Have you made any mistakes?

Cooper81 · January 2012

Are there any decisions/choices you made in the past that you look back and think "yep, I/we definately shouldn't have done that, or done that differently"

edited: and I don't mean things like 5 minutes later you're like " I really should have eaten those dozen cookies, or that pint of ice cream" semi or big choices/decisions

Cooper81 · January 2012

DH and I had the discussion again that we made a big mistake with our house. Of course we bought in '06 around the height of prices and when everyone thought that real estate was a sound investment. And it would have been ok if we'd bought one of the newer TH's that didn't need work, but we bought a 1960's TH that had zero updating, like ever, and sunk a lot of $ and time into it. We couldn't even get what we paid for our house 5 years ago, let alone the $ we put into it. This is the point in our lives that we thought we would be able to put the house on the market, make $ off all our rennovations and move into a SFH. Even if the market hadn't tanked, we still shouldn't have taken on a house that needed so much work, we just totally underestimated how much needed to be done and how much it would cost. We totally own that choice/decision and will definately have more realisitic expections when we do buy a new house, but we totally look back and say "yep, stupid decsion"

mrs. remy · January 2012

The big one that always jumps out at me is buying our house. We got caught up in the frenzied nature of the market and I wish I would have listened to the people who were saying the bubble had to burst eventually. Seriously, its the only thing in my life I wish I could really take back. We are just....stuck there now. Yes, I know, first world problem but I would love to live in northern Baltimore or eastern Harford county to be close to my family and DH's work and I don't see that ever happening.

There are a few other things I wish I would have done a little differently, like I wish I would have spent more time going to visit my grandparents when I was in high school and college, because once they are gone, they are gone.

mrs. remy · January 2012

haha Cooper-jinx.

Cooper81 · January 2012

Remy we were posting almost the exact same thing at the same time!

madladybride · January 2012

I wish that when I had graduated grad school the first time, I would have paid more on my loans instead of deferring them. I could have lived with roommates (instead of alone) and not bought some much useless crap. Maybe I would have more paid off and we would have been able to buy less of a fixer upper. Heck, I might even be able to work less...

gracie2762 · January 2012

I wish we didn't spend so much time and money decorating our old apartment because now we have a bunch of stuff I want to get rid of. On the flip side, I don't mean to gloat but I'm ridiculously happy we waited to buy a house when we did. I feel bad for some of our friends who are busting at the seams in a townhouse with kids when they paid more for their townhouses back then than we did for our SFH now.

tmm140 · January 2012

I have one that I am not going to discuss but everytime I think about it I kick myself HARD for. It plagues me to this day after almost 10 years.

I would also say I regret the house we bought too. At the time, I was just looking to get out of the area I was in and out of my parent's rental. So ANYTHING looked amazing. We also bought a TH that is older and has only 2 BR and 2 1/2 Bath. We weren't planning on having a LO so soon, but we ended up having DS a year and month later than when we bought the house. I just think that it will DEFINITELY be harder to sell with only 2 BR and I get worried that we are going to quickly run out of room and the LO's would have to share a room (My sister and I did for YEARS but I guess I am just thinking if in the future we have a DD)

I will say this that I am glad we bought a house that is what we could afford. DH ALWAYS complains about how he wishes we would have gotten a new TH in a newer community, but that would mean more $$ and at this time with him out of work, we would be massively behind on bills.

SarahKate31 · January 2012

DH bought our house in '06 also and, like many others, we are in the situation of not being able to sell our house for what we paid for it, and certainly not what we paid for it + the money we've spent on upgrades. But I hesitate to call that a "mistake" (though I know DH does). We didn't know the market would tank and yeah, we'd be better off if we bought later, but we have an affordable mortgage with a good rate so it could certainly be a lot worse. But if we could go back and do it again, buying a year or 2 later would have been better.

Other than that, there are choices I've made about going to the wrong college or limiting my job prospects or not being more ambitious and going to grad school, but I'm not sure I would take any of them back. Changing those things might have led me down a different path.

mrs. remy · January 2012

gracie2762:
I feel bad for some of our friends who are busting at the seams in a townhouse with kids when they paid more for their townhouses back then than we did for our SFH now.

ha, this would be us. Our real estate agent at the time was like, "oh yeah, in 5-7 years you will be able to sell this place for a profit and then you guys can look for a nice SFH home for your family." lol. Hindsight, I just keep reminding myself.

MereFM99 · January 2012

I started college pre-med, but changed majors after the 1st semester of my freshman year because I had to drop chemistry. I wanted to be a pediatric oncologist- even volunteered on oncology wings of hospitals in high school. But I partied too much, didn't study enough, and was going to fail the class, so abandoned the pre-med plan. I still feel like I missed my true calling.

However, if I had gone to med school, I would've been in a different city and ended up with a different life, and I'm pretty happy with my life the way that it is. And I'm still working in the cancer field on the public health and policy side, so I think that things turned out OK.

daisyterp · January 2012

I wish I had been a better student in college. I was very social and doing well in my classes took a backseat to the social scene and as a result I never really pursued a job in the field I studied and never got really passionate about any of my jobs. I did well for myself and I am happy to SAH now, but still wish that I had something that I at least wanted to go back to eventually.

My other big regret is the opposite of what everyone else is posting about- I wish I HAD bought a house in Federal Hill/Canton/Otterbein when smaller ones were still going for ~200K in '00- '01. It would have been a stretch, but I could have managed & then rented it out when I was in NYC easily covering my mortgage or sold it and bought something there, etc.

lauranne · January 2012

Definitely buying our house when we did. Had we waited a few years, we'd have a much bigger house and a much smaller mortgage.

TheLinkBride · January 2012

mrs. remy:
gracie2762:
I feel bad for some of our friends who are busting at the seams in a townhouse with kids when they paid more for their townhouses back then than we did for our SFH now.
ha, this would be us. Our real estate agent at the time was like, "oh yeah, in 5-7 years you will be able to sell this place for a profit and then you guys can look for a nice SFH home for your family." lol. Hindsight, I just keep reminding myself.

This is us too (minus the kids) and now I'm left wanting a SFH with a nice fenced in yard but we spent so much on our TH that has of course lost value.

meghann1046 · January 2012

Like so many others, I regret buying out house when we did. We got a "deal" on it which was awesome at the time but we now owe more than its worth.

I wish I had done an internship in college. There is/was an internship progr withan organization that could have led to my dream job love my job, I work for an amazing company, but I'm nowhere near where I thought I would be professionally.

LoveLossHopeRepeat · January 2012

Add me as yet another person who regrets her house.

We purchased in 2006 and paid for our townhouse what folks are paying for decent SFHs now. It makes me so frustrated to think about it.

I also wish we'd waited, not just for the prices to take a dive, but so that we could have afforded a home in AACo or HoCo.

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