Consumers are urged to make saving an easy experience by considering collaborative saving with friends and family.
This advice came from ADDaBIT, which recently hosted an expo aimed at encouraging positive social saving habits among people. The expo was hosted together with MoneyWeb as part of National Savings Month, and tackled issues such as making saving a priority and the benefits of collaborative saving.
ADDaBIT chief executive officer, Michael Griffin explained the importance of developing a culture of saving, something South Africa sorely lacked. “This culture [of saving] is very much lacking in the South African community and it is definitely something we could all work at as a nation,” he stressed.
Griffin further elaborated that developing this culture among consumers ultimately led to financial freedom, explaining that the more people saved, the more independence came within their reach. He stressed that many consumers often lived from hand to mouth, and with the current tough economic climate, this would only have an adverse impact on households.
“[With the] economic climate getting tougher, those individuals that do not have any savings or investments will be under a lot of strain as they have very little to fall back on during these potential tough times ahead,” he added.
Griffin also touched on collaborative saving, which he explained focussed on sharing the experience of saving with friends and family. This collaboration often made the process of saving a quick one and one with the fastest rewards, because more people are involved in the process.
“When you get started, you very quickly see the rewards of the combined efforts of your support group and this, in itself, becomes very encouraging; when you can visually see what it is you are saving for and see how far you are to achieving the goal amount, it also reinforces the mindset to keep going,” Griffin concluded.
