If you could do one thing over.............

[2moretrees]

Looking back on your finances, if you could do one thing over, what would it be? I would have paid less attention to the deductible on my health insurance and made sure that we had higher catastrophic insurance. Live and learn.

[PrincessPerky]

oh yeah much better insurance! My CC bill is almost all due to the uncomplicated natural birth of my daughter (second kid). the first was great insurance a grand total of 270$ for his not so drug free birth. I wont depress you with the cost of the second.

I also would have spent less time being a typical DINK (Dual Income No Kids). Nothing wrong with the time before kids, just the way money was spent. To have the days where I forgot to cash my paycheck for weeks cause I just didn't need the money back. (have them back so I could promply cash the things and earn interest on them! I could have invested back then! in something more worthwhile than dinner out every other night!)

[crosses]

I wouldn't have traded in for a new car every other year when we were young. What a waste. It still bothers me when I think about it.

[singinjeannie]

Just one thing? I can think of a hundred...
I'd say I'd have spent more wisely before children came along and I would have actually saved money instead of just spending every dime that came in the door.

[kashi]

I would have gone to a state school rather than a private college and incurred much less educational debt. It still seems stupid to me, and I'm sure it will until I pay it off!

[marla]

I wouldn't have used a credit card in college to play with my friends. A good time then, but I'm still paying for it now. I'm sure I could have still had a good time without spending all the money on the credit cards.

[txjman]

I convinced myself that I needed a truck. Although I feel I use my truck more than the average person. I should have bought an economical car and a used truck. I probably would have spent less on two vehicles combined than the one I have now.

[vendigirl]

We put a 50K downpayment on a 123K house 4 years ago. We had 30 K in Student Loan debt that we were struggling to pay off. We eventually refinanced but we could only take out 25K. We used some of that money for loan payments- but not all. I don't even know where the rest went! I would have done that all differently if had known then what I do now. Live and learn.

I would have chosen a different contractor to redo my sunroom. I gave the business to my neighbor because he's my neighbor and has been in the business awhile. We even had a quote $1,000 less but we wanted to get a quality product.
However, he took 6 months to even start the job, then screwed us over and tried to charge an additional $250 when he had left tons of remodeling trash on our lawn and holes in an adjacent room.
Things got hairy, so now we have a strained relationship with someone we live next to and we're out $1,000 we could have saved.

[PennyPincher]

I would have stayed in my first house longer than 10 months. I was anxious to get out when a nicer, new product was built, but I'm going to get killed with capital gains taxes - at over 30%. I wish I hadn't been so antsy, and stayed there two years so I could keep all the profit. The only good thing is that I've rented it out. But I could have done that down the road... It appreciated over $60,000 in less than a year ~ and someday the govt. is going to get a HUGE chunk of that.

[2moretrees]

Ahhhhh, if we could just go back in time. At least it seems that everyone has learned a bit from the mistakes.