Sure a bit of roughness doesn't do anyone any harm.....

"Sure a bit of roughness doesn't do anyone any harm" you would hear my granny say from time to time.

Now before all your minds go into overload, she wasn't insinuating anything sexual, abusive or a three day stubble. What she meant was that sometimes when you were struggling with your finances that it did you good. I've heard her use this expression many times over the years and always thought, "how horrible." Though I'm starting to realise what she meant.

It wasn't that long ago when I would've seen a new gadget and if i thought I needed it, then I'd buy it. No questions asked, whether I needed it or convinced myself enough that I needed it, then I got it. Now I know that this sounds as if I'm spoilt or privileged, believe me I'm not, I earn my own money and buy my own things, it's been like that since I was about 12.

The first three weeks after having been made redundant I didn't really let it sink in that that also meant that my salary wasn't going to keep coming into my bank account, so I spent as if nothing had changed until one day the ATM gave me that heart sinking message "Insufficient Funds" Oooops, redundancy was well and truly here, staring me in the face through my own reflection in the ATM machine.

Since then the value of money now has a new net worth to me. A few weeks back I'd have thought nothing of spending a €100 on a pair of new jeans, a set of headphones or even a meal for two. In fact a hangover on a Sunday morning was cheap if it cost less than €100 the night before. €100 is now just under 50% of my weekly income and seems worth a whole lot more than it did a few weeks ago. I now think before I buy and it's no bad thing. I'm starting to realise how much money I wasted on things that I didn't actually need. I have a new appreciation for the value of money, €100, €50, €20 even €2, is worth a whole lot more than it was just a few weeks back.

I've been getting my bit of "roughness" for almost 9 weeks now and she was right, it isn't doing me any harm in fact it's doing me some good.

What Michael Jackson taught me!

As a kid growing up I loved Michael Jackson and still do and while lots of his music reminds me of a time and place there is one life lesson that was taught to me by the King of Pop and my grandmother!

As far back as I can remember my granny always used to take me into Belfast shopping, she didn't have much money so it was to buy books at the second hand book shop or purchase new tights "simple shopping" but more importantly to take some time off from her duties as a housewife.

On one of those Saturdays I truly discovered what it was like to become a consumer and the power of money. As she was browsing in the bookstore come music shop I wondered off to have a look around. I discovered a Michael Jackson mirror, I fell in love with it immediately and asked her could I buy it and I'd pay her back the money weekly. She couldn't afford to do this so she asked the shop keeper could we leave it over and I would pay it off with my pocket money. My pocket money was 50p per week and it must have taken me 16 weeks to pay it off (I reckon it may have been a little less as i could have gotten some extra help from my mummy and granny) but it felt more like a year before I could take the mirror home.

I still have that mirror some 22 years later and the lessons that it taught me.

• you can't always get what you want immediately
• saving does pay off.

Just wish I could be more strict with the saving!