Watching my pool of money grows is addictive for me. Making me less willing to buy stuff to pamper myself. Now, whenever I have the thought of buying something that will cost few hundreds or more, I will ask myself if it is necessary, worth it or not, any other alternatives etc. That's not me in the past where I will spend quite a bit of money just to have something nice or may make myself happy for that moment. It even made me go to extreme of buying stuff using instalment, i.e. using future money. Hence I didn't have much cash on hand then, all spent on somehow unnecessary stuff. Some stuff was even sold off after few months and I still need to continue to pay the remaining instalment!
Can't remember exactly what makes me change in term of managing my money but I am lucky to wake up and realise my poor money management. Now I just love to track where my money goes to, down to every cent. I do have an excel spreadsheet to keep track of everything, knowing exactly when and how I save or spend my money. Nice to have this feeling of having them in my control, unlike in the past, don't even know why I always end up with little or no money towards the end of each month.
Having said that, it doesn't mean I am stingy with myself or even with others, making life boring or miserable. At times, I still treat myself or even friends a nice meal etc. Sometimes it is a joy too when spending money wisely, especially with your love ones, the happiness, the special moments, nothing beats that. Most important is to be happy and not be miserable just to save more money. After all, we can't bring our money together with us when we reach our expiry date in life. Enjoy what we have while we last, life is short, just a number of decades and that's it. So let's be thrifty but not stingy.