In the meantime, I thought it would be fun to devote a thread to financial success stories. People send me e-mail all the time to say how they’ve taken control of their personal finances. I love to read these tales, and I know that other people do, too.

Thanks for posting this.

ISaveMoney,
Thanks for posting that..
Yes.. that's the reality of it all.. it literally can take 5 years to get yourself out of debt... 5 years = 60 months = a whole bunch of days.

I'm sure that as time passed and you created your discipline, it all became easier..

I learned about saving money the hard way... for many years i would spend everything i had... i would roll quarters to buy beer.. i would look for change in the couch to buy pizza

i was a good spender

over a period of 2 years i had one thing after another go wrong for me
things around the house were breaking, i got sick for a few months, my mother passed away and i had to spend a few thousand for those expenses

all of this went on my credit cards. i had no money saved and then all of a sudden i had to fork out money for thousands of dollars of things

something clicked in my head and i said there's got to be a better way. while it was fun to spend like their was no tomorrow, i also didn't like being in over my head and having to pay credit card interest

i spent the next 5 years paying off all of my credit card debt, and saving up a few months worth of emergency funds... it literally took me that long. at first i couldn't see past my nose as far as planning goes.. i thought that 5 years was a long time.. i took each day one day at a time

it took the first year for me to stop spending everything i had and start to think about paying off my debt first.. i liked spending, but it took me the whole year to realize that saving and paying off should be a higher priority

long story short... these days i have more than enough saved for emergencies, i have a sizable retirement fund in place..

most importantly i learned how to budget my money and buy some things that i wanted, but now i'm disciplined to put money away..

it's also funny to note that now that i have money saved up and no debt, i don't crave as many things.. sometimes you want what you can't have.. well i can afford most things that i want, and i can make a choice whether i want to buy them or not.. that's the benefit of having money saved up

that's my success story.. i hope it helps others... it took me 15 + years to learn it!

Is there a free web site with professional advices/information on how to build a good credit score and other personal finance advices ??

I started to get rich slowly by getting the best master credit card Canada, balancing my checkbook and saving for retirement. It’s just that simple. No more frills.

Hey India,
Nice! Good for you. It's probably the hardest work to save up the first $1,000 . You need to learn to cut back and concentrate on your goal.
I'm sure the next $2500 saved will be much easier and take less time now that you know how to do it!
Thanks for sharing

the only thing i can thnk of is that i've saved around 2500. it took me a long time and i had to scrape up my money to do it

i had to make some sacrifices to save that money, but i really feel good that i did it

2500 isn't all that i need for an emergency fund but it covers any emergencies that i may currently have
i live in an apartment and take the bus

Post your personal finance success stories here

If you've had any personal finance success stories, we want to hear about them here! Nothing like hearing from the people who are actually doing the good work of being faithful and diligent with their money!!

Any type of success story in personal finance is good.
If you paid down debt, saved up and emergency fund, reduced your credit card interest rate... what ever it is... we want to hear about it.

Success breeds success!!