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Money tips of ignorance: Your savings tips only make me angry!
Many people are currently plagued by money worries
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Many people in Germany no longer know how to afford their lives – and it’s not even winter yet. What do you hear? Tips with a raised index finger: you should build up reserves and invest money. Such “advice” enrages our author.
Everything is expensive and getting more expensive. The whole society is under pressure. And what can you find everywhere? Tips on how to best save. Or tips on how to be well prepared for the utility bill at the end of the year.
A tip I keep coming across: “Put money aside!” “Build reserves!” “Invest money that is left over!” This advice is driving me mad because this advice is reaching people who just don’t know how to pay for their lunch at the end of the month. People who may only eat two meals a day instead of three. Or even worse: one. Because these people can just barely afford to aboveLife.
Two instead of three meals a day
When shopping, a whole shopping trolley is not filled, but a small basket. You don’t go out and buy new clothes because you’re tired of the old clothes. And despite being hungry and having to cope with the cost of living, at the end of the month you have no money left over to “build reserves”, “save” or “invest”. Every penny is turned over three times.
Blind by privilege
You can’t even escape this ignorance. You see it all over the media. “Make a list before you go shopping and only get what you need” is the most harmless money-saving tip. And even then: Do you really think that people who can only afford two meals a day “treat” themselves to luxury products such as crisps, sweets, fresh fruit, vegetables or meat in large quantities when doing their weekly shopping? Also the star has already published such and similar tips. For poor people this is like mockery and mockery.
Anger bubbles up inside me, like a volcano about to erupt, when I read tips like this. What makes me so angry about it is the blindness to poorer people. It is extremely privileged advice. And the people who give these tips don’t see that. This blind ignorance of people with different realities of life is driving me insane.
Students, pensioners, sick people and so many more
I write about students who scrape together the last change for pasta and tomato sauce at the end of the month. And from pensioners whose small pension is just enough for life before the high inflation. From people who are sick. About people who have a large family to feed or whose vet bills are driving them into ruin. People who got on well until the beginning of the year and maybe even belonged to the middle of society.
There are so many people in Germany who are so badly affected by the price increases that they cannot “simply save more” in order to build up reserves, for example. And already now. Now: in early autumn. The media, politics and business are fueling fears of an expensive winter. A thought that makes poor people feel powerless.
A request
So please, if you want to give tips on how people can make ends meet better, please do so. But you should think about how many different realities of life there are in Germany. And the fact that many rich people already let their money work for them anyway. Tips on how to actively grow money shouldn’t be touted as “savings tips” because for people who need to save, mainstream money tips are more a mockery than a help.
Instead of continuing to give these people tips, more privileged people could consider helping out. A peek into the closet to donate old clothes. Or give small amounts to a charity. As a full-time employee, simply invite fellow students or mini-jobbers to dinner together in the restaurant. People for whom every cent counts every month really appreciate that. And it helps a lot more than advice on how to save, which doesn’t do the poor people any good.