I spent my early years with my grandparents and from them I learned that you don't have anything on tick as Nan would call it. You saved up and when you had the money, if you still wanted it then you bought it. The only things I bought on credit was my mortgage for my first unrented home and my first brand new car and that was only over 1 year as I had saved the bulk of the money. Never had any economic advice from school but I always squirreled away small amounts of money in case of an emergency. Then when I was made redundant the first time, I banked enough to be able to pay my mortgage off if I needed to. Then when I was made redundant again I paid off my mortgage. Economic security is a lovely feeling. You don't need to have thousands in the bank, just enough to be able to relax and know you can fall back on some money when an unforeseen emergency arises. I could not relax if i thought I would fall into debt if the next months pension cheque did not arrive.