My Personal Finance Tipping Point

FreeFromBroke is asking about everyone's personal finance tipping point, so here it goes:

When I was 18, I got my hands on Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which was not my PF tipping point, but it was the point at which I realized that getting a job was not the only way in the world to make money.

I thought I was so smart - I learned about credit and personal finance devouring books on those subjects and entrepreneurship, doing research on different programs designed to create cashflow. I didn't know what I wanted, but I decided that when I figured it out, I would be ready.

But I still spent more than I made, and thought that I was making a credit history but using too much credit and over time it turned into debt I couldn't easily pay back quickly. I had a $100/month book habit, where I would go to Borders every time I had a little money or had a bad day. In the midst of a bad relationship, I financed a dirtbike with no money down, thinking it would bring us closer. In 2006, I moved to Las Vegas to help family with a real estate company. In 2007, I ended that relationship, leaving me with a huge debt and a bike I hardly used. Then the real estate market crashed, and I was without a job for six months, and the bike got repossessed. All this time, I still thought I was so smart, since I'd managed over the years to pay my bills on time, until I was jobless and depressed at my once awesome credit score going down.

At the time, I just got by, but I still went out, bought clothes, paid for dinners, went to concerts, and didn't pay my bills.

In February 2008, I finally got a job that would pay the bills, though I'd been working again since December 2007. Still reading personal finance, I got Larry Winget's You're Broke Because You Want To Be, and while it wasn't my favorite book, it forced me to look back at the last year and realize:

All this time I thought I was so smart, but I was sinking deeper into debt because I refused to live within my means. I focused on what I could afford monthly, didn't plan for the future, and never really reined in my spending even thought I didn't have a job anymore. Better now than never, but I finally got to my tipping point, which was to learn:

Spend Less Than You Earn