Poor Financial Decisions You've Made

[OH_Homeschooler]

So, this economy has got me thinking about some poor financial decisions I've made in the past and how laughable they are now. I can't think of a single big chunk of change I've wasted but I do think about how I've maybe nickel and dimed myself out of a fortune. One thing I couldn't stop spending money on in my youth was cheap exercise equipment. If there was a fun-looking gadget that I thought would be *the thing* that motivated me to exercise, I'd buy it. The worst thing I can think of is the Orbitrek elliptical machine I got off an infomercial. I loved using the elliptical machines at the gym when I was a college student, so I thought great! I could have one in my home for $200! Well, you get what you pay for. I also bought lots of other cheap things like a $20 stepper. Yeah, that lasted one exercise session before breaking into a hundred pieces (actually, it leaked oil everywhere).

 

I also sometimes wonder if it was worth it to get into student loan debt to complete one year of post-graduate study. I thought I would complete my masters degree, but decided after the first year that I wasn't into it. But sadly, I'm still paying off the debt.

 

So what decisions have you made that you wish you could go back in time and stop yourself, knowing what you know now? :bigear:

[Diane]

When realestate in Florida was booming, we bought two pieces of land. We bought it at the end of the boom, and had an inkling that it was coming to an end, but bought anyway. Well, one lot that we paid 48K for, we could possibly get 12K for at the moment, and the other one is even less. In the meantime we still have to pay taxes and dues on them yearly. :001_huh: The good thing is that they are paid off. So, hopefully, by the time we retire, in another 30 years, they will be worth something. I hope.

[NicksMama-Zack's Mama Too]

the year my oldest was born, I bought and traded online. I watched my AOL stock climb and climb (wasn't I just the smartest mommy!). Every morning as I nursed, I watched the little ticker go up, up and up. Easy money.

 

Well.....I couldn't accept that it wouldn't keep going up. It doubled so quickly, surely it would keep going....HAHAHA

 

The last few years we have taken losses on our AOL/TW shares to offset my dh's better selection of stock pics.

 

K

(retired daytrader)

[cathmom]

Where should I start?

 

:)

[Mama Lynx]

DH's first good contracting job: We were too naive to realize what we had, what it meant, and that it wouldn't last.

 

We could have gotten ourselves out of debt at that point. Instead, we spent unwisely. We followed that with the burst of the tech industry, unemployment, two failed businesses, and then more unemployment. :lol:

 

Oh, well.

[Danestress]

We have a really nice house. And it has it's good points. It's 5 minutes from DH's work, and is worth a lot to us. I'm not interested in losing hours a week with DH to a commute. It's a great neighborhood and we have made real friends here. It was zoned for the right high school for my older DS. It's a mile from my parents. We can walk to the tennis club.

 

And we can afford the mortgage. It's a big mortgage, but we can afford it.

 

It's just that sometimes I think that if we had bought a little house in a more marginal neighborhood, we could save so much more for retirement and college. We could go to Europe. My kids could have more violin lessons and camps. We just would be freer. I would have less house to clean.

 

I guess in 20 year, I will be able to tell you if it was truly a mistake or not. We have been happy here, but it's a burden at times.

[Rosy]

The worst one was not taking better care of my teeth when I was in my 20's. In the space of one year I had to get 5 (I think?) root canals, about that many crowns, a couple extractions, and I still need a bridge...we'll have spent many thousands of dollars by the time everything's paid for. :(

[Alenee]

credit card debt...paid off with inheritance....credit card debt...paid off with 401k....credit card debt....paid off with house sale. None of the purchases were huge. Just a little here, a little there until we were in over our heads. I was the culprit with that for the most part.

 

We've got a tiny bit of credit debt right now but for the first time in our marriage, we aren't eagerly trying to add to it. I finally realized my major folly. You know, "Live within my means!" Duh...:001_huh: Things I definitely wish I'd never done.

[Heather in the Kootenays]

Not buying shares in a high tech start up when they were offered. I thought it would be best to pay off the mortgage. Expensive mistake.

