Started the ball rolling by working 2/3 part time jobs whilst at school, including waitressing on Friday and Saturday evenings, a paper round and doing bedroom turnarounds at a local guest house at weekends. During school holidays, I did more days/evenings. Spent the wages on clothes, records, etc., and saved the tips in a bank savings account (tips were more than wages!). Small beginnings but compound interest and you start the "snowball" effect.
I carried on the evening/weekend work when I got my first full time job, but then I spent the wages on clothes, food, records, and socialising and saved the part time wages AND the tips, so savings carried on growing. Full time wage was tiny, just £32 per week to stay under the NIC threshold (1983!) and my part time wages and tips exceeded the full time wages.
Luckily, all the jobs were within walking/cycling/bus distance from home, so didn't need to buy a car.
Carried on the part time jobs for the 5 years I was studying alongside work to become an accountant. I only gave up the part timing when I qualified as an accountant and finally got a decent wage, but then changed jobs to a different town and needed a car, so used some of the savings to buy a car (no way was I getting credit and paying interest!). Saved the equivalent of what I'd be paying on the loan/HP/Lease for the car in my savings accounts, to earn interest rather than pay interest. Started saving a lot more of my wage. Basically save half, spend half.
Never took on any credit - always waited to buy things outright even if it took a few months. Never paid a penny in interest nor late payment fees on my credit cards etc. Always using the interest free offers on credit cards. Full use of cash backs on debit/credit cards.
Chose the "right" man as a boyfriend who turned into a long term partner then ultimately husband. He had the same ideas re money, i.e. he was a saver, careful with money, no debts, no loans, etc., so we gelled really well on that front. No stupidly expensive unnecessary presents to each other for Xmas and birthdays etc - he once bought me a ski pass for a forthcoming ski holiday for example - we'd often buy each other clothes, or if either of us wanted something bigger like a camera, or an expensive coat, we'd wait until Xmas or next birthday etc.
We didn't rush to live together, buy a house, get married, have a child, etc - 10 years before we bought a house and married, another 5 before having a child. Paid off our mortgage after 10 years to minimise the interest we were paying. When we bought the house we'd each got £25k each to put down towards the deposit and renovation costs, so only had a 75% mortgage and didn't need further loans for renovations/extension etc.
Sounds an austere life, but over the 10 years prior to buying a house and getting married, we'd had 3 foreign holidays per year, including California, Egypt, Kenya, Canada, Egypt etc. but we kept a lid on spending, i.e. getting last minute deals, being careful on holiday, i.e. buying stuff in supermarkets, avoiding expensive hotel bars for drinks, using local buses instead of taxis, etc. where possible. We also each bought a brand new car, simply having saved up the equivalent monthly lease/loan amount over 3/4/5 years. On ski holidays instead of paying stupid high prices for lunches on the ski slopes, we'd buy rolls and cheese/ham from the shops and make our own sandwiches (or sometimes take bread rolls, ham and cheese from the hotel breakfast buffet). Basically, getting value for money wherever we went rather than lazily spending without thought.
Basically, you could call it delayed gratification rather than instant gratification. Saving for things gives you a warm feeling rather than suffering interest/charged on loans/credit cards/leases etc. Delaying purchases also gives you "thinking time", i.e. do you really need it - lots of times we changed our minds between deciding to buy and actually buying. Also the compound interest is truly miraculous on "little and often" savings over long periods of time. A lot of it was also planning ahead, shopping around, etc.