Because I write about personal finance, some of my friends tend to mistakenly assume that I've never made a big money mistake in my life. But that's not true at all.
First, by waiting several years to contribute to your retirement account, you've missed out on years of compound interest. When I bought my first car, I bought it at a bargain price, but I ended up not getting my money back because I had to replace it within a few months of purchasing it.
However, some of the mistakes I made in my day were related to child finance. Here are his three mistakes I made so you can learn from them.
1. Buy nice clothes for your kids
When my kids were little, I wanted nicer clothes and shoes for special occasions. I ended up regretting that very much.
Very young children (that is, toddler age) tend not only to quickly outgrow their clothes and shoes, but also to completely destroy them. So after realizing I was flushing money down the toilet, I stopped that habit and started asking friends with older kids for hand-me-downs instead. To this day, I use this for everything related to clothing and sporting goods.
2. Throw an expensive birthday party
I'm really embarrassed to admit this, but I once spent over $1,000 on a birthday party at a local bounce place. To be fair, I have twins in different classes at school and I didn't want to exclude anyone, so I invited about 50 kids and almost all of them (and some siblings) showed up. answered “Yes.”
But other birthday parties I've thrown have only been slightly cheaper. A few years ago, it cost him $700 to rent a room at a video arcade for his son's party, including initial costs, pizza, goodie bags and cake. And even an inexpensive spa party I threw at my home for my daughters cost me nearly $400.
At this point, the kids know I've exhausted my birthday party budget. Nowadays, the rule is for each child to invite a few friends to dinner or participate in an activity. Sorry, you can no longer invite the “whole class”. It's a shame that I can't be more tolerant, but in the process of treating dozens of children for several hours on a trampoline, I can't help but reach my savings goal.
3. I didn't have much help with childcare when my children were young.
When my daughters were in kindergarten and my son was in kindergarten, I often didn't work an entire day because childcare coverage was limited. Her daughters' kindergarten ended at 2:30 p.m., and her son had to pick her up from school an hour later. From there, I worked full-time as a mom until the kids went to bed. And by the time they did, I was often too tired to return to my desk for more than 30 minutes.
What I should have done at that time was to be more proactive in looking for an afternoon babysitter. Yes, I would have been paying them an hourly rate that would eat into my income. However, there were many projects going on at the time, and I often had to turn down work because my time was limited, so it was economically advantageous to work more hours. Probably.
No one is perfect. As a mother, I am well aware that when trying to make a child happy, it is easy to end up spending more money than necessary. But I'm sharing these mistakes in hopes that others will learn from them and, ideally, avoid them in the first place.
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