I got married in 2000. I wanted to do a big honeymoon as we decided to have kids pretty quick.

A year prior to my marriage, I turned $1,000 into $10,000 in the stock market. I thought at the time that I must be a financial genius (looking back it was because it was tough to pick a loser during those years).

So I had enough money to pay cash for my honeymoon. But, my stocks were doing awesome. I didn't want to pull the money just yet. I wanted to let it ride just a little bit longer. So I put my honeymoon on a credit card and thought I would pay it off in a month or too.

A couple of months after I came home, my $10,000 was now $200. It took me quite a few months to pay off my credit card completely.

I vowed that I would never charge anything that I had the cash to pay for.