Yes, once when I started my first job and moved away from home. After a year it became apparent that I was spending more than I was earning, and not clearing my credit card debt. A friend from university had given me a copy of the financial software package Quicken (probably an illegal copy come to think of it!) and this helped me understand where I was spending, how to get control of it, and track progress back to being solvent (it took 2 years) – I still use it to this day, although un-supported and only on an old version of Windows!
Secondly, early in our marriage we were both out of work but fortunately we had a very small offset mortgage so we could survive but it was a strain for about six months until I secured my next job. This was partly my own fault as I’d left my previous job with nothing lined up and we had to rely on my wife temping as a legal secretary to get us through.
