If you badly needed to have real savings, then don't live within your means! While the live-within-your-means scheme will leave you in relatively worry-free living condition (basic needs met, bills/obligations paid, you are able to live life with modest minimal comforts and enjoyments), but it also will leave you without real solid savings. To have real solid savings, something a little beyond what is usual or common must be done. One way popular to old Chinese money-saving tradition is to discipline your self by strictly following a practical budget that prioritizes primary basic needs over wants/desires without overly compromising living quality. Practically, that means living a little bit of percentage below your means.
In a nutshell, it works something like this: If for instance, after careful consideration and budget experimentation, you've figured out that you can handle living 10% lower than your means, then you will have 10% of your means saved to wisely use for investments or other important intentions.
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You can invest wisely your painstakingly-accumulated savings on worthy financial ventures and reap financial gains in the future. Or, you could put it in God's hands by investing it on ventures that bless others and that help in building his Kingdom on earth -- and experience for yourself God's faithfulness as He blesses you with overflowing blessings you can't contain such that other people also get blessed through you, and you won't be badly in need of savings henceforth.
God is the best investment manager there can be, and He is an investor particularly on human souls for He is the Creator of Life and the Author of Existence.
