How to Be A Dignified Broke?

There was one time when I was college, a large chunk of money was withdrawn from my bank account without my notice. It was such a large amount that my account went to a negative balance, and the bank started to charge $27 per day in my account until I repaid every dollar I owed.

The reason it happened to me was because I had been giving phone call to companies and recruiting firms for promoting myself in the last couple of months. I called over 60 people during the month November, and went over my 500 minutes monthly cell phone plan. I knew very well that some phone call duration was over 10 to 30 minutes, but I didn't care to monitor my cell phone balance. The cell phone company ended up withdrawing 3 times more money from my bank balance than I usually paid and made my balance negative. The bank also started adding $27 fine every single day that I would not be able to repay everything by my next salary!

If I faced this situation 2 years ago, I would have lost my mind. I would have probably had a panic attack or something. My whole world would turn upside down. But this time I was proud to say I used this crappy experience to train my mind and emotions. I realized that worrying would never served me in this situation. So every time I had a negative feeling about the situation, I welcomed that emotions and told to myself that I would not allow myself to feel that way anymore. That feeling would no longer serve me. I was actually cool and collected for the rest of the week.

This experience of being broke also made me learn couple of things to manage my money more effectively. I realized that if I use 1-2 lessons I learned from this experience, I would never face this kind of pathetic situation again. There were 3 money lessons I had learned from my mistakes:

1. I would start contributing 10% of my monthly income to my savings account which I will ask the bank to withdraw automatically from my paycheck. I would never touch that money, and use only in my unlucky days. I am also benefited by compound interests!
2. I would always, always, always monitor my financial status. I would want to monitor my spending habits and find ways to minimize unnecessary spending. I already created an excel file where I record every single dollar I spend and how I spend it.
3. I would apply 50/50 Rule. Every time I am making an investment i.e buying $500 plasma television, my first priority would be making additional $500 and transfer it to the savings account. 

To be honest, I am really glad it happened. This experience gave me enough pain and push to monitor my assets in a regular basis from now on so that I could prevent myself of getting fucked up again. I guess "monitor" is the key lesson I had learned from this experience. I also found enough reason to open my savings account and transfer 10-15% of my salary to a safe place where my ugly hand could never reach so easily. Therefore, I interpret this experience  as a wealth training which would make me richer in the latter part of my life!