Adolescents and need for savings culture

Savings is a habit that everyone should inculcate. Once the habit is mastered, it becomes difficult to break. This is why the savings habit should start at a very tender age.

Generally, people, especially children and teenagers, have the wrong concept about savings. For them, savings is meant for adults and salary earners alone. But that’s a misconception. And that misconception has to be corrected. Parents have a huge role to play in making their children understand that savings is a necessary tool for existence and survival.

A large percentage of parents do not save. When parents have difficulty saving, how then can they teach their children the culture of savings? According to financial experts, one of the steps to saving is to have a budget. When you don’t have a budget, saving becomes automatically impossible. It is necessary that you have a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly savings. When you set a particular amount that you want to spend aside, then save the remainder. Budgeting has a way of curbing wastage and reducing frivolous spending.

Another necessary factor is having a savings account. It is necessary that at an early age, children should have savings account. So many banks have set up several accounts for children. That’s a big step to being

Means of savings

guaranteed that come what may, your child has a secured future. Most times, it is better to have a box at home where adolescents can save their money, and when the savings increases and get to a certain level, it can be taken to the bank and properly saved.

In achieving a success in savings, self control is key. It is possible that you may be good at savings but then it is also possible that you may love to spend as well. Your ATM card is always at your

CHINYERE OKEKE

disposal. So even after saving that money in the bank, say today, you are already spending it at a shopping mall the tomorrow with the mall’s POS. It then means that although you claim to save, at the same time you are already spending it. That is where self-control comes in. Every successful saver is a person that has the ability to control him or herself.

You need to be able to resist the urge to buy every nice thing you fancy. You need to cultivate the habit of buying what you need and not what you want. Parents should be able to curb the way they spend on their children. Instead of buying every fancy toy your child points to, at a toy shop, why not rather save the money for the child’s education.

True, everything may seem rosy and calm at some point in our life, but then the storm may come from any direction. It can hit anybody at any time. So why not save need to cultivate the habit of buying what you need and not what you want. Parents should be able to curb the way they spend on their children. Instead of buying every fancy toy your child points to, at a toy shop, why not rather save the money for the child’s education.

True, everything may seem rosy and calm at some point in our life, but then the storm may come from any direction. It can hit anybody at any time. So why not save

COP 22 conference to accelerate work on the rulebook and to see emerge a definable pathway for developed countries to materialise the flow of USD $100 billion per year by 2020 in support of climate action by developing ones.

Very large-scale reallocations of investment are necessary. UN estimates show that achieving sustainable development will require USD $5-7 trillion a year, a large slice of which must fund the transition to a low-carbon, resilient world economy. To fulfill these investment needs, we will need to look at creative funding options, beyond the traditional ones and in which both public and private sector flows are aligned and scaled-up.

This, too, is happening but needs to speed up. UN data show global financial flows over the past few years ratcheting up to the point where one trillion dollars a year should be achievable in the near future. This means governments, the multilateral and the private sector raising and allocating tens of billions of dollars at a time towards climate investments.

The foundations of the Paris Agreement are solid and other key features of humanity’s new home are starting to rise. Yet, we cannot and we must not rest until the roof is in place. This November in Marrakesh we will make sure it will be in place, sooner rather than later.

now for the rainy days?

For those that find it easy to spend their savings, why not open a fixed deposit account or rather, invest. Buy a house, buy a land or shares. In that way, your money becomes an asset and whenever a need arises you can liquidate the asset.

Parents should make it a point of duty, therefore, to help their children inculcate good savings habit. And parents, by the way, must be good models.