Topic: One crazy thing that most Nigerians do that affect our savings over time (Read 243 times)

You are right about your analysis. I’m an OPay user and I enjoy their services very well. But I just want to correct one impression where you said that you are not disputing the fact that commercial banks are more safer. OP, OPay is as safe as any commercial bank operating in Naija. That they are not commercial banks doesn’t make them less secure, they are classified under what is called Fintech. OPay and other FinTech institutions are regulated by the central banks of Nigeria. This is to tell you that they are as safe as other financial institutions in the country.

First time I think say you wan tell us how buying of Airtime dey finish our money, but this thing wey you talk you dey sure say na true matter?? Because I never hear about this one before. You buy from bank or you buy from shop na still money you go use. But let's just consider the stress, going out just to buy Airtime outside lol, why not buy from your bank instead. You spending 70% of your money on data that one na normal sha, everybody make use of the Internet always and now data no dey last again but now you're talking about Airtime for calls that one na wahala oh, now hardly people make calls even business people prefer to chat online. I don't see how buying airtime from the bank affects our savings. But most people cannot control themselves, I will support the opay method cause each time I buy Airtime from my opay I get a cash back in return

Make we leave this story who go save money go save no be by recharging from your mobile, I believe those into sport betting are to be more concerned than those recharging from the bank

OP, your observation is very clear, but recharging through a mobile bank is very convenient and better for me even though all SMS sent during the process of recharging this card will be charged by the funding bank, your opinion and advice for people to recharge card by purchasing it with their physical cash and recharging it directly in their phone is right because this will make them shy away from Nigeria banks unwanted charges but there are also benefit attached to recharging card through your bank app and it is better, just imagine if a friend calls you that he or she is not feeling fine let's say a late hour in the night and told you that he or she is it feeling fine, maybe you don't have access or you have not registered for mobile banking, let's say that at this time you are the only hope that such person has to either relate to his or her parent or relatives and finally day breaks you found out that the person in question is dead, how will you feel, won't you feel bad. OP I can only agree that your opinion is good economically.

It is a wise say @ OP. This is just why a fund saving box does not require an opening to avoid extracting of already inputted fund unless the box is broken but supposen to be at when one has reached a durational target such may be annually, monthly or weekly. Basically depends on ones plans.

At a time, I considered that activating my mobile App or USSD would grease my reckless spendings because I could be offered those self financial service transactions that is possibly to unnecessity but as earlier self awareness, I could take caution to self control to sn extend.
Imagine being on the YouTube or Netflix just for fun and you runs out of data and you have some money in your account. Nomatter what the money was in your bank account is budgeted for, it would take just courage not to temper the money as long the fun was interesting and was unsatisfied.
And gradually you are ignorantly spending your money unnecessarily on facts that may not bring you valuable increments.
Some silly Nigerians in the social media would say... "You are out of the world without data" and some says... "I would even have my last card to get data" all buttressed to having just fun in the internet.

And unconsciously, this system of purchasing airtime with mobile networks is enticing to relax and  chills beyond unnecessary measures relying on data or airtime subscriptions.
It is also triggered to unnecessary charity giveaways.

Hence, if one can take adequate conciousness to expenses, then it is a good service because it helps run an individual cashless policy where your expenses would be  minimally economized because the more the cash at hand is inspired to more unwarranted expenses and also would save you the additional certain charges the physical purchases would charge you on the basis of using inflations as an excuse.

There is much stress involved in walking to a store to get airtime when you can do it at the convenience of your home. Many stores are no longer in the business of selling airtime because they know that people now recharge more from their bank accounts, so before you fit see shop wey dey sell recharge card theses days you go waka well well. In some residential areas as well, there are no small shops. Technology is advancing and you should not try to remain backward because you think you are spending more. Rather than deciding to be against technology, try to learn how to plan and control yourself make you nor dey over recharge unnecessarily.

You still fit try to use whatsapp call for some kind people and long conversation make you reduce money for airtime.

Is it not advisable when everybody is already exposed to technology, everything becomes easier, and you are expecting people to go back to the days when, when you want to buy a common 100 naira, you need to suffer? Nah, mate, all these things you said happen to you are due to a lack of planning. If you really have a plan on how to spend your money, you won’t say that. However, saying that the charges removed for USSD will be a lot of money at the end of the day, if I think you are still using the local way of transacting with your bank, why don’t you use the mobile app? They don’t remove charges after buying an airtime.


