By Bobbi Burger Brunoehler of BobbisBargains.
We all make good and bad financial decisions. Overall, I am pretty happy with mine. They have allowed me to live the kind of life that is important to me. I get to be an at-home mom and have been there to raise my kids. The trade off? Used cars and no fancy address.
Looking back at my choices, my worst financial decisions have been:
- Not buying a house 30 years ago. I knew that I would be moving a lot, so I didn’t want to buy a house. But in fact, I always stayed longer in each place than I meant to and with the rising housing market all those years, I would have made a lot of money on each turn over and I’d own my house now.
- Not putting money into
a weekly investment account.
There just never seemed to be any left over, but even if I had just put “something” aside each week it would have grown. - Not learning more about how to effectively grow money. I wish I had learned this very early on.
- Not marrying a millionaire. Well, that would have been a good financial decision, but I love my non-millionaire hubby.
- Not asking my dad more questions about finance and his experience and learning in the subject before he passed. My dad knew a lot about business and money, but he never got around to teaching it to me and I never tried hard enough to get the information. Sad.
The best financial decisions I made are:
- Paying off my credit cards in full each month. I might not know how to grow money, but I’ve accomplished something perhaps as difficult. Not growing debt.
- Balancing my checking account statement each month. This one process forces me to look at my finances with a fine tooth comb at least once a month. Doing so gives me great control of my finances and I highly recommend it to everyone. I don’t care if you think that “the bank knows what they are doing.” That is not the point. The point is – do you know what YOU are doing!
- Keeping good track of our expenses and setting-aside money for various expenses that always come up. Doing No. 2 above allows me to do this step. Having money set aside means that I don’t have to worry about how I will pay the bill when an unexpected expense arises.
- Only buying cars we can pay for in full. New cars are expensive, long story short. I have never had a car payment and I never want one.
- To always live within the means of my husband’s paycheck. Even when I was still working and before we had kids. This meant that we did not have financial obligations that would make it impossible for me to stay home and raise our kids.
What are your best and worst financial decisions?
Best financial decisions:
-paid all credit cards in full
-started a 401K when I was 25 and just keep adding to it
-lived within my financial means
-looked & researched free & inexpensive ways to have fun
@Kathie YES! I LOVE free & inexpensive ways to have fun. I think they are actually more fun than an expensive vacation. Creating your own fun instead of being a spectator to someone else’s created fun is priceless.
worst: delaying starting my TSA until I thought I could “afford it”… silly, and regretful
best: starting my TSA, increasing contributions as frequently as possible
~ using coupons ALWAYS when available
~ looking for sales/bargains
~ paying off credit cards monthly, and using the cards only when necessary
~ paying cash usually (really makes me aware of how much I’m spending)
~ having a TINY pension check (thanks to my late husband) automatically deposited to my credit union savings account and “ignoring” it so that my emergency funds build without pinching my budget, which is a terribly small teacher’s pension
~paying off my first and only new car before I retired
~ paying off my mortgage ASAP following retirement