“I love saving money because it means financial security,” says Kara Perez, who founded a financial education company that aims to empower women by providing them with the tools and education to reach their financial goals.

“Plain and simple, having money makes your life easier,” Perez says. “I save because I want my future self to have the same great lifestyle I have now, and I don’t want to get caught in a financial emergency.”

Part of the importance of saving money is to build cash reserves so you can take calculated risks with less worry. If you don’t have any savings, it may be harder to pursue certain passions. Take starting a business, for example. To be a small business owner, you’ll need financial backing to get it off the ground.

But if you set a savings goal and contribute to your savings each month, you can explore new opportunities, even if they may temporarily impact your earnings (if you set off as a small business owner, paychecks could be slow to come at the start).

“When I lost my job three years ago, my wife and I used that as an opportunity to start the businesses we’d been dreaming about, rather than scrambling to find another paycheck as quickly as possible,” Becker says. “We could only make that decision because of the years we’d spent building our savings.”