Author Topic: what would you take a do-over on from the past decade of your life? why?  (Read 17916 times)

iris lily

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Re: what would you take a do-over on from the past decade of your life? why?
« Reply #50 on: October 17, 2014, 06:57:51 PM »
We lived through the real estate run-up of 1995 - 2000 watching many houses in our neighborhood of Victorians be flipped for a nice profit. Our neighborhood was in the top 5% of 'nabes in my city that appreciated most in that whole real estate rage. DH has all of the skills to do a flip, he does this stuff for a living. We had enough money to do a flip.

Yet--we did not buy any of them.

And I have only one regret, that we didn't buy one house half a block away from where we live. It is a modest house with a huge yard. We could have rented that house out and farmed the yard.

Instead, we ended up buying several little junky houses in order to get more land. We really just want the land, not the houses. They are not habitable. I know this sounds crazy, but we were just kinda into collecting tiny houses that had nice size lots there for a while. Now we need to sell one of them and I'll be sad when it's gone.

But back to the thing I regret: the one we did not buy was habitable and would have appreciated nicely, and I would have been able to have a nice  lily garden within a short walk and have tenants that were decent.

MoneyCat

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Re: what would you take a do-over on from the past decade of your life? why?
« Reply #51 on: October 17, 2014, 07:07:21 PM »
I would have taken charge of my financial situation a lot sooner if I could redo the last decade.  I was a mess ten years ago -- shitty credit, no savings, no investments, low-paying job, girlfriend stealing my money.  I can't even believe I'm the same person.  Maybe I'm not.

Pooperman

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Re: what would you take a do-over on from the past decade of your life? why?
« Reply #52 on: October 17, 2014, 07:59:58 PM »
Read MMM before graduating. Gone to a school where I had 3/4 scholarship instead of one where I had none (not that I paid anything either way). Taken alternative avenues to find employment instead of letting pride get in my way for a year.

Really though, I'd change nothing. Without these events, I would have nothing to make me realize how stupid I was then and how even now I've got improvement to do history is 20/20, which is very hard to do in the present especially for yourself.

Credaholic

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Re: what would you take a do-over on from the past decade of your life? why?
« Reply #53 on: October 17, 2014, 09:46:38 PM »
Maxed out retirement accounts, just put this on auto and never miss the money going into savings. Even without compounding, we'd be sitting on at least half a mil!

This is slightly more than a decade ago, but I would have majored in engineering/computer science/math from the get go. My first degree is in English. WTF. I ended up getting a BS in Computer Science 7 years later, but at that point we were starting a family and I wanted to be home, so I still haven't fully pursued this career path and don't know how easy it will be to get into by the time my kids are both in school.

Wouldn't change the timing of the kids or my marriage though! Not too early and not too late, just right. The one thing I wonder if I'll regret 10 or more years from now is our decision to stop at 2 kids. It's the only thing that seems sane right now (hello, sleep deprivation! and providing well for who we've already got) but my grandmother is in my ear to have 4 children, that a large family is all that matters once you reach her age. I have the niggling suspicion in the back of my head everytime I think of Dr. Snip that she might be right...

sol

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Re: what would you take a do-over on from the past decade of your life? why?
« Reply #54 on: October 17, 2014, 10:21:43 PM »
I should have told that redhead to take a long walk off a short pier. 

Don't get involved with crazy people, mustachians.  One wrong decision can have a lifetime of negative repercussions, and it's never the decisions you think are important that can end up really screwing you over.

pachnik

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Re: what would you take a do-over on from the past decade of your life? why?
« Reply #55 on: October 18, 2014, 07:28:35 AM »
If I could have a do-over for the last decade of my life, I would find this website on the first day of it.  Sure, I never took on consumer debt but i didn't save very much either.  I would have saved more and maybe be semi-retired now.   


Credaholic

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Re: what would you take a do-over on from the past decade of your life? why?
« Reply #56 on: October 18, 2014, 08:36:53 AM »
If I could have a do-over for the last decade of my life, I would find this website on the first day of it.  Sure, I never took on consumer debt but i didn't save very much either.  I would have saved more and maybe be semi-retired now.

I DID find this website right as it was started, and I was even the first "case study" he ever featured. I still didn't go all the way Mustachian back then (it took 3 more years before we set DH's 401K to max out, and I only just realized my options for my own 401K!) but we did increase our savings rate exponentially as a result, and the changes I made then are directly responsible for where we are at this very moment.