When you learn for the first time how to save, not only will your debt (if any) get paid down, you will end up with an increasing net worth.

What’s interesting is how getting into the mindset of savings will lead to changing your mindset in other areas of your life.

SLEEPING/SANITY

An obvious benefit of being in charge of your money is you sleep better at night, knowing you have a plan in place. Your sanity stay intact and you feel a lot less stress when you know where your money is going.

EATING

Your eating habits will be different, particularly since it’s a fact that eating at home will save you more money, but it will also improve your health.

As you start cooking at home, you will start eating healthier, because if you do the math, buying processed or pre-made convenience foods is more expensive than if you made the actual meal from scratch.

You will also notice that you will be reading the ingredient labels closely, understanding the priorities of where your money should be spent — less on stuff like drinks or snacks which are luxuries, and more on core items like fruits, vegetables and/or meats.

HEALTH

This ties into eating, but you may start going to the gym or like me, start doing yoga and thinking about taking better care of myself.

I also find that I don’t get sick as often, and I am more conscious about brushing my teeth and flossing, as part of my trend towards being healthier.

CAREER

The best way for me to stop spending so much money, is to throw myself into my work (or even into other hobbies).

Sad, but true.

I don’t spend as much when I’m spending time at work, because I am too tired to even think about shopping. It becomes a chore, not a pleasure.

As a result, my career starts to pick up in terms of what I can accomplish, and this is never a bad thing.

Starting to take control of your financial life will lead into slow but positive improvement in other areas of your life, once you start to learn how to exercise self control.

If I had never gotten into debt, it would have been ideal… however I always think to myself that if I never had $60,000 of debt and never tried to get out of it the way that I did, clearing it in 18 months, I would have never learned how to save 50% of my net income and to be as careful with my expenses as I am today.

In a way, I’m happy I did have that debt and I learned the money lessons the hard way, rather than waking up at 60, wondering how I am going to ever retire in 5 years.

I certainly maximize my income as much as possible to help with my net worth growth, but I also understand that the other side of the equation is to spend carefully as well.