15/20 in terms of savings.”
Larry is always on his lane;
“I’ve never really had issue that leads to borrowing money and I’m always on my lane. My biggest savings feat was three years ago when I started saving towards getting a laptop and hit about ₦120,000. It was personal and I encouraged myself. Right now, I’ll say I’m 10/20 on savings culture because I still need money abeg.”
Tolu gives us a breakdown;
“Biggest dilemma I had was completing my postgrad fees. The craziest part was that it was an uncle that even made me apply; promising to buffer the money needed and all. As you can guess, he ghosted when I got the fees breakdown. I had a month to the deadline by then. Omoo, I had to gamble money at some point to get mandatory fees and later got the money complete.
The good thing is that I’ve always saved. In SS3, I got a PS1 console from my own money. I saved money off the scholarship funds I got in university (about 3-4 scholarships) and spend on school stuff mostly; fees and applications. I’ve not had reason to even celebrate my own birthday by blowing up money and I don’t have much use for money, so just the nominal urge to spend. Problem usually is having a reason to save since I don’t have much to spend on these days.”
Ahmed admits he doesn’t do well with money;
“I realized I had a money problem when my phone started misbehaving and I didn’t have enough to buy a new phone. Also, the fact that the phone was misbehaving made it harder to get money from it. Tbh, I don’t take savings seriously and I don’t bother saving towards gifting people. The highest I’ve put together is ₦15,000 and it was meh. I don’t think I’m built for savings. I spend on data, food and miscellaneous expenses and really don’t have money to throw around. I’ll put my savings habit at 7 out of 20. Yeah, I know it’s bad.”