Being a student is so hard nowadays. I've been spending a lot for school requirements and different activities related to education. I'm stuck with this saying "SAVING IS WASTING", thinking that with the little amount of money I have, should I put it on an investment or should I just save it for my future expenses or emergencies. I'm also living in a country in which there are limited side hustles I could do to earn extra for investment, so I'm troubled somehow.
I'm not sure about the saying that the OP linked, I've never heard of a saying like that, and I think it can mislead anyone.
Precisely because saving you can avoid your waste, I think you have blamed the frugal ways of living, namely saving.
You can separate savings and investments, you cannot use your investment funds when you need them suddenly, but you can use your savings whenever you need them.
If you will just purely save 100% of your extra money then for me it is considered as waste, why do I said so? because instead of putting it on assets that can help you to generate returns why are you going to put it on banks or why will you just stack it in some place that cannot give you returns. Inflation will immediately beat you if you will just save money and not use it.
What I do is I have monthly allocation on my savings which is roughly 10% because I'm using at my emergency funds, I'm using the 30% of my income for my expenses such as bills, foods and many more and the remaining 60%, I putting it on investments such as crypto, real estates and other global markets. In this way, I can have returns by putting my money in different assets and I can also have emergency fund that I can use whenever I face unexpected situation.
if you do that I appreciate it and in my opinion it is very appropriate for everyone who has the desire to invest. way like what you offer will make someone's finances continue to grow.