Most parents tech their kids finance by encouraging them to build up a piggy bank (Gullak). So the kid puts his pocket money into a container which they still own but cannot use. (Also known as Asset Sterilization)
Money does not multiply inside a piggy bank, hence no MBA school would recommend you this strategy of trading your liquidity for nothing. Yet the piggy bank strategy has been working for centuries. Simply because ones propensity to spend is directly correlated to the cash at hand. So often the only way to save is by setting aside some money.
A good friend of mine once said (in a very different context): “boys never grow up… they only trade their toy cars for more expensive ones”. A 15 year home loan, a 30 year insurance plan is a big boys version of a Piggy Bank which saps ones liquidity. EMIs forces the family to set aside its surplus for the rainy day and enforces a great deal of financial discipline.
If you never understood why people take so much pride in home ownership, think of it as one giant piggy bank where the family has been pouring each and every Rupee it could spare for the past 5-6 years.
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