By Rashid Al-Fawzan
Al-Riyadh
We are aware of several popular sayings that advise us to spend our money carefully and keep away from extravagance. “Keep your surplus money for your black days.” “Proper planning makes your life successful.” “Save your affluent days for your difficult days,” are some of the adages.
There is a famous quote from Warren Buffett: “If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need.” There is another popular saying that you should not save what remains after spending but spend what remains after saving.
Almighty Allah instructs us that we should not spend money extravagantly. He says in the Holy Qur’an: ... be not excessive. Indeed, He likes not those who commit excess. (7:31)
There are several Qur’anic verses, Ahadith of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and sayings of prominent personalities that emphasize the importance of saving money, but what is the reality?
The decision taken by the Council of Ministers recently on the recommendation of the Minister of Agriculture and Chairman of the General Organization for Grain and Silos indicates that huge wastage of bread and other wheat flour products take place in our bakeries and food factories.
The Cabinet has added a new list of violations and fines to prevent that wastage of bread and authorized municipalities to take punitive action against institutions involved in such offenses.
According to a study, the wastage of bread in the Kingdom is 35 percent of the total production. Bakeries and factories dump leftovers of bread to sell it as fodders. The government spends huge amounts of money on subsidizing wheat flour.
When we think about the general attitude of the public we can see this wastage manifested itself in a horrible and disgusting way. I would say that it has exceeded the acceptable level.
During a television interview, a food importer estimated rice wastage in the Kingdom at 30 percent. This shows that food wastage in our homes and restaurants reached at least 30 percent. Although public awareness on the need to shun extravagance has improved it has not reached the required level.
I believe that the recent economic reforms and resolutions taken by the government would contribute to reducing overspending by citizens and residents. Many Saudis are addicted to taking food at restaurants and conducting foreign travels after taking bank loans. I cannot understand the mentality of people who take loans for foreign tourism to increase their debts.
These people will not have homes and stay in rented apartments. They should have given priority to building homes rather than spending money on foreign travels. There are others who go to restaurants almost every day and spend huge amounts on eateries. Some people allocate about a quarter of their salary for eating out that would not be good for their health.
I don’t mean to prevent people from going to restaurants and visiting foreign countries to enhance their enjoyment. But we should balance between our income and expenditure and give priority to essential things such as home, family, work, education, health and saving. These should be our priorities, not unproductive consumer spending, which will eat away our savings.
Another positive aspect of the new economic reforms is that people would value each riyal they spend and would not deal with riyal as a mere valueless paper. We have to review our income and expenditure and should not waste our money to avoid selling what we will need in the future.
We should learn to save money at times of economic difficulty. Economic crises teach us good lessons that would change our lives to the better. It may be painful for some, but would pave the way for a bright future for our country and its people.
