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I've made a few mistakes with money,
and while I've learned from any of them,
there are certain spending decisions
I wouldn't make the same way again.
Some of them ultimately cost me hundreds
to potentially thousands of dollars in the long run,
while others simply locked me into a situation
with fewer options.
Here are five grown up purchases I didn't fully think through
and what I'd do differently now.
Number one, bought all new furniture
from my first apartment.
Did you know that when you buy and put together
a bed frame from IKEA it will be impossible to relocate it?
I sure didn't.
When I moved into my first post-college apartment
and had a real if small paycheck for the first time,
I got all new flat pack furniture
from various big chains.
Some of those things have shockingly
stood the test of time, but most did not
follow me beyond my first apartment
because they were literally impossible to disassemble
without breaking.
I had to leave behind and then replace a bed frame, dresser,
and a TV stand.
I could have purchased good quality second hand
versions of these things for the same amount of money
from the get-go and they wouldn't
have needed replacing just three years later.
Number two, didn't properly take care of my car.
When I bought my first car in college,
I knew absolutely nothing about car maintenance.
I used to assume every repair would cost an arm and a leg
so I took my car in for maintenance checks a lot less
frequently than I should have.
Eventually, my car ended up breaking down
after about five years.
Something I think could have ultimately
been avoided if I'd stuck to a regular maintenance schedule.
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Number three, several all new wedding
guest dresses each year.
Once I hit 25, it suddenly felt like I had multiple weddings
to attend a year.
And aside from 2020, it hasn't slowed down.
For a few years, I felt like I just
had to buy a new dress for every wedding I was invited to.
Then when it came time for my own wedding,
I splurged on some pretty nice quality
dresses for the auxiliary events surrounding the big day.
My bridal shower, rehearsal dinner, et cetera.
Because I bought them purely based on my own tastes
and preferences, these ended up being some of my very favorite
dresses I've ever purchased.
So much so that I started wearing them
to other people's weddings instead of buying something
new each time.
I wish I had simply thought to only invest in one nice dress
year that I felt great in rather than multiple just OK options.
I literally only ever wear these things to weddings,
so it just doesn't make sense to have so many taking up
so much space in my closet.
Number four, picking the more expensive college.
It's no secret that American society
doesn't do prospective college students any favors when
it comes to paying for college.
I picked my college based on where
I was most excited about going, which
was a private liberal arts college several states away,
rather than going the most affordable route like getting
in-state tuition at a public University.
Now, I had no interest in staying in my home state
for school and part of me will always
be glad I went somewhere more out of my comfort zone,
but I was left with a hefty amount of student loans,
including private loans that haven't
had the pandemic deferment options
that federal loans have.
And it made it the most expensive decision
of my life thus far.
I could have lessened the burden by picking a slightly less
expensive school or even going to community
college for a few years before transferring to my dream
school.
Number five, buying a cheaper computer.
When I was in my early 20s, I had several contractor jobs
that didn't provide me with my own laptop
and eventually I needed to replace my MacBook
for my college days.
But I didn't really have the money to spend on a MacBook,
nor did I really want to go on a financing plan.
I ended up dropping $200 on a PC model
that was touted to be just as good as what I was used to.
It worked well for a few months, but then started
getting viruses at a level I had not
seen since we got my first family
computer in the early 2000s.
It would also constantly restart itself
without warning to update its software.
I'm sure some of this was compounded by my own user
error.
I'm certainly no expert in cybersecurity best practices,
but it was annoying enough to deal with that I finally
caved and bought a new Mac laptop within six months.
I should have just stuck with what I knew worked
and what I was comfortable with from the get go
rather than waste 200 extra dollars
and a lot of frustrating hours on something that
simply didn't work as well.
Of course, none of these spending decisions
ruined my life, and I'm glad to have learned something
from each of them.
If nothing else, I've learned to almost never go
for the cheapest option just for the sake of spending
less in the moment because that's so often what cost me
more in the long run.