In the grand scheme of my 40 years here on planet Earth, historically, I’ve been bad with my money. And what’s wild (sad is a much better word), is that bad with money is the status quo.

The argument could be made, and absolutely is being made, that money isn’t taught to us in schools. There’s truth in that, but to absolve us of all responsibility for not understanding basic budgeting and saving is irresponsible at best.

When I was poor — and believe me, I was poor — I didn’t realize just how bad it was. How close I was to disaster. It’s easy to say I was living paycheck to paycheck, but if one emergency popped up, or a hospital visit, or one DUI, I would have been financially ruined.

I remember one very specific occasion I was heading to an event with a friend. The hosts were asking for $5 at the door to help cover food costs.

The very real conversation I had with my friend was, “I’m not sure I can go. Five dollars is going to leave me with pennies in my account.”

It wasn’t the case that I wasn’t making a living, it was that I was so poor at managing my finances, my bad decisions left me with scraps.

What it took to break me free from a vicious downward spiral was tracking every penny I earned and every penny I spent. It’s no exaggeration, every purchase I make is tracked and reviewed across all accounts and all credit cards. This makes it dead simple to track trends and overspending.

Today I have a much healthier respect for my money and how it works for me versus how it used to work against me.

I no longer have to hesitate to make a purchase if I feel it will add value to my life because I’ve cut off impulsively spending money on purchases that don’t.

We can feel rich without ending up poor, if we treat money as the tool it is, not as a big, scary burden we ignore until it’s too late.