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 someone had told me that money is not inherently boring and that having a stash of it is much, much better than living paycheck to paycheck. I wish my darling mother, instead of taking me to the shops and helping me spend all of my first paycheck, had encouraged me to put a percentage of it into savings first, then taken me to the shops. Bless her, she only got a women's specialist financial advisor some years later - but I wasn't living at home then and really the importance of it did not register, until I was well on the Micawber path. Which is misery itself.

I wish I had been told to save regularly, never buy anything on credit cards that you can't pay off the following month, to be careful about taking out personal loans for non-essential items, and to make saving for your first home a big priority!

Make a shopping list and stick to it! Don't be tempted by shiny offers.

To save and not rely on loans when you need something. Learnt the hard way

Buy what you NEED not what you WANT.

I wish I'd got on the property ladder sooner (bought in London when I was 30, if I'd done it 5 years earlier I would have made a hefty profit)!

Save up for something rather than getting a loan wherever possible.

Don't be completely financially dependent on anyone else.

How much i'd regret my easy to get student overdraft one day that I pissed away. I wish I knew how much council tax would cost me!!

To understand the different types of accounts, investments etc and what best to do with savings

To spend less than you earn.
I wish I had not bought 'stuff' I didn't need

I really wish I'd saved more. I know it's been repeated often, but I wish I had realised just how important money was and not to have spent it on unnecessary useless stuff.

I wish I'd been taught how to budget and also to keep a record of what I was really spending against the budget.
I've been doing this recently and it's been a real eye opener

To invest in property which I did! However, I wish I'd have saved more in my youth and got financial advice at a younger age in order to plan more for the future.

I wish I had known that house prices could go down as well as up. That was painful. (early-mid 90s house-buying experience).

I also wish I'd known that "independent" financial advice was often tied to commission on products such as endowments.

That writing down everything you spend actually helps you notice what is going out a lot more.

I also wish someone had just sat me down and explained to me the whole lot - interest rates/ ISAs/ loans.

And then made me a financial plan I could stick to - I'm great at following instructions, not so much at taking the initiative.

Dh and I got together at university (in the 1990s), meaning that we've been together for as long as we've been financially independent. I wish I'd realised that, in this (or even that) day and age, it's inexcusable for anyone to remain blissfully ignorant of the financial side of things, leaving it all to the other partner 'because they're better at it'.

I stupidly assumed, because dh has a maths degree and I always hated maths, that this made him the best person to deal with all the financials. I closed my eyes to everything from bills to savings, from pension plans to rent payments to mortgages. By the time I realised that dh is in fact utterly useless at personal finance, and that I would by far have been the better person to deal with it, we had run up loads of debt. He had managed things badly, then panicked, stuck his head in the sand... and kept it all from me, because I had told him that I hated dealing with anything to do with money. Our financial situation will now always be worse than it should have been.

So my advice is - learn about finances from a young age, and keep yourself informed. It's your responsibility, and there's no excuse.

My father's advice was to start a pension as soon as possible and save for rainy days.

I'm going to go against the grain and say that actually, experiences when you are young and able to do stuff are important, savings are lovely, but there's a point once you've had DCs that you can't do many trips and experiences even if you can afford them better, and somethings like weddings you are unlikely to do again, whereas you could save the money up again.

Yes, we spent a stupid amount on holidays, gig/sports tickets, and our wedding, but those experiences shaped us, and it does make it easier to be unable to do that sort of thing now we have small DCs (and end up doing 'bucket and spade' holidays even if we do go overseas) that we 'made the most' of the years before we settled down.

What I did wish I realised earlier though was how easy it is to shop around for deals, and to get cash back from online ordering.

I agree dinosaurs! Wish had gone interrailing one summer instead of being sensible and saving.

When living with other people in shared houses I found dealing with contracts and finances like rent, bills, deposits etc, with other people who were all quite inexperienced and had different financial situation and attitudes about money quite hard.

Memorable squabbles over how often to turn the heating on and itemised phone bills! People not helping clean up before moving out so risking losing all our deposits. One housemate who insisted on "taking charge" kind of swindled me out of money he said I owed him - turned out he was in a lot of debt.

oh yes i in no way regret money spent on airplane tickets, scuba diving etc - you don't get older and think i wish i'd travelled less

good point about the shared finances of living in shared houses - i have some memories like duckdeamons.

i was ok with my bank but i can remember huge differences between how banks treated students once they finished studying. mine was interest free for ages, through my PGCE and for at least two years after that and i never paid any charges on it and it very gradually reduced my interest free limit over a period of years (think it's still got a £500 interest free overdraft facility on it as that's the lowest it was ever put to after having 2k whilst at uni and at least a year or two after).

friend's with other banks quickly found they were being charged interest and all sorts once they finished studying. i did shop around for 'which bank to go with' so it's not a what do i wish i knew but definitely a what i'd advise my child or other young people to do.

lol just looked at the thread title and seen which bank is sponsoring the discussion - thank you for my years of interest free student then graduate overdraft lloyds i remember who the worst culprits of the time were for screwing students post graduation but don't know if i'm allowed to name them? one doesn't exist anymore, at least not under the name it had then.

Agreed, I don't regret money spent on 'big' things (most of which took place before I got a good job!!), but is the little wastes (did I actually ever cook or even prepare lunch from 22 to 28?)and the lab of sensibly investing any leftovers. A very small amount reach week would have made no dent. Thankfully, my parents pushed me into buying a flat in London (it was possible then on a graduate salary!) which has meant all sorts for me. Dh could have but didn't, which is a huge shame.

A credit card is not free money ( still have to remind myself of this )
A house that "just" needs a lick of paint is a lie...... It will swallow your spare money for years to come & is soooo messy!!!!
Buying a Chanel purse with my first pay check was not my greatest moment...it ensured I had to borrow money off DP to survive the month. I have also never had as much money inside that purse as it costs me. It does however make me smile every time I get it out of my bag ( & get out my free money credit card )

Not sure there's much I'd wish I'd known - my parents had inculcated a good monetary ethos from an early age. I automatically enrolled in my company's pension scheme when I graduated. Only thing I should have maybe done is AVCs, especially when I could afford it.

What I should have done (much later) was when I became the main salary earner and dh took voluntary redundancy to take time to study/start a business was to transfer the child benefit into his name, so as to keep his NI contributions going.

Don't pay into pensions instead into property
Don't buy things you don't need.
Appreciate everyone had to pay utility bills
Set up overdraft-don't get charged for going over

Definitely wish I had got on the property ladder after graduating. I had a decent job and in a northern town around the millennium, I could have easily afforded to do so. The receptionist at my firm who earned around £13k per annum bought a house.....I wish I had done the same but I didn't intend to remain there for long, and it didn't occur to me to see it as an investment.

I wish I had believed my financial advisor flat mate at the age of 23 that flinging as much as I could into my pensions and managing them all well (I have 4 from different jobs) was the wisest thing I could do.