<prompt> Human: This is a throw away because I dont like people knowing this. Okay, for a bit of context, my Mother passed away a few years ago and it was only around 1 year ago that her estate was settled. I received a little over 100,000 AUD Im Australian not long after I had turned 19. This was highly unexpected as she didnt technically have much in her name due to irrelevant reasons, so it was a major surprise when I was informed. Anyway, prior to this, I was just your average small-town boy with a modest job and still living at home. I was brought up in a low-income home, and always made do with what we had, and was more than happy with that. I never complained about money, and my parents were the type of people that would give us kids their last 10 if we needed it. They werent wasteful, and were incredibly humble people. I have been fortunate enough, though, to always be able to land myself well-paying jobs, and I believe this is where my bad spending habits start. I was making 1000 a week in my first year out of school, with very minimal expenses combined with free accommodation food 5 days a week living on site. I held that job for around 10 months, before I decided I didnt like it. From this, you may assume that I should have saved quite a generous amount, but I in fact did not save one single cent. I left that job poorer than when I started. I would come home on weekends and blow all my money on whatever the hell I felt like, buy all the latest gadgets and toys, drink and gamble myself stupid, and whatever else 18 year old boys enjoy doing. I have never had a job that paid less than 20hr, yet somehow I had absolutely nothing to show for it. I was living paycheck to paycheck, blowing it all, and then borrowing money from family and friends because I knew Id be more than able to pay it back the following week. And hence started a vicious cycle. So by the time I inherited this 100K, I thought that this would be the end of my troubles. I was slowly making the transition into adulthood, and I had a nice little head start to help me along. Nope. Wrong. By the time I received this money, I owed my Dad around 6K, had around 3K in credit card debt and owed around 2K for my car. Rightly, the first thing I did with this money was make myself debt free I should add that I gave my Dad 20K all up, because he deserved at least that much for putting up with my shit for 19 years. So within a day I was already 25K down. Within the space of a few months I had gone out and bought myself a new car, new motorbike, TV, gadgets, games, clothes, gone on road trips and festivals and other stupid, little, unnecessary purchases. Cue around another approx 45K gone. So now I was down to around 30K, and this was the point when I realised WTF am I doing. I wasnt stupid enough to quit my job, as obviously this amount of money wasnt lifetime sustainable, so I still had a steady income week-to-week and was still living at home, but somehow this money was still dwindling faster than a US cop pulls his gun. So I now had around 30K sitting in my bank account, and I had bought all the toys I wanted, had all my fun, and realised that okay, now I need to start acting sensible and investsave this money wisely. I was finally starting to lower my spending, began reading into the best ways to utilise this money I had left, opened a high-interest savings account for the time being and stopped going out every weekend. Then, all of a sudden, I have a petty fight with a girl I was seeing, basically said a big fuck you to her, packed all my things into my car and moved to an entirely new city by myself. It was such a spontaneous decision I didnt organise it one little bit. I barely even knew where I was going. For the first few months, I was unemployed, paying a grossly excessive amount of rent, and basically living like a king with the money I had left. By the time I was down to around 5K, I went out and got myself another well-paying job, and cut back on a lot of spending. I guess one of the reasons I spent it so erratically was because I felt like I didnt deserve it, and every time I looked at it I was reminded of my mother, and how I would have gave it all back in an instance to spend one last day with her. So I guess I decided to use this money to treat myself, to go out and have fun to make up for the last few years of heartache, and one part of me is glad that I did. At the same time though, I have now reached a point where I realised how much was wasted unnecessarily and how stupid I was. Cue to today, roughly 1 year later, I have almost zero savings and although I try not to dwell on it, I often wish I had been a lot smarter than what I was. I owe 4K in credit card debt, I owe my Dad 5K and my brother 5K both agreed to pay back over 2 years. One plus is that I have no loans, I own my car and bike and all the furniturewhite goodselectronics in my apartment. I make around 600week and also study full-time will owe approx. 30K student loans when I finish. My expenses include the following per month:1200 for rent 80 for utilities120 for phone bill300 for food and fuel90 for internet, VPN, Netflix and Spotify60 for gym60 for cable TVI have absolutely no value for money. I see money and I spend it. I have always lived by the philosophy that Id rather die with 1 million good memories, than 1 million wasted dollars. But I am now at a point in my life where I need to start becoming financially independent, and starting to realise that I need to find a good balance between the two. I know its necessary for survival, and I know that I will always be in a position where I will be making money, but I just keep digging myself further and further into holes. Is this because I am too optimistic about my future? Am I too careless with my spending? I have tried budgeting, keeping detailed records of all my expenses, cutting down on wasteful spending, reading through pages and pages of financial advice, this sub, putting my money in places its harder to touch and so on and so on. All to no avail. Ill finally get on a good run, have myself in a decent financial position, and then a friend will call me to come away for the weekend or go to a show I really want to see or a new game will come out and I just cant help myself. I go overboard, all in the name of fun. Money comes and goes, experiences last a lifetime. Is this a bad attitude to have? Or am I just simply still too young to really be worrying about this sort of thing right now? Ive never been that desperate for money, or had to starve for a week or anything that major. I have had times where Ive struggled to put fuel in my car or unable to pay phone bills or had to count silver coins to buy myself a meal, but I think every young adultuni student goes through those moments. But I just feel like I should really have a hell of a lot more than what I do to show for myself. I mean, I live 1000s of miles away from home, supporting myself and living on my own, but I still often feel like I should be doing a whole lot better than what I am. Basically, Reddit, and I apologise for the rambling and the wall-of-text, but I am asking how the hell do you teach yourself the value of money? Do you think that me wasting all this money in a space of a year, from the point of being 100K up, to now being over 10K down, was a valuable life lesson? Or is it just a sign of a never-ending cycle? Is this more a personal problem than a money problem? I just dont even know where to begin.EDIT: some further questions: My CC interest rate is 19.74 p.a. Should I consider transferring this to a 0 for x amount of months kind of deal?What should I be focused on more right now, eliminating debt, or building up a decent savings account for emergencies and what-not?Is investing out of the question until I am in a financial position more stable to do so?---TL;DR: Im a stupid idiot  <response>: Your attitude is that youd rather have 1 million good memories rather 1 million in the bank. Its a good philosophy to have. However, I question whether youre really setting yourself up to have 1 million good memories. It sounds like you just blew money on random consumer purchases that didnt bring you any happiness. If thats the case, financial discipline can help achieve your goal. Money should be a tool to live well. Use it well. I would not dwell on past mistakes, simply learn from them. 