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Everyone online seems to be stressing the importance of saving, you see young people like myself making content with over £100k in their investment accounts and you wonder how they even got there.

Saving to a lot of people feels like having to eat the veg on your plate or going to the dentist - a boring, but necessary part of being financially healthy. My personal belief is you won’t reach an ambitious goal by thinking that you ‘ought to’ do something - it must come from a desire.

I recently went on The Curve podcast to discuss my outlook on personal finance. One point that I made was someone who identifies as a ‘saver’ won’t find it difficult to not buy excess coffees, lunches out, impulsive fast fashion buys because it’s not in their indentity. It’s not punishment or restriction - it’s a reward. Start from 7:40 if you want this specific topic.

This is a foreign concept to a lot of people, who believe that more is always more. If you get a pay rise, that means an extra holiday, a designer bag or being able to get your lunches from Atis everyday. Now I am not demonising those things or the art of enjoying yourself. However, I have learnt from personal experience, that often the things we are chasing with money, don’t always bring us happiness. Often excess consumption can lead to feelings of emptiness. Saving has given me great satisfaction and i’ll explain why.

I’ve found solace is a more simple approach, Frugal Chic. Being frugal doesn’t have to mean depriving oneself. In fact, i’d equate frugality to savviness and mindfulness. A lot of frugal content displays an extreme way of living, which I feel, puts the average person off. There has to be some balance. Frugal Chic is about splurging on what matters to you, but removing what doesn’t.

Therefore, let’s discuss the mindsets that a ‘saver’ has and how to create desire for this new identity.

In order to establish any goal in life you must first create an anti-vision. What don’t you want? When you overspend, two things can happen.

These are both situations we can all agree we want to avoid. However, just because these rules are simple, it doesn’t make them easy. Now of course, I am only talking to a specific set of people, as we know, we cannot budget our way out of poverty. So this is to those who might be on a moderate or average salary.

I knew that when I got to university and had to budget my modest student loan, that had to stretch me until the end of the year. I worked backwards to figure out how much I coud afford while my housemates were splurging on Deliveroo, vapes and drinks. Getting into overdraft or using Klarna was normalised. This isn’t me saying I am better than those people, it’s me figuring out what I didn’t want to happen.

Creating an anti-vision can look something like this.

I want to avoid:

It’s always good to put the solution to the problem instead of making it purely negative.

In addition to this, I am very critical when it comes to making a purchase, I consider:

Most purchasable goods in our day and age won’t meet all of those standards, so I buy things very rarely.

How does one cultivate the desire to want to save? How do you go from seeing it as the vegetables to instead the meat? I use the analogy of diet because that’s what most people struggle with. Seeing it as a diet, which are usually restrictions on your everyday habits.

A lifelong vegan doesn’t crave meat because they made a conscious to eat plant based. A gym bro doesn’t crave sitting inside all week playing video games, he wants to be in the gym.

We are already discplined in the things we are pursuing, we just know deep down they may not be what we truly want.

Creating desire for saving comes from learning of the benefits.

The main benefits I see:

James Clear explains that habits don’t start with motivation or discipline. They start with identity.

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you believe yourself to be. And the reason saving feels so hard for so many people is because they’re trying to do the behaviour without becoming the person.

Here’s how I would apply his framework to saving:

1. Make saving obvious, not dramatic
Most people do everything in one go. New budget, new rules, no fun allowed. It feels intense, so it doesn’t last.

A saver doesn’t do dramatic. They do boring, small wins.

That might look like:

When saving is visible but unremarkable, it stops feeling like effort.

2. Make saving attractive by linking it to identity
Behaviour sticks when it reinforces who you think you are.

Saving becomes attractive when it’s no longer about sacrifice, but self-respect. Each time you don’t spend impulsively, you’re not “missing out”, you’re proving something to yourself.

You’re not saying, I can’t afford this.
You’re saying, I’ve prioritised saving instead.

Making it about priorities gives you the ownership back and takes you out of self-pity mode.

3. Make saving easy by reducing decision fatigue
Overspending often isn’t about desire. It’s about exhaustion.

The more decisions you have to make, the more likely you are to default to convenience. That’s why saving needs to require as little thinking as possible.

Remove friction from the habit you want. Add friction to the one you don’t.

Automatic investing. Delete shopping apps. Unsubscribe from email marketing.

A calm life produces calm financial behaviour.

4. Make saving satisfying by tracking identity, not amounts
Most people look for motivation in the numbers. But numbers compound slowly, identity compounds immediately.

Instead of asking, How much did I save this month?
Ask, Did I act like a saver today?

The satisfaction comes from consistency, not scale. From knowing you’re becoming someone you trust.

And once saving becomes part of who you are, the behaviour follows naturally.

Becoming a saver isn’t an overnight fix. It takes time to work out what that identity actually feels like for you. And when it’s done properly, it doesn’t feel like restriction, it feels like intention.

We’re quick to set goals for our bodies at the start of the year, but financial fitness deserves the same care. Not as a punishment or a reset, but as a way to build a calmer, more self-led life.

You don’t need to change everything at once. You just need to start acting like the person you’re becoming.

As always, thanks for being here.

Mia xx

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If you haven’t yet signed up for the investing platform I personally use, Trading 212. You can get a free fractional share when you use code MIA or this link. (Capital at risk. Not financial advice. Do your own research and due diligence. Investments go up and down.)