Saving versus Investing... FIGHT

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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. These are observations I have made about my own personal situation.

My parents did a good job at teaching me the importance of saving. It turns out maybe a little too good of a job. My habit of hoarding my cash has likely held me back from earning a nice passive income.

The ultimate showdown


Save, save, save

When I was growing up I was always jealous of friends that would get £200+ presents at Christmas or Birthdays, and later in life the same people being given their first car plus insurance paid for.

Spoiled brat
America! Teaching financial irresponsibility since who knows when

If I wanted a present that was £100+ I would have to ask for the money and add it to my pocket money and buy it myself. When I got my first car I bought my parents old one and paid for the insurance myself. I didn't know it at the time but my parents were teaching me to stand on my own two feet.

I got a small weekly allowance until I was old enough to get a paper delivery round, I was far too young to actually spend it on much so it all went into my savings account. My parents taught me that by doing this I would earn interest and have even more money. This really stuck with me because going through my adult life it's pretty much all I did. My parents never taught me about investing and as far as I know they never did any themselves. I grew up thinking it was just a method for the super rich.


A CHALLENGER APPEARS: INVESTING

Fast forward about 15 years to last week. I've followed Crypto closely for about 2 years but only invested a tiny portion of my savings. However in this latest bull run I've noticed even though I keep cashing out most of my portfolio it keeps recuperating. I also noticed that the £70 Tezos that I bought as an experiment has indeed reliably given me 4% in interest. That's nearly 5 times what my fiat is earning me.

Tezos price

That's pretty good going even before considering my £70 investment is now worth £190. Insanity.

It's frustrating to think about missed financial opportunities but doubly so when you've been doing something so fruitless for so long. Switching bank accounts over a 1% interest rate difference seems ridiculous when doing something as small as investing £5 each month into a cryptocurrency would have seen more returns than the interest from £10,000 with a banks rates.


RESULT: DRAW

Going forwards I recognise that I need to get out of the mindset that the best thing I can do with my money is just hoard it.
At the same time, throwing everything I have into crypto is irresponsible. As broken as the system is, fiat (in the form of GBP at least) is stable compared to the crypto market.
From now on though the money that I don't spend will no longer all be shoved into a banks vault for them to use to make more for themselves. A portion will go into a cryptocurrency that I feel good about and will be left until it turns into a beautiful money tree, which is ironic as that's what traditional saving was always described as.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta



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