Why is it so difficult for ordinary people to save three to five thousand yuan a year?

I have a female friend who works at a bank.
A typical high-society figure in the financial circle, she wears exquisite makeup every day and is dressed in a well-tailored uniform.
Her social circle is full of golf, baking, and financial salons, giving the impression of an elite who is out of touch with the mundane world.
Many young talents pursue her, but she always has an aloof expression that seems to keep people at a distance, looking very “noble.”
Because of our private relationship, a few days ago I invited her out for dinner and to ask her about financial management.
Subconsciously, I thought she would definitely recommend some exclusive high-yield products.
But she took a sip of water and coldly said, she doesn’t buy anything, just keeps a fixed deposit, even if it’s only a few thousand or ten thousand a year.
She said all those financial products and insurances outside are scams; banks are eager to drain your blood.
Only solid savings are the life insurance when facing bad times.
While saying this, she looked down at the leftover food on the table.
It was a plate of braised pork, with only some oily broth and a few bits of shredded meat left.
Suddenly, she took out an extremely cheap, crumpled transparent plastic bag from that purse worth tens of thousands.
Then, she made a shocking move.
She didn’t ask the waiter for a takeout box but directly used her hand to scoop the sticky, dark sauce and shredded meat from the plate into the plastic bag little by little.
The dark brown grease instantly stained her French manicure, white and slender fingers.
She looked incredibly focused, as if handling a priceless treasure.
After scraping, she naturally put her fingers into her mouth, sucking away the greasy residue bit by bit.
At that moment, I felt my head buzz.
The intense visual impact made me feel a bit physically uncomfortable.
The so-called “ice goddess” filter in the financial circle shattered into pieces at that moment.
In modern terms, looking at her hands covered in black and red oil, my sanity plummeted.
But when I looked up again and saw her cold, proud, expressionless face,
that sense of high-level elite, combined with this almost beast-like instinct to hoard and scavenge for survival, created a highly fractured tension.
I actually felt a tingling scalp.
I even had to admit that this extreme worldly, almost pathological frugality had a strange contrasting allure, precisely hitting my psychological points.
I began to understand what she meant by “Everyone’s money isn’t blown in by the wind, saving your life is the priority.”
However, it wasn’t until later, when I accidentally visited her solo apartment,
that I realized that hand-packaging leftover food, compared to her true “life-saving savings” obsession,
was nothing more than a minor trick.