While growing up, I watched both of my parents take part in weekly thrift contributions where they paid a certain amount of money to a group as savings and could only gain access to the money after a specified period of time. This looked traditional and archaic to many of us as it was done among the elderly people in my community. My generation focused mostly on saving their money in their bank account but with no hinderance or restrictions, so they could get their money anytime they want. As i became an adult, I understood the importance of that thrift contribution my parents did and I also got involved in it at some point when I realised saving money in bank accounts just wasnt my thing. I did save with my mother later on, but thr point was as at then, I was seriously searching for a way to be disciplined with my money. Thing is, It wasn’t like there were no savings account back then when my parents got involved in thrift contributions but this method of saving money was one of the best especially for those who weren’t very disciplined with how they spent money. The fact that their money is held down and they had no access to the money till it was the time they had agreed to get it. This thrift system is quite similar to powering up on Hive where you dedicate a certain amount of crypto to the system and with the knowledge that you’d gain access to this funds only after a specified period of time. The fact that your money is locked up kinda keeps your spending in check as you can’t just go ahead to spend anyhow sinply you because you know you can always gain access to this money. Unlike the savings account with banks, you can’t get full access to the all the funds even if you requested for it as Hive’s 13 weeks power down period ensures that.
The only downside of this sort of Hive system unlike the thrift system is that if there was an emergency which was life threatening and a user needed urgent funds, they still had no full and quick access where as in the thrift system, a consensus can be ageeed upon and all members can choose to be considerate of the emergency, hence choose to let the member facing the issues to be next in line to have their funds,of course at the detriment of another member who should have been paid at the time, but then, this would only happen if the member agreed. Also with the bank account, a customer can opt out easily by just walking into the bank and a filling a bit of paper work. I still prefer the Hive system over the thrift and bank system of savings anyways and hope to keep building my account has it has helped me manage my finances ALOT, give the chance to invest while saving and maximise my earnings via interest rate when savings and Powering up.