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

To be more wise with my money, blowing £60 on a night out is not a good idea. I wish I had saved a proportion of my earnings as well, rather than going week to week!

i wish I had known about staying in the black and out of the red, so easy to mass debts with credit and store cards, thankfully now all gone but so so easy to fall into that trap

Mr Micawber's advice. "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

I wish I knew that credit cards were pure evil

I wish I had bought a property much earlier on and saved. Instead I went abroad and travelled and didn't buy until much later. But you can't have everything and I did have a great time!

To give myself a cooling off period before I purchase anything. The amount of things I used to buy & then not bother with in such a short time makes me cry now. I now avoid impulse purchases & if I see something I'd like to buy, I come home & think about it. That way, it requires another trip to buy it & sometimes that is enough to show me that I didn't really want it badly enough

I wish I'd known that spending lots of money on clothes and make up didn't make me look any better!

At the age of 18 - I wish I had learnt about the iportance of saving and not getting into debt!

Dont impulse buy rubbish, especially at Christmas. I get people what they want and my kids stocking fillers of things they can actually use. Dont go on holiday unless you have saved up the money to go, sticking it on the credit card and paying later just involves you getting into debt and makes you fed up that you are still paying for something that is over.

Don't buy a car, instead buy a house to let

Budgeting! I was awful and took me years to learn to properly budget and plan ahead. Definitely think it should be a must for school curriculums x

Never listen to anybody else and make your own decisions. We were convinced by friends that an endowment mortgage was best ... until I read the small print! Instead of the suggested profit (as our friends said) or a brake-even (as I thought likely), it ended up costing us around £12,000 more than it should have.

I wish I had saved more previously instead of spending what I had.

That the monthly income from my previous job wasn't going to last forever. I really regret squandering my salary on expensive clothes and shoes and wish I had saved so I could have spent it on decorating my lovely house. At least my local charity shops benefitted from the goods when I was finished with them, but I wish I wasn't so naive!

That no matter how well you plan there is always extra costs you never considered. When we moved into our home we redecorated every room and had worked out a budget for everything but there were so many little extras that we hadn't planned for that we struggled to keep to our budget.

If you lend money to someone, be prepared to never get it back

To not waste money on 'stuff' just because it was popular/fashionable and how small overpayments on mortgages add up to large savings on interest

Not to loan the same people money thinking your helping them out when you are only encouraging them not to budget.

Wish I had took my brother's advice and popped a little away all those year's back because that 'little' would now be quite big, but we never think those days are important or are going to be here so soon but sadly they are and now we struggle as a family.

Travel first then save. Start your pension asap!

I wish I had been given more information of the repercussions of debt & in particular credit cards. I think its very very easy for young people to get huge credit card limits & not to really think about the future & paying them off. The cost of general living is so much now & its easy just to 'stick it on the card'

save more

I wish I knew how expensive things really were and I would have never left home

I wish I'd known that having enough money to pay the bills was more important than eating out every other night. Some sort of financial education about this would have been great but unfortunately, I never had this. I always make sure that I drum this into my children now - live within your means and save whatever you can for a rainy day.

How to budget properly and not get into debt as a student. Twelve years later I'm still paying off my credit cards from those young and foolish days!