What do you wish you’d known when you first became financially independent? Tell Lloyds Bank for a chance to win a £300 voucher! NOW CLOSED

[AngelieMumsnet]

Lloyds Bank have asked us to find out what Mumsnetters wish they had known about personal finances when they first became financially independent.

So, what do you wish you'd known? Maybe you didn't quite appreciate how expensive buying a house would be. Maybe you didn't think about saving when you were younger. Perhaps you wish you'd known how best to invest your savings. Or did you find it all quite easy? We'd love to hear your stories!

Everyone who posts on this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a £300 Love2Shop voucher!

Thanks
MNHQ

I wish we'd had the forethought/courage to buy a better first house than we did. We were hedging our bets and bought something small.

I wish I'd known how easy it was to pay £30 per week to my Mum, and have that cover everything!

I was always skint and borrowing money off her, even though I worked full time!

I wish I'd have put some of that money away in a savings account from 16!

Not to take out the PPI the guy at LLOYDS said I had to have, especially as they are the worst company to claim back from...

I wish I'd known how to budget properly and to save 10% of everything I earned.

I also wish I'd been savvy enough to keep the first house I'd bought (aged 23) instead of selling it without buying another years ago and ending up as a first time buyer again in my mid 30s.

Oh, and that store cards are the work of the devil

Have 3-4 months salary in the bank, always. (sudden ill health meant I discovered that benefits go nowhere when your professional fees are still going out).
Take what you're entitled to - I declined "ash cash" (cremation form fees) and contraceptive fees believing the savings were passed onto the family in the first case and the department in the other. Funeral homes and the government just keep it. Grieving families are still charged.

I wish I had known that this was the most disposable income I would ever have, that things would only get more expensive and that 30 years would pass in a flash. I should have saved then and I would be better off now.

Wish we had saved more pre-kids - We had no idea how much disposable income we had then (relatively speaking) compared to now with 3 kids!

also wish there was a very trustworthy source of information about what products you need to accompany mortgage - Our mortgage advisor tried to squeeze every last penny from us each month with all sorts of insurances but turned out main thing we needed was life/CI cover to accompany mortgage.

We also made a big mistake not getting one that allowed extra payments so ended up paying huge amounts more of interest because of that and a penalty when we needed to change it.

I wish I'd known how hard it would be to get a mortgage as a self employed single parent! Having banked with Lloyds for 30 years I could get a job tomorrow (with no guarantee of keeping that job!) and they would give me a mortgage based on that but the fact that I have supported myself for the past 4 years on a small self employed income and paid rent of £600 per month without fail makes no difference. It's frustrating and I feel forced into employment if I want to get back on the ladder. I'm happy earning a pittance thanks, I pay all of my bills and would be a lot better off paying a smaller mortgage than paying rent - if it gets tough I can get a bar job or any bloody job! I don't need to be earning £££££'s to own my own house.

Not to join accounts with partner/husband.
That you can take your own mortgage, on your own name, even if you're married.
To save 12% of monthly income and pay myself a 13th salary once a year.
To get a pension as soon as I start working.

Most of all, I wish I made an effort to understand/learn the financial lingo. I use a bank and a mutual for their plain english and straightforward explanations. It matters more than high interest.

to save a bit each month to put down on a deposit for a house. As I ended up with over 100% mortgage before the crisis hit.

• That you should check your tax code! I got a tax rebate a couple of years ago because I'd been paying far, far too much tax for nearly all my working life. The rebate was nice, but I might have prioritised getting on the housing ladder if I'd thought that I could afford it.

• Generally getting on with buying a home - I've only just done it (was putting it off earlier basically because I couldn't be bothered) and we've paid more than we might have needed to.

Save up as much as possible. Look at ISAs more carefully every year.

Budget should include a sum of money to save each month not just the money you put to one side for bills.

ISA/savings- to start early before I missed it!!!!!!

Wish I'd known when I was given an overdraft at 16 that I'd still be trying to pay it back now... Wish there had been better education around finance for young people in schools, and I wish I had heard of a credit report. It's taken me another 16 years to finally get myself sorted. If I'd known that then I'd never have gotten into debt in the first place.

To write down every month my incomings, and outgoing so.

Would have helped at the beginning for budgeting when I lived on my own.

Some sort of budgeting list ie
Mortgage
Gas
Electric
Telephone
TV
Petrol
Etc, if you get my drift...

To budget, and stick to it.
Also check your options, don't pay for things you can't use. Also haggle/check for cheaper products.

I wish I'd known (or realised/thought about) no matter how good you are with money and even if you've saved since you were 9, if you marry someone who is awful with money, they will not naturally switch to your way of finance and you still end up having to deal with debt even when it wasn't yours...

I wish I'd known the true cost of house ownership and having children! I was always fairly good at saving but it makes me now to think of the money we could have saved in our child free years by just being a little bit more proactive about things like changing energy suppliers/insurers every year, or meal planning. Or just putting a bit more thought into all our outgoings, even if we still treated ourselves more than we do now. We're certainly not in a bad position, but with me about to go on mat leave again, an extra few grand saved would be lovely! Or we could have afforded a slightly bigger house, or smaller mortgage.

That your tastes get more expensive in line with your available income.

My first salary felt like so much after being a student - now I look back and I don't know how I managed on that little.

When your child is born save, even just a small amount, every month. Even just £10 a month equates to £2160 after 18 years - a great start for a child heading to uni/buying a car.

That savings, however little each month, can make a massive difference when the unexpected happens

Set up a sweeper account, you'll never miss the odd pounds going each month but you'll get a pleasant surprise when you check your savings accounts every few months

I wish I had known about income tax. I mean really understood it so that I knew how to fill in an income tax return. I would have been eligible for quite a refund because I had diverse income streams and I now realise that the tax that was automatically removed from at least one of them was at a far higher rate than it should have been. As it was I lived with an uneasy feeling that I wasn't on top of my affairs and I worried that looking into it would mean I owed even more. I was so stupid I didn't realise tax was being taken directly.

I would have wasted less money on clothes that I didn't end up wearing and not gone hobby shopping. Financial happiness is freedom to do the things you want, not having tons of stuff.

How easy it is to get into debt and how difficult it is to get out of debt.