Let me ask you: if you don’t have any cash in your pocket and only have money in your bank, are you going to withdraw 100 naira because you want to buy a card? No, mate, you just need discipline and a plan on how to spend your money, and you will be able to save money. The money spent on recharge is just the way we discuss it with people on the phone. If not, why will you think of buying a card from the store when you have money in your bank? It will make it easier for you.

Despite all this thing wey we dey talk here, I believe say there are other ways of achieving this thing wey ona dey talk. Like this opay way oga@charls Tim say make people use, I think if we dey use am e go dey better because naim i dey use and you go dey get 4naira every day. To go buy card outside just be like you they stress yourself. The world Don advance to that extent wey people go just dey house achieve anything you want. Buying card outside sometimes if you no get 10naira Dem no go sell for you.

I think say na only me dey experience that kind thing. Omo the way I dey waste card wey I recharge from bank ehh, the one from people selling card no dey waste like that. I dey put mind dey respect card wey me buy for street even if na the same amount.
This same thing dey happen to me too when I use my card go buy something, I dey always over buy unlike when I use cash.  If person fit discipline himself for these small small things ehh, person fit save plenty money o.

I go try pay attention to am... unless under emergency, I go try make I no recharge my phone from bank.

My brother, when technology done go fa now you till dey use USSD dey buy recharge card na people were get small android phone go say dy go use USSD buy card because dey no get big phone were dey go login there mobile banking, and were we done get many online banking like palmpay and opay where you go do all your online transactions and transfer money and buy airtime without any charges, I don't think banking charges will affect your savings except you don't have planYou just spend money as you like, but if you are a family man you will not say that the bank costs would harm your savings in the bank. I believe banks charge around $200 each month, depending on how you conduct business with them.

Let me say if you load a recharge card with 1000# he will take you a month and you will communicate with your love once if it is just for greeting and some are use to speak through social media technologies have made everything easier for us to communicate with each other except you decide to make it difficult for you so don't say because of the bank charges he will affect your savings budget and how dey go generate revenues and make profit i don't see anything wrong with that and you keep your money with them since the bank is the finest savings place where you won't have to worry because whenever you need your money back, you will get it without any difficulties and even online banking now charges you with a small interest if you perform too many transfers per day.

Nope you're budgeting poorly that's why it's affecting your savings, you shoudn't put all your money together. As a smart person your savings and money meant for spending shoudn't be in the same account. Your recharge card money no supposed affect your savings because the money no big normally and the watching of your calls no just dey necessary like dat when you plan well. What if you be business person and those calls are needed. Wetin you go talk na the sms charge wey if you dey use microfinance banks like OPAY, you go fit deactivate am so e no go dey charge you for the message as Opay already sends you email notifications and pop up notification on the app so the sms dem no too dey necessary. No use one account keep all your money, you fit use our traditional banks for keeping of emergency funds and microfinance banks for spending and na there the recharge cards go dey come from.


You wan just suffer yourself, dem dey bring technological advancement and you wan take yourself backwards. So because you no fit control yourself you think say suffering yourself is the solution. If you value your time, you no go dey make unnecessarily calls because time is money and when speaking with love ones I no go call that one unnecessarily calls as life is short and we should spend time with our love ones more because tomorrow isn't guaranteed. The Koko be say the world is moving forward so we supposed follow them too and not still going manual. Just develop a good habit and you'll be able to overcome wasting money on recharge cards.

You can't put your money in a bank account where you have easy access to and still call it savings. You will still lose your money to bank charges even if you do not do transactions with it. It is adviceable that you have a separate account you do not have easy access to, your savings should be there. Fixed deposit accounts or better still invest in a profitable venture and watch your savings multiply.

For your daily online transactions, you can patronize fintech companies like opay, Moniepoint, Capricorn and the rest of them where you are given rewards and commisions for every transaction you do with them. These fintech companies have mobile applications which are user friendly with little or sometimes no transaction charges.

Bank charges may seem too small or insignificant,  the impact will be felt on  your bank balance when the charges accumulating over time. The best way to save if by investing.

