I've been trying to save money from my salary for years, but every month I see my purchasing power slip away. My mom tells me it's important to have an emergency fund, but I wonder if it's really worth the effort to save when the economy is this unstable.
Saving still makes sense, but you need to change your strategy. If you keep money in a regular savings account, yeah, inflation eats away at your savings; but if you invest it in something that yields more than inflation (bonds, funds, even dollars in some contexts), at least you maintain or increase your purchasing power. Your mom is right about the emergency fund - it's not to get rich but to keep you out of debt when things go wrong, and that's still crucial no matter what the economy does. The idea isn't to save the way people did 30 years ago, but to save smartly so your money works for you.
It doesn't make sense to keep money under the mattress or in an account that gives you barely 0.5% annual interest, that's true. But an emergency fund is still crucial: if tomorrow your car breaks down or you lose your job, having three or four months of expenses saved keeps you from going into debt at 20% interest. I learned this the hard way when I had to put an unexpected car repair on my credit card because I had nothing set aside.
What really needs to change is where you put that money. If the economy is unstable, an emergency fund in actual euros (even if it slowly loses purchasing power) is better than nothing; for money you actually want to grow, you need to find something that at least keeps pace with inflation, whether that's index funds, bonds, or whatever works for your situation. The problem isn't saving, it's saving badly.
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