1. Every person should have a role model in his life to look up to.
2. For me that person is my father.
3. He has always treated me like a friend and always made me feel special.
4. I have received several gifts from my parents and all those are special to me.
5. But there is one gift which I would remember for a long time.
6. This gift was given with a purpose and a lesson, which I did not realize at first.
7. On my 16th birthday my father gave me 5000 rupees.
8. He told me that I could do whatever I want with that money and asked me to think about it for a day and inform him about my wish the next day.
9. I was a bit a perplexed because firstly I was not expecting money as a gift and secondly the amount was really significant for a 16 year old.
10. My first thought was to buy the gaming console which I had been yearning for some time but I had suspected that my father had an ulterior motive behind such generosity.
11. So I gave a hard thought about what I should do with that money.
12. I thought about it all night but could not fix my mind on one thing.
13. So next day I talked to my father and told him about my indecisiveness.
14. He said that he would help me with that but first he would tell me that why he gave me money on my birthday.
15. So he told me that this gift was meant to teach me the importance of money and the habit of saving it.
16. My father had a humble background and was brought up with very limited resources at his disposal.
17. He has worked diligently throughout his life to establish himself and to ensure that his family has all the comforts which he could not get in his childhood.
18. His hardships has taught him the importance of money and he wanted me to learn this lesson at a very early age, hence this gift.
19. He told me that saving money is as important as earning it.
20. He gave me his own example, that how he has saved some amount every year for my higher education which would have been difficult to generate in a lump sum.
21. He also told me about his emergency fund in which he contributes a small proportion of his income every month for untoward events.
22. So he suggested me to open a bank account with the gift he gave me and to contribute to that account from my monthly pocket money.
23. I heeded his advice and since then have been depositing small amount to this account every month.