Ten boring habits for saving half your salary

I just watched NindaaFer’s video about the 10 habits behind saving more than 50% of a salary.

Honestly, I’m one of those people who feels like this: my salary’s enough, I work hard, but when I check my account at the end of the month, why is it always about the same?

It turns out the problem isn’t the size of the salary.

Small habits, repeated for years

According to NindaaFer, saving 50% didn’t come from a big salary. It came from small habits repeated for years.

The people who win with money aren’t the smartest ones. They’re the most consistent ones.

These are the 10 habits:

  1. Pay yourself first. When your salary comes in, it’s auto-debited to savings first. What’s left is for living. Not the other way around.
  2. Don’t pay in installments for things that lose value. A new phone, hyped sneakers, a car: you lose money the moment you walk out of the store.
  3. The 3-day rule. Want to buy something over Rp 300,000? Put it in the cart, close the app, wait 3 days. Still remember it? Buy it. Forgot about it? You just saved Rp 300,000.
  4. When you get a raise, put 50% of it straight into savings before your lifestyle catches up.
  5. Savings are a monthly bill, not leftovers. You never forget to pay the electricity bill, right?
  6. The 10-10-10 framework. Before you buy, ask: will this still matter in 10 days, 10 months, 10 years?
  7. Start investing, any amount. What’s expensive isn’t the money, it’s the time that slips by.
  8. Work out what one hour of your life is worth.
  9. Design your environment. Offline (the 5 people closest to you) and online (feeds and algorithms).
  10. Choose the boring path. Play the long game.

What an hour of your life costs

Of those 10, point 8 gets the most emphasis.

Say your salary is Rp 5 million and you work 7 hours a day. One hour is about Rp 36,000.

Then the question: if you had to pay Rp 36,000 in cash to scroll TikTok for an hour, would you?

Time that used to feel free suddenly has a price tag.

And the way NindaaFer sees it, people who are financially healthy don’t just hold more money. They look at their time differently.

Your feed is an environment too

Point 9 hit home too.

“You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with” is something we’ve all heard. The video extends it to algorithms.

Your feed is an environment too. TikTok, IG and YouTube learn from what we watch. Feed them lifestyle content and that’s what shows up. Feed them financial content and that’s what becomes normal.

We can’t control the algorithm. But we can control what we consume.

Start with one

The video closes with the line that stuck with me most:

“The winner isn’t the smartest. It’s the most consistent.”

Out of those 10 habits, pick just one that’s the easiest to start this week. No need to do them all at once.

Boring. But when you keep doing them together, that’s apparently exactly the key.

Watch the full video on NindaaFer’s YouTube channel (in Indonesian). It’s really worth watching.