s/o the worst financial decision you made

[Anonymous]

Having kids. But it's all been worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Getting married. Then, doubling down on that by becoming a parent. I haven't saved a dime since and the debt just piles up.

I am in financial despair because I married young( age 23) and never had opportunity to jumpstart a career because we were constantly moving due to DH jobs. He dealt with chronic unemployment and we lived a very unstable life moving to new cities for new opportunities. During a relatively stable period, where DH was thriving at work, we had two kids. Now DH job is on the line again and we have no savings as all our savings got depleted during the periods of unemployment. So marrying him has been a serious problem for me as you can see. Now at age 35, I’m trying to figure out a way to jumpstart a career but I can’t take on school loans or anymore debt. It’s tough. It’s more than tough actually.

[Anonymous]

I did an annuity for a year then realized it's the absolute worst investment ever and lost the money. It wasn't much but still.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Getting married. Then, doubling down on that by becoming a parent. I haven't saved a dime since and the debt just piles up.

I am in financial despair because I married young( age 23) and never had opportunity to jumpstart a career because we were constantly moving due to DH jobs. He dealt with chronic unemployment and we lived a very unstable life moving to new cities for new opportunities. During a relatively stable period, where DH was thriving at work, we had two kids. Now DH job is on the line again and we have no savings as all our savings got depleted during the periods of unemployment. So marrying him has been a serious problem for me as you can see. Now at age 35, I’m trying to figure out a way to jumpstart a career but I can’t take on school loans or anymore debt. It’s tough. It’s more than tough actually.

Just take any job, like a receptionist or better would be an administrative assistance at an insurance company - if it's a decent insurance company they'll pay for you to take professional designations like the Are or CPCU (they don't cost that much anyway and are just as good as having a degree!). Don't waste money on university.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Getting married. Then, doubling down on that by becoming a parent. I haven't saved a dime since and the debt just piles up.

I am in financial despair because I married young( age 23) and never had opportunity to jumpstart a career because we were constantly moving due to DH jobs. He dealt with chronic unemployment and we lived a very unstable life moving to new cities for new opportunities. During a relatively stable period, where DH was thriving at work, we had two kids. Now DH job is on the line again and we have no savings as all our savings got depleted during the periods of unemployment. So marrying him has been a serious problem for me as you can see. Now at age 35, I’m trying to figure out a way to jumpstart a career but I can’t take on school loans or anymore debt. It’s tough. It’s more than tough actually.

Just take any job, like a receptionist or better would be an administrative assistance at an insurance company - if it's a decent insurance company they'll pay for you to take professional designations like the Are or CPCU (they don't cost that much anyway and are just as good as having a degree!). Don't waste money on university.

^ I meant administrative assistant.

[Anonymous]

Graduated from a top law school but instead of going into big law took a dead-end job with a govt agency and stayed for over a decade, leaving me with no transferable skills and no exit options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Private school bc "we could". We also could have not.

Yup- us too.

We are the same boat. We assumed income would rise more than it did. We still make enough where we "can" (and we don't get aid) but it takes a decent bite out of our lifestyle now and will definitely leave us more limited in retirement.

We've repeatedly toyed with pulling them, but they are happy and doing well, so we just haven't been able to pull the trigger.

It's hard when they're happy, but kids are resilient and can adjust. If it's affecting your retirement savings, it's too expensive. I posted about this regret earlier- we are sending our son to public middle school and using the money for his college and our retirement- debt free college and elderly, financially solvent parents will be a wonderful gift some day. I have nothing against private school btw.

Yeah, I hear you and I am sure they would be ok. But we don't NEED to do this. We aren't ignoring retirement; we just aren't saving as much as we ideally would. We should still be ok, it just might not be as luxurious or carefree as I envisioned. We also have less margin for error if something like an illness or job loss occurs.

It would be an easier decision if we made around $50k more or less. Less and we simply couldn't (or couldn't without more sacrifices than we would be willing to consider) afford it minus aid we would still likely would not get. More and we could afford it relatively easily, although we would still be far from rick by private school standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Private school bc "we could". We also could have not.

Yup- us too.

We are the same boat. We assumed income would rise more than it did. We still make enough where we "can" (and we don't get aid) but it takes a decent bite out of our lifestyle now and will definitely leave us more limited in retirement.

We've repeatedly toyed with pulling them, but they are happy and doing well, so we just haven't been able to pull the trigger.

It's hard when they're happy, but kids are resilient and can adjust. If it's affecting your retirement savings, it's too expensive. I posted about this regret earlier- we are sending our son to public middle school and using the money for his college and our retirement- debt free college and elderly, financially solvent parents will be a wonderful gift some day. I have nothing against private school btw.

Yeah, I hear you and I am sure they would be ok. But we don't NEED to do this. We aren't ignoring retirement; we just aren't saving as much as we ideally would. We should still be ok, it just might not be as luxurious or carefree as I envisioned. We also have less margin for error if something like an illness or job loss occurs.

It would be an easier decision if we made around $50k more or less. Less and we simply couldn't (or couldn't without more sacrifices than we would be willing to consider) afford it minus aid we would still likely would not get. More and we could afford it relatively easily, although we would still be far from rick by private school standards.

pp here- I think you have to put your money where it makes sense for you and if your kids are thriving, I can see why you wouldn't want to rock the boat. I just wanted to be a voice to say that we were heavily invested in the private school thing- when we realized that our particular school wasn't meeting DS's needs, we decided to take a plunge to public school.

So far, I have been happy with the leadership, responsiveness and educational opportunity in public. If you ever decide to take this step and you live in a good district, you likely won't be shortchanging your kids. I know for us, that was the worry- that we were putting ourselves ahead of our son, but it hasn't turned out like that at all. Again, I get why people love private school but just some reassurance that there are other great options if it becomes a strain.

[Anonymous]

I had a 401K in my first job out of college. I took the money out to go to law school instead of just leaving it there. Stupid.

[Anonymous]

They need to teach personal finance in schools. I was so ignorant for so long.

[Anonymous]

Getting a PhDi n the humanities. I had no idea what opportunity costs were. I did have an idea that job prospects weren't good but I did it anyway, for myself. I love school. I wish however that my insular, blue collar parents had made some effort to give me a financial education at some point in my youth. They had only high school educations and never once talked to me about job prospects, investing, retirement or anything like that. I don't blame them. It simply wasn't something they were capable of. I would have been much better off with an MA and more of a career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They need to teach personal finance in schools. I was so ignorant for so long.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kept my TSP investments in the G fund for the first 2.5 years of my Fed career. Whoops

If it makes you feel any better, I know several people who were invested in the G fund for a lot longer than 2.5 years.

[Anonymous]

Buying a car with a credit card — it was only 4 grand, but that was a lot for me at the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Becoming a journalist.

Me, too, although I've enjoyed my career even if it's financially not so great, especially as a single parent. But I went both into journalism and solo parenting with eyes wide open and have no regrets. So they're not bad decisions to me, just ones that mean we don't have a lot of money.