What was your 'money-piphany'? What one moment changed your attitude to money?

YORKSHIRELASS

This is a great thread, some very inspiring stories.

I have been in debt since I first got my hands on a credit card at 18 - for lots of reasons which I only now fully understand.  Then I met DH and we were both bad at managing our money and lived just a fraction beyond our means for years.  The debts grew and we shuffled money around and paid the minimum whilst still using the cards.

In 2019 our son got cancer.  DH is self employed and didnt work for 3 months, I was living at the hospital with DS and DH drove the 100 mile round trip every day.  We were spending a horrific amount on petrol and our finances were a mess.

One day I went to the M&S Food shop in the hospital to get DS some treats and knew I couldnt really afford to buy anything.  I had this massive lightbulb moment when I realised how much our finances were adding to the stress we were under and it was all our own doing.

I came on here when things calmed down and I really thought we would have to throw the towel in, but I got some fantastic advice, we knuckled down, cut everything back and started throwing every penny at the debts.  We have made huge progress but still have a long way to go.  Being frugal is a way of life now and we never ever use the credit cards.

CheeseDreams

For me it was gearing up to leave me ex husband. He'd always done the finances, just like my dad did. When I saw how profligate he'd been with our joint account and joint credit card I was stunned! And I was liable for half!

I learned how to get clever with money! Remortgaged to clear CC debts - pointed out to the ex that the monthly payments were fractionally less than we were paying on mortgage and CC. Cancelled joint CC immediately. Bounced my account to one with an introductory payment of £200 and a cashback credit card. Within 3 months I'd saved a deposit on a rental property and a few months rent (my rent was a steal at £240 per month even in the North in 2017).

I've got a bit lazy about making my money work for me. But even small amounts can make dividends. I still use high rate drip feed accounts to boost my interest from my now meagre savings! 

Andyjflet

In all honesty, during Covid I found Dave Ramsey, and after 50 years of my life earning good money and no idea how to manage it I did the baby Steps, got myself out of debt, sold my house, invested the money and now live with my partner very happily, no debt between us and £6k a month coming in to save and buy what we need. 

amat6219

Similar to @tain for me, I haven't actually been diagnosed with ADHD but fairly certain I have it, and it has been an epiphany in every part of my life, finances included. 

Instead of the impulse to buy, I have now honed in my obsessive side with the best spreadsheet you've ever seen :-D I am totally obsessed with it and check it several times a day! 

Only been very recently that we have taken our heads out of the sand (DMP started Sept 23), when mortgage interest rate went from 1.09% to 5.84% and we realised we had to pluck an extra £500/month from somewhere. Realised how changeable everything is, and that I want that money in my pocket not in the pocket of banks etc. 

I was very much a 'buy now, pay later' type of person, but now a 'if it's not in the budget, we're not getting it' type of person! I feel very at peace with myself now, and so much happier. 

horsewithnoname

I started a spending diary and when I added up what I spent on fancy coffee could get me out of debt in a few years, I wised up!

MattMattMattUK

I ran up debt on credit cards when I was 18-19, I was earning ok money, I got given rather large credit limits at the time and filled the cards up, so over a period of time I was living not only spending all my wages, but also an extra few hundred a month added to the cards. 20-21 I carried the debt, paying horrific amounts of interest (35%) and struggled to pay some months. I started a new job on more money but I realised that the interest on my debts was costing me around £140 a month, which was quite a lot in the early noughties (about £250 in todays money), so I decided to clear the debts. I got myself a bar job and I worked several evenings a week after my office job, as well as a Friday or Saturday night and sometimes a Saturday or Sunday daytime, I was working 65-80 hours a week and I did that for two years to clear the debt and to get a bit of savings under my belt, then I cut the hours down bit still did a couple of days a week in a bar after work. I cleared the debt in the summer I turned 23, I had money in the bank, no debt and I could afford to live properly again.

Ever since then the only debt I have ever had is a mortgage, I have made sure I save, I keep a reserve, I keep savings, I have money for when it is needed. I use credit cards for nearly all purchases, but I make sure I pay them in full every month so I do not incur interest. If I cannot afford something I do not buy it until I can, I save up for things that cannot come out of general expenditure. I make sure to keep my expenses well within what I can afford to allow for any potential shocks. That meant not overextending myself on my mortgage which is why I bought a flat not a house, even though at the time I could afford the house, but if I had bought the house even if I had somehow survived the lockdowns destroying my finances the current high interest rates would have been crippling, where as now they are just annoying. 

Debt in general is bad, debt on depreciating assets, or even less things that are worthless such as holidays is truly awful, debt on appreciating assets such as a home can be sensible and reasonable provided that it is affordable and is the only kind of debt I would consider now. My businesses are also debt free and that is one of the reasons why they survived the lockdowns, if I had loaded them up with debt then six months with nearly no business would have meant going under. I would potentially borrow to invest within a business, but only if I was unable to fund the expenditure from profit, far better to keep reserves within the company and use those to fund investment rather than get into debt and pay interest to a bank, which is just throwing profit away. 

I am now nearly forty, I live a somewhat comfortable life, I am not extravagant but neither am I on the poverty line. I know people who earn quite a bit less than me where their lifestyle is funded by debt, cars on finance, holidays on credit, credit card debts continually rolled over, spending every penny they earn and then some. The thing is that it appears to be a totally different world view, I cannot understand why they live that way, why they refuse to live within their means, why they are not laying awake at night worrying about the hundreds of pounds of interest that they pay every month, the debt that they are unlikely to be able to repay, they cannot understand why I will not just put a holiday on finance, take out a loan to buy a flash new car or why I would feel uncomfortable with just paying the minimum on my credit card to give me another thousand pounds to spend that month. I doubt either side can understand the mentality of the other because they require such different psychological starting points to do so. 

denow

Buying a computer program called AceMoney 6 years ago and deciding to list every....single....penny... that I owed and spent/received with projections going forward 5 years.

The font colours are red for debt and black for savings. My aim was to convert all that red to black.

The only red now is the mortage which is due to be paid in April.

Having it all laid out in a program like that really made the difference. I couldn't keep all that info in my head and it was a real turning point for me. Really helped me to focus on the goal.

katsu

My life changed when I heard Martin on TV and Radio. 

When we were young we had too much month and not enough money. We couldn't pay all our living expenses in the month they were due and so using credit to bridge that gap was what I thought was necessary/normal.

I used to hate opening bank statements etc and felt nervous and financially I lacked confidence. 

Martin made me feel more informed and confident.  His method of working out spending, looking for ways to save and then paying highest interest to lowest interest debts made so much sense.  Then people in DFW when I found this place were a community in our travels to being Debt Free. 

Martin turned our life around and I'm so pleased every time I see someone else here starting down the road to being debt free. 

benbenandme

When my ex walked out leaving me with our toddler and a huge mortgage on the house we'd recently bought. I worked 2 days a week and the realisation that everything fell to me now did it for me. Over the next few months I barely put the tv on, instead when ds was asleep I would be on here or survey sites, during the day we would go out to the park (free) and try to include a mystery shop or two while we were out. I created spreadsheets that monitored every single penny going in or out. Never looked back