Author Topic: Do Over  (Read 2410 times)

Roadrunner53

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3570
Do Over
« on: May 20, 2018, 08:56:57 AM »
If you could change something in your life what would do? Career, savings, having or not having children, marriage or no marriage, buying something you regret? Let us hear what you regret to help the rest of us make better decisions.

OtherJen

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 5267
  • Location: Metro Detroit
Re: Do Over
« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2018, 09:48:10 AM »
Husband and I wouldn't have bought a house when we did. We were in our mid-20s, newlyweds, and under so much pressure from everyone in our lives—seriously, not one person suggested that maybe we should just enjoy being married for a couple of years to see what worked for us. Everyone told us that it would be the best investment we would ever make, we might as well throw our money away if we were renting, etc., all the standard tropes from people we loved and trusted. Instead, the house has tied us down in ways that we didn't foresee and has limited many of our decisions, especially as its value plummeted to 20% of what we initially paid when the market crashed (5 years after we bought it) and we couldn't sell it. We're finally at the point where it would sell for more than we owe.

We're also late coming to frugality/mustachianism so we would have been subject to consequences of financial laziness regardless, but the consequences were much bigger with a house that required a planned full bathroom reconstruction two years ago (water damage from a poor remodel by the previous owners) that wiped out our home repair savings, followed that winter by the unexpected deaths of our furnace and hot water heater (which were replaced on credit because of bathroom; furnace is finally paid off and hot water heater is close). In fact, avoiding being caught out like that again was our initial incentive for high frugality. We're going to need a new roof within the next 12 months, and I want to pay cash.

If we'd skipped the newlywed house, I don't know if we would have bought when the market bottomed out, or if we'd have kept renting. Sometimes we really, really miss having a landlord. We also wish we could invest the roof money and maybe use a little of it to take a trip.

gentmach

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 448
Re: Do Over
« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2018, 11:37:20 AM »
This is a complicated thing.

1. Playing less video games in my youth. Pro: I would have skills and be in better physical shape. Con: My favorite games were SimCity, Civilization, Command and Conquer with StarCraft rounding the list out. All of these games require resource management and really hammered into me that being poor sucks.

2. Not hanging out with a specific girl in high school. She was dating a friend of mine and I didn't want things to get complicated. After they broke up the guy got toxic to everyone and the girl spiralled out of control. So things went terribly wrong even doing the "right" thing.

3. Blind loyalty to my family. I'm going to be 30 this year and still an "Omega" male. I graduated high school with dreams of making our farm work and working to improve our corner of the world.

12 years later and things have only decayed. The farm doesn't make a lot of money so we all have to work "primary" jobs to live. My brother and I have the same feeling that even if we worked 40 hour weeks things wouldn't improve. Management's attitude varies from "negligent indifference" to "take what you can get and burn it down when you leave."

Problem is, no one foresaw my grandmother living to 103. My parents wouldn't be able to keep up the house without us
 And we figure my dad will develop alzheimers at some point. So there wasn't a point to leaving since the mess would be mine to clean up anyway.

So I made all the "right" decisions. Just don't expect the world to appreciate it.

Roadrunner53

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3570
Re: Do Over
« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2018, 11:45:16 AM »
My Hub and I went to Aruba on our 16th anniversary and bought two timeshares at preconstruction prices. They really were very cheap to buy. We had one week in June and one in October. For a few years we went twice a year. Then even more stupidly we bought a 3rd one. My dream was that at some point in time, when we retired, we could swap weeks and put all three in a row and stay 3 weeks in Aruba. Well, we did go for many years but never 3 times. Tried renting out but mostly no one was interested. We had to pay maintenance fees on all 3 and one place had a bunch of bums that basically bankrupt the place and ran off. Some share holders saved the place but we had to fork over money to help out or lose our timeshare. The cost of the maintenance kept going up and up. We finally sold one timeshare which was the most expensive one and not preconstruction price. We got a real low ball price for it but knew timeshares are just about impossible to sell. Later on we just stopped going to the other two. We decided to sell them. One we sold back to the company for almost nothing. The other one would not pay us so we ended up just giving it back to unload it. We are free of them now. I really and truly miss going to Aruba. We went 22 or 23 times. Glad to be free of the timeshares. Had a wonder time but was probably a very unwise purchase. Loved our vacations though! I would suggest to never, ever buy a timeshare! There are so many timeshare owners who would be happy to rent theirs out.

golden1

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1541
  • Location: MA
Re: Do Over
« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2018, 02:50:22 PM »
I might change my career, perhaps doing something more people focused like psychology or physician assistant instead of engineering. 

