biggest financial mistake/regret?

[Deleted]

I think mine is that I rented apartments for 10+ years after college instead of buying something.

[phunluvin82]

Not asking for H's credit report/financials before we got married. I would have still married him, but at least I would have known what I was in for!

[makingithappen]

buying my house. Maybe not buying a house, but trying to go ultra conservative and getting something that I knew would be short term.
Also, signing for 2 of X's cars. That was probably the bigger mistake since I ended up having to pay them off and sold for a loss.

[Deleted]

Buying a house in 2006.

[Deleted]

Losing the info to pay my CC while I was in Europe. I went 3 months w/ out paying anything for no reason (I had money). I should have just called my Dad & had him pay it for me. It my only ding on myCC report (it's gone now since that was 10+ yrs ago).

[Deleted]

Making very aggressive payments on my government student loans.

It made a lot of sense on my private loans that couldn't be consolidated and were at very high rates, but once I got rid of those I should have paid my low-rate government loans a lot more slowly than I have, so I could invest the money instead.

Oh well.

[rosiedozie]

A few years ago my H wanted to buy some gold, but I thought it was stupid. Gold was $900 an ounce and although we could have afforded 5 or 6 ounces, I only agreed to buy one. Its now worth $1,700 an ounce.

[Deleted]

Not being more patient when house hunting. I love our house, but it is small. A few other, larger houses in our neighborhood (which was the biggest selling point) came on the market a few months later.

[thatgirl2478]

Buying the house that we just moved from. We didn't know enough then to know how to pick a neighborhood/location. As much as we enjoyed living there, not many other people do so we couldn't sell when we needed to.

[explorer2001]

ExH: marrying him, supporting him financially, paying for him to go back to and fail out of school, getting stuck with all the debt he ran up because of community property para and him being last and unemployed, thousands a year in therapy to recover from.the abuse, etc.

[my4girls]

letting all our downpayment money sit in a savings account for 5+ years rather then taking advantage of the interest rates on CDs years ago. we thought we would buy way sooner then we did. It wasn't long enough that we wanted to do anything even semi aggressive with it but we could easily have put it in CDs and made something more then the piddly we did

[Awkward]

My only regret (so far, lol) is allllll my student loans. I really should have stayed in state, even though that would mean I wouldn't have the friends, job, or SO that I have now.

[womet]

Sept 25, 2012 14:45:06 GMT -5 Awkward said:

My only regret (so far, lol) is allllll my student loans. I really should have stayed in state, even though that would mean I wouldn't have the friends, job, or SO that I have now.

This. I wish I would have gotten a job after my masters degree back home rather than start on my PhD immediately. I could have lived at home or with friends, and then I could have gone after my PhD when my undergrad institution started offering it.

[Deleted]

my regret is actually not spending enough money.

I was adamant about having an efund and not taking on any consumer debt in college, so I passed up on way too many experiences--every girls vacation, meals out for people's birthdays, etc. I should have unclenched a bit and at least gone on one trip with my friends. I have $2.5k sitting in my personal checking account now that I would trade in an instant just to spend a weekend with my friends.

[froggy76]

Buying a house in 2006. Not sure I really regret it, though, since I need to live somewhere and I still like the location.

Not spending more on travel pre-kid.

[yellowbrkrd]

Leasing a car.

[Deleted]

Buying a co-op in 2005. That worthless piece of property is a headache. :-(

[farfalla2011]

Buying my house in 2008 - right before the market in my area tanked with 3.5% down. I'm still stuck with said house with a 6.5% interest rate not able to refinance (it was mine and XH's marital home and is now leased out). The market is just now starting to turn around (the suburb my house is in had a ton of foreclosures and short sales) so I'm hoping in another year I may be able to sell.

Buying a brand new car in 2010 with barely any money down. I was way upside down on it when I sold it in February because I couldn't afford the payments and drained my savings to get out of it and into an affordable car. While I'm much less stressed now, I really miss seeing the 5K in savings.

[smilelari]

Buying a house in 2005.

Buying a brand new car (2010)

Not following a strict budget before we had to.

[mbcdefg]

Not putting more money in savings, or toward SL payments, for the time I was living at home post-college.

Not paying closer attention to my 401(k) when I was younger, and not rolling it over into something else when I left previous jobs.

[kelly072206]

Buying a house with 0 down in 2006 with an 80/20 loan. This is a headache now since we can't refi both and are paying crazy interest rates.

[mollz007]

Not waiting until I was out of college and had a full time job before getting married.

[Chirp]

My life from the time I turned 19 until just after I turned 23. OMG was that a trainwreck of epic proportions.

[Deleted]

Sept 25, 2012 15:22:17 GMT -5 @crackhabit said:

Sept 25, 2012 14:52:09 GMT -5 tacom said:

my regret is actually not spending enough money.

I was adamant about having an efund and not taking on any consumer debt in college, so I passed up on way too many experiences--every girls vacation, meals out for people's birthdays, etc. I should have unclenched a bit and at least gone on one trip with my friends. I have $2.5k sitting in my personal checking account now that I would trade in an instant just to spend a weekend with my friends.

lame! try again. lol.

it's worse than it sounds! lol.

seriously, all my friends have albums and albums of pictures because they went to awesome places (CA, FL, NYC) for winter/spring breaks, and I'm not included in any of it. I also was one of the only ones who didn't study abroad in Rome. they share all these memories and experiences that I will never have, and that chapter of my life is over.

I plan to travel once I have a career and the means to fund it, but it's never going to be the same as actually living abroad with your best friends from college.

in the grand scheme of things, I don't value the (relatively) small amount of money I saved by opting out of these experiences as much as I believe I would have valued the experiences themselves.

[Melissa W.]

I wish I had focused on taking the CPA exam earlier in my career. I am thinking about taking it next year and it terrifies me because I have been out of school for so long.

[countthestars]

I wish that I had started putting more into retirement earlier.

[SJ]

Sept 25, 2012 15:28:56 GMT -5 tacom said:

Sept 25, 2012 15:22:17 GMT -5 @crackhabit said:

lame! try again. lol.

it's worse than it sounds! lol.

seriously, all my friends have albums and albums of pictures because they went to awesome places (CA, FL, NYC) for winter/spring breaks, and I'm not included in any of it. I also was one of the only ones who didn't study abroad in Rome. they share all these memories and experiences that I will never have, and that chapter of my life is over.

I plan to travel once I have a career and the means to fund it, but it's never going to be the same as actually living abroad with your best friends from college.

in the grand scheme of things, I don't value the (relatively) small amount of money I saved by opting out of these experiences as much as I believe I would have valued the experiences themselves.

This makes me really sad. I'm sorry

[Susie]

I have a lot of bitterness/frustration about my and Calvin's collective SL balances, and appurtenant circumstances, but I can't say concretely what I'd have done differently, so I guess it's not really a regret.

[crazycakes]

"Helping" ex-boyfriend buy a car. We ended up breaking up just months later and he stopped paying me. I had to sue him (we got invited to Judge Judy!) and his mom ended up paying me back. Luckily I put it on my credit card rather than co-signing or something, so I was only out the interest for those months (I kept up with just over the minimum payments until I was able to pay off the balance with his mom's check).

Lesson learned, I guess.

[fuddyduddy]

Using one year of my GI Bill benefits toward a degree I won't use. I should have saved it until I was more sure of the degree and subsequent career path I wanted.