Well, it is called cash-back, both in transactions and other stuff like bill payment, you will be given cash back. It is a good resource for doing any of those transactions.
But for transactions, if you have used your opay account for a long time, then your free transactions will be limited, just like 5 free transactions per day, but since I am using it, I haven't transacted more than 5 per day, so I am enjoying the free transfer till date. Lastly, the only way that they will be deducting a small amount of money from your account is when you have activated SMS alert, card alert (that's if you have the card), transfer or withdraw alert. Maybe N2 or N3 will be deducted from each SMS.

This is so helpful and thanks for sharing. I also learnt they run their transactions free of charge and that make me wonder how they make profits to remain in business.

Even though I do not use these wallet accounts, I know they have made tremendous impact on the Nigerian banking system. Opay in particular have aided the expansion of banking services to the younger population and the unbanked.

My only concern with the wallet account is in terms of security as have been reported on several occasions where hackers accessed the accounts of people and make away with their money.

No be lie say if you recharge physically for recharge card stores say you likely to save money by that restrictions of going up to the place and you are likely to buy lesser amount or restricted to send to people but at the same time na all about discipline and planning. If you hold yourself back from sending card to different people just because it is convenient from your account like that, you go save more.

So na you still chop your money whether directly through your mouth, your phone or you send out to babes  . If we no control and spending into things wey dey reasonable, na so money dey go be that. However, once in a while we suppose show love too no lele.

This one na serious matter oh
If i use 4h buy card from the local vendor, i go see am as big deal but I fit recharge 1k asap from bank  I no go even reason am like that.

I think the convenience of recharging easily using ussd or bank apps de blind fold us to the reality that we are being unguided with our spending.

But the truth be say e don tey when I buy physical recharge card and for those of us that use it to do more of subscription that calls, e no really make any difference. As long as we fit easily recharge our phone no matter the time of the day, do our sub, continue our work, then we are good to go.

That was what I am about to say,  opay is the best app so far to solve such issues. If he want to save money it should be in his bank account and some portion of it should be transferred to opay account for data and call card to reduce changes from local bank.  Because to every transaction made there is always a tendency for incure charges. Apart from the 3 naira cash back given to customers at 100naira I also think there is always a daily bonus of 4naira which can be accumulated to use as incurred charges. Which can never affect your savings. Try opay and spot the difference.

Well, for me; recharging or not recharging from your bank is not the problem. Inasmuch as your money is left in the bank, there's no way you won't get access to your money it's just that if you stop using USSD or mobile app, it will only reduce your ability to get access to your account easily but it doesn't mean that your money will be safe because their are still people that any day you go to bank you will still see them.

The only way one can stop habits that will affect our savings is to learn a good savings standard, like one needs to be discipline not every little thing you go to bank or you use your phone to make transactions as without discipline it cannot be easy to achieve good results not only in savings lifestyle but also in whichever businesses one is doing.

Another factor that one can emulate in other to inhibit factors that might affect one's savings is to open a fixed deposit account; this factor is very important for any individual that wants to develop a good savings lifestyle because in fix deposit, you won't be able to get access to your account till a day that you've agreed with the bank to start making withdrawals.

Again giving loans to trusted individuals or banks is another way not to make our savings accessible to us, because when you give out loans the money won't be in your custody anymore till an agreed date that the money would be refunded. This is a very good factor because most times in giving out a loan, an interest is involved so during the duration by which the money would be paid you will get the higher amount of what is loan out so if you loan out your money to a trusted person, organization or bank is the best choice is learning a good savings habit.

Use Opay for recharging. If you use Opay to recharge, you will be given little amount of money after every recharge. If you recharge ₦50, you will be given ₦1, if you recharge ₦100, you will be given ₦2 and so on. That means if you research ₦10000, you will be given ₦200. Unlike the commerical banks that will take from you. You can see that also on this payment processor, Chipper Cash. I am not disputing the fact that commercial banks are safer.

This won’t affect your savings if you have a good plan mapped out for your savings. You can always save through your bank by activating “Save as you Spend”. It is a feature that saves some percentage of money from your total money anytime you spend from your account. It is a good way to save money because it promotes savings. Your inability to save money and obsessed with buying airtime from your account is because of lack of plan for it. Everything needs proper planing and if you don’t engage in one, your money will crumble with time without giving an account for it..