What is your financial philosophy?

I tend not to think about money so much. Recently I've begun saving money PROPERLY for the first time, as I am graduating soon and am planning to go live overseas. Its an interesting experience because I have never really thought about this kind of thing. I don't have a job, but study full time, and only really spend money on essential things like food and accommodation. By cutting back and budgetting however, this seems to be slowly happening.

Me and a friend had a discussion recently. She has a job and tries her best to save every penny, which sometimes means I offer to pay for her lunch or dinner so that she won't feel stressed about going out and having a good time, which is worth the exchange for me because I would rather pay a few bucks for a nice afternoon with a friend rather than using that money on something for myself.

I've also never really had much.. stuff. Not that my family was broke, more minimalistic, staying away from purchasing things that weren't essential. As a teenager I would sometimes feel embarrassed when my friends would come around and there would be no furniture to sit on or a big TV to watch, but now as an adult I feel as though I've been blessed with a perspective of the world that appreciates people, irrespective of where they sit on the scale of wealth/poverty. After all, food, water, sleep, love and friendship are really the essentials for living in my eyes.

Also, I refuse to get a credit card. Debt sounds like a bad idea to me. I'm studying with a student loan (Sort of.. in Australia we call it HECS) and although I realize that it adds interest and takes most students about 20 years to pay off, my education seems more important.