What made you “wake up your idea” wrt money and decide to learn how to earn/spend/save/invest/donate strategically?

A few years after I started working, I realised that I do not exactly saved much money. That is when I decided to sit down and start planning and budgeting my expenses. I started off with getting an app to track my expenses for a few months and identifying all the unnecessary expenses. I stopped spending on the unnecessary items like drinking Starbucks and buying newspaper. As time pass, I also learnt how to cut down on dining out.

When I started having more savings, I decided that I want to invest and grow them. Started reading up on investing and identify what would be my investment strategy and move on from there.

When i started tracking my expenses and realized how much i was spending each month with very litte savings left. At the same time, I found out about high yield savings accounts and how i could earn 'free' money from the bank - why not ;)

I came across a blog that calculate how is yr saving rate affect yr retirement age. From there on, I want to know my saving rate and I start to track my spending and save aggressively.

When my expenses skyrocketed due to wedding

Came to realise I need to budget my money properly and make full use of credit cards' perks to save up for my wedding, and subsequently now for housing. Commitments are going to increase in the future so it's good to be aware and plan ahead :)