Gen Why: Save it for someone who cares

Worrying about money is an ultimately fruitless, fun-sucking waste of time.The ebola virus, which emerged in 1976 in Sudan and Zaire, is one of the deadliest and most horrific diseases known to man.
The disease is tearing its way through the gorilla population of central Africa, but it can also infect humans, supposedly via fruit bat.
The mortality rate sits between 80 and 90 per cent. Victims of the virus are likely to experience severe fever, head and body aches, vomiting, diarrhoea and swollen glands before advancing to organ failure, hypovolemic shock and excessive internal and external bleeding. No cure is available.
And yet, most people I know do not worry about the ebola virus. They worry about money.
Money is a funny thing in that most people that worry about it are the ones who already have it. I know that because I used to be one of those people.
Determined to emerge from university education as smug and debt-free as possible, I became a master of saving.
In my first semester I maintained a budget of $30 a week, aided mostly by a laughably low alcohol tolerance and a penchant for 60-pack Homebrand Weetbix knock-offs. Dinner alternated between rice and eggs.
When the rice was too bland I added the leftover eggs from last night and enough salt to make Lake Okareka shark-friendly. Seasoning was reserved for special occasions, sweet chilli sauce on Sundays.
I brought every item of clothing I owned from home, allowing me to put off washing for about four weeks at a time, depending on how much it rained.
I could hear the sound of a coin being dropped from at least 50m and once I had collected enough said coins I could do my washing for free, plus another month's supply of Not-Weetbix-Bix.
Primary entertainment involved imagining large numbers and hoping if I stared at the ATM long enough the figures would absorb by osmosis.
Dignity, as it turns out, is not an exceptionally high priority for the rich and frugal. The saga would have been highly admirable if I was on the borderline of poverty. But I wasn't. In student terms I was rolling in it, making a) the whole scheme unnecessary and b) making me an intolerable tight ass.
By massively overestimating the cost of university living I emerged from my first year swimming in scavenged 20-cent pieces but relatively enjoyment-free. I sacrificed road trips, parties, dinners out and my vitamin levels all in the name of some coloured bits of plastic with old people on them.
I am pleased to report this has changed. After living in an almost constant state of cash drought for this entire year I can safely say my obsessive saving wasn't worth it.
Money is a lot like a Furby, something you really want, until you've had it, lose it and realise it was kind of annoying in the first place. These days I never check my bank account because I know if I knew I would have less fun. There's something spontaneous about never knowing.
If university has taught me anything it is that worrying about money is an ultimately fruitless, fun-sucking waste of time and brain power, and is to be avoided at all costs. Although it is not carried via fruit bat, the money disease (morbus coinus) is highly contagious.
It's an air-based virus, lingering in the atmosphere until it spots a weaker-willed victim, usually the types of people who demand refunds from cereal companies because their Crunchy Nut lacked an adequate amount of crunch.
Once targeted, it seeps through the skin of victims, into the bloodstream, slowly creeping its way into the brain, the soul, the poor being's entire way of life. Then it's all over. Few people recover. I'd rather have ebola.