Find the position of the first occurrence of any number in string

function my_offset($text) {
    preg_match('/\d/', $text, $m, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
    if (sizeof($m))
        return $m[0][1]; // 24 in your example

    // return anything you need for the case when there's no numbers in the string
    return strlen($text);
}

The built-in PHP function strcspn() will do the same as the function in Stanislav Shabalin's answer when used like so:

strcspn( $str , '0123456789' )

Examples:

echo strcspn( 'That will be $2.95 with a coupon.' , '0123456789' ); // 14
echo strcspn( '12 people said yes'                , '0123456789' ); // 0
echo strcspn( 'You are number one!'               , '0123456789' ); // 19

HTH

function my_ofset($text){
    preg_match('/^\D*(?=\d)/', $text, $m);
    return isset($m[0]) ? strlen($m[0]) : false;
}

should work for this. The original code required a - to come before the first number, perhaps that was the problem?