Saving is increasingly difficult in Spain. On the one hand, experts recognize that salaries must recover purchasing power, but they also express lack of financial knowledge of most people. And, certainly, as journalist Eli Romero explains in her podcast ‘Has Sense’, “sometimes money doesn’t go into big purchases, but into small dreams,” using as an example the sticker albums, which she explains together with Pablo López, country manager of Trade Republic in Spain and Portugal.
“A complete album can cost more than 600 euros, and we almost never realize it,” says Romero, adding that, although most do not complete it, they do spend 200 or 300 euros a year. For this reason, he says that he is going to do the exercise of watching it with his son Bruno, so that he is aware, even without the intention of taking away any illusion: “I don’t want to break a child’s illusion of collecting either, but deep down the dopamine is in opening the card, not in gluing it or collecting it.”
You may be interested
Gonzalo Bernardos, economist: “We young people of the 80s and 90s did not know restaurants or vacations, we only had the town and the family”
Feijóo proposes a new tax plan for the self-employed: their money “cannot go to pay for jokes or prostitutes”
The financial expert, Pablo López, considers that this can be an interesting exercise, “because in the end everything that is savings, what is being done is mobilizing part of, let’s say, in quotes, unproductive money, into a productive investment.” Likewise, he adds that it can be a way for “people to become aware of certain projects, certain companies that maybe people like and want to participate in their growth.”
Regarding this, he gives another example: “My girlfriend works at Pandora and it is a listed company. You really like that brand and you want to participate in the growth of that stock on the stock market and say, “Hey, well, I’m going to put part of my savings in a stock, right?” And it is also a way to force you a little to understand the business behind a company like Pandora, how it grows, what problems it may have,” he says.
“Leave them alone, now we have to turn children into small investors”
This example, of how a good sum of money can in some way be ‘wasted’, has sparked all kinds of comments. Some of those who agree state that this average of 600 euros would be in the kiosk collections, because “they hope that you like a more premium collection that costs 5-6 envelopes 200 euros and we’ll see what completing an album will cost.”
Others consider that it is not necessary to spend that amount, since the cards can be exchanged: “the real excitement is socializing with your classmates to exchange them.”
Finally, there are the ‘detractors’, who believe that this expense should not be measured so restrictively: “It’s good that you teach him how to manage his money, but it doesn’t have to be already, let him enjoy opening trading cards. I remember that part of my childhood with great affection” or “For God’s sake, collections are an illusion in childhood. Leave them alone, now we have to turn children into small investors,” they are some opinions of the latter.