During and right after college: credit cards! I felt I had to charge christmas and trips home, I should have just said nobody is getting presents and I'm not coming to town I'm broke. For some reason I felt I couldn't and this went on for a couple years until low and behold I was 10K in debt.

Recent years the stupidest thing we did was cashing in our 401k a few years ago when my dh changed jobs instead of rolling it over. Wow we lost over 15k in taxes on that one! Live and learn!

Lately I'm doing pretty good, but I do wish we would have waited a few more months before we bought this house we are in now. We depleted our savings to buy it so now we are stuck trying to rebuild the emergency fund.

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A woman is like a teabag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.-Eleanor Roosevelt

Without a doubt, credit cards!! They are a lifesaver at times and evil temptation also.

Credit Cards!!! Hands down!!!! I have next to no willpower or self-restraint with them, so when we paid them off last December (2005), we closed them and won't use them again until it isn't my first thought when buying something. I still think about them during holidays and how they would be sooooooooooo helpful. But I made it through the holidays without them this year and see that it can be done if I do the bargain shopping all year.



Another thing is that we don't have a college savings for our kids. There will be a point when we will have all 3 in college at the same time, so we need to start a savings.....pronto!!! I'm hoping that once we get the van paid off (13 months to go) that we will be able to put that nearly $500 a month in accounts for the kids.

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Not buying a house during the housing boom a few years ago. Instead... we bought a duplex a town away. Dh wanted it to collect the rent so he wouldn't hae to work. We had a land agreement on it and 1 1/2 years ago, my in-laws had to take a home-equity on there house to help us out(buing the duplex) (in our own name). Now the wntire rent on the duplex goes to the h.e. loan and for taxws. We don't see a dime. In the meantime... we are renting a townhouse that is too small for our family.

Mine was usign my student loans for grad school, I was aworking and could have paid for it and lived frugally, but instead I used the loans and lived nice. Not a huge deal, but it would have been 80 more a month now.

The other one is DH's (which he does not think it stupid). We had a minivan and a civic that I had bought and then worked really hard in the summer to pay off. Dh was driving the civic (which was very new, just didn't have power anything) While I was at work one day, dh went out and bought a new civic (because he wanted power windows)

Holy crap!! I would be so ticked if my hubby made such a huge financial decision without talking to me about it first! I would never do that to him either. I can see why you think it was a mistake.

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Not saving money. I never had a savings account until I was married (neither did DH). HUGE, HUGE, HUGE mistake. We have one, just not much in there, but it's a beginning. Credit cards, they're a mistake when you're not responsible about them (I wasn't. I am now).

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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass~ It's about learning to dance in the Rain

This is soo me.. So easy to use in a bind, and such a temptation when you want something badly!

I was never taught about money. I just worked paid my bills. So my biggest mistakes are

1. Credit card debt. I could have probably bought my house outright for what I have charged in cc.
2. Not having a Savings account and not touching it.
3. Feeling intitled to everything and I'll pay it off later.

Not going to make the same mistakes with the kids.