Roadrunner53

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3570
Re: Do Over
« Reply #5 on: May 20, 2018, 04:01:56 PM »
I am retired now but I had thought of studying to become a paralegal. However, I worked for a law firm in another capacity many years ago. It was a very prestigious law firm but talk about CHEAP! They paid crap and if that is any indication of what they would pay a paralegal, forget it! Another career I would like to pursue if I were younger would be a Technical Writer. I did some of that at my last job but learned on the job. I really liked it a lot. One good thing about it is that you can work for a large corporation or be self employed. I would probably prefer to work for a large corp. so that I would get a steady paycheck and bennies but then maybe later in life could free lance. Those days are over for me though.

MasterStache

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2912
Re: Do Over
« Reply #6 on: May 21, 2018, 04:35:16 AM »
I might change my career, perhaps doing something more people focused like psychology or physician assistant instead of engineering.

+1

Ten years of engineering mad me realize I hate engineering. Then again I am not the type to settle into one specific job for decades. I enjoy a plethora of things. I think I would have enjoyed being a veterinarian or something in environmental science.

Roadrunner53

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3570
Re: Do Over
« Reply #7 on: May 21, 2018, 05:20:47 AM »
MasterStache, what line of engineering are you in? I used to work in R&D and it was a pretty vibrant atmosphere. For a while I was a Technician in the aseptic processing department. We Technicians worked side by side with engineers. Being R&D all the processes were hit and miss till we honed in on what worked. We had lots of problems along the way. When we finally successfully managed to process our product and our micro results came back confirming results were actually valid, we became a mini production facility till the factory was up and running. The great thing with R&D is that everything is usually always new and very challenging. Many of our engineers had handfuls of patents. As a Technician, I was also included on some patents. Kind of exciting even though the patents really belong to the company.

Maybe if you change the type of engineering you do, you might breathe new life into your current career.

gooki

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2917
  • Location: NZ
    • My FIRE journal
Re: Do Over
« Reply #8 on: May 21, 2018, 05:57:41 AM »
Getting a loan to buy a car at 18. Should have kept biking and used that money for a deposit on a home when they were $50,000.

But ultimately no real regrets. It made me learn that I hate debt.

Poundwise

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 2076
Re: Do Over
« Reply #9 on: May 21, 2018, 05:13:12 PM »
I might change my career, perhaps doing something more people focused like psychology or physician assistant instead of engineering.

+1

Ten years of engineering mad me realize I hate engineering. Then again I am not the type to settle into one specific job for decades. I enjoy a plethora of things. I think I would have enjoyed being a veterinarian or something in environmental science.

Funny, I was thinking that I might have been happier as an engineer than as a biologist/housewife...

AccidentialMustache

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 927
Re: Do Over
« Reply #10 on: May 21, 2018, 05:58:43 PM »
With the benefit of hindsight? Join paypal back when it was about palm-to-plam device payments. Got the t-shirt from a career fair, but I stayed in college.

Sibley

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 7428
  • Location: Northwest Indiana
Re: Do Over
« Reply #11 on: May 22, 2018, 12:07:07 PM »
Right now? Go back in time 7 months and not accept this job.

Overall - figure out how to get on commercial audits during my first job. Would make my current goals much easier to accomplish.

dollabillz

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 22
Re: Do Over
« Reply #12 on: May 22, 2018, 12:30:46 PM »
Should have listened to my buddy when he told me to buy bitcoin at $5...oh well.  I tell myself I would have sold at $10 a coin anyways...so I didn't lose out on much haha.

jimmymango

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 43
Re: Do Over
« Reply #13 on: May 22, 2018, 12:31:01 PM »
It's cliche, but I wish I used college more to my advantage. I had no real idea what I wanted to do, but went to school because it's the thing to do and I had an athletic scholarship. Never took advantage of all the opportunities available through school, never really sat down to think about what my priorities were, or to sketch out a rough ten-year plan, was more concerned with trying to get girls and partying, and never committed to athletics as much as I should have even though I was on scholarship. I would have been better off going to college at 28 than 18. I had a lot of fun, but it was all sound and fury, especially considering I graduated with a B.A. in English and went into publishing at a gross annual salary of $33,500, many years before I discovered FI/RE (another regret). At least I could have been miserable in a well-paying gig like all my friends who are in finance and accounting.

dougules

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2899
Re: Do Over
« Reply #14 on: May 22, 2018, 01:49:01 PM »
I would have gotten help with mental health sooner.