[Adrianne]

We bought a dodge truck with a crew cab and extended bed, a major gas guzzler before the gas prices started to hike. Dh drives it alone to work about 40 miles round trip every day. I won't tell you what we spend in gas every week.

 

The truck is great for the farm work we need it for but man, I can't get over the amount of money it uses just driving dh to and from work every day.

 

I wish he could get a prius or something small just to drive to work. Or convince his boss he needs a gas allowance. (he does make work related deliveries using the truck and drives to meetings occasionally)

[hsmamainva]

Buying an SUV!!!!

 

Our minivan died and, because I hate driving in snow with a passion, we bought a 4 wheel drive SUV (we needed something that would seat 6, because that's how many members of our family there are -- and it also includes room for the pets, because we have 3 dogs and a cat).

 

But...that was before gas prices went through the roof!! :(

 

My SUV gets barely 15 mpg and it drives me crazy!!! And it won't be paid off for another 3 years!! And, they're offering next to nothing on it as a trade-in (we've already tried!), so we're stuck! And, wouldn't you know...we haven't had a decent snowfall since we bought it! :glare:

[BritAnnia]

Does insisting on moving back to the UK qualify?

In 1994 I'd had enough of living in the US and I insisted we move 'back home'. We sold our house, sold or gave away all our electrical goods and shipped the rest of our household items back to England.

Our dc were 2yo and 4yo and I was 6 months pregnant. We had nowhere to go, no job lined up, my dh didn't even have a residency permit for the UK yet.

I went alone with the kids to stay with my parents in their little 2 bedroom house and my dh stayed in the US to continue working until closer to my due date. He then came over, ds#2 was born, we sorted his dual citizenship and, were lucky enough to get Dh his work permit as well. Dh returned to the US to finalize stuff here, work his notice and all that... and a week later I phoned him to say I'd changed my mind and thought the best place to raise our kids was the US. :blushing:

All our household goods, still packed and held in storage after being shipped to the UK was promptly returned to the US. Dh bought the house next door to his parents as a short term housing solution... :lol: and we're still here 13 years later. That serves me right, eh? ;)

[Retired]

Purchased in a point system at $1.00 a point, they are only worth 35 cents a point now, 5 year later. I just donated to charity at a 1/4 of what we paid for it. I can't even write off the purchase price.

 

Second big mistake, not breaking up my stock option earlier. We lost about $20,000 during 9/11.

 

So in all we have wasted a year's pay in stupid/dumb financial decision.

 

We have learned from our mistakes. We are really trying to be more financial savvy and plan for retirement

[jmgconner]

Oh, we've done stupid with a capital STUPID! I'm not even sure where to begin- probably with my first job. I spent every penny I made. Didn't save a dime. HAD to have a car, ya know. Student loans. Graduate school student loans. Cars. A truck. ARM mortgage. Credit card debt out the wazoo. Most of it seemed reasonable at the time, but we never had a plan in place so we just went wherever the commercials told us to go... LOL!

 

BUT, there's hope! For us it was Dave Ramsey. Now, no credit cards! Paid for vehicles! Conventional mortgage within our 25% range! Ummm, still paying for student loans. :tongue_smilie:

[Amber in SJ]

I can't say we wouldn't do it all again, but our questionable financial decision looks like this:

 

Three years ago MIL called my husband in the middle of the day. He was home because our fourth child had been born three days earlier. I mention this because I like to think that sleep deprivation played a part in our decision making process. She was calling to tell us that she was going to be out on the street because the bank was foreclosing on her house. One of the things that made this so shocking was less than 10 years earlier she had received a $500K divorce settlement and 3 years earlier she received a $200K inheritance. When she received the inheritance money she quit her job. Shortly after she was diagnosed with MS and even though the doc said otherwise, she claimed not to be able to work. She said had no one else to call as her other sons were unable (unwilling) to help.

 

So what was the bad financial decision? We paid off her house. Yessiree Bob, and we did it the the stupidest way possible. We emptied a retirement account DH had from a former job. Do you know why you are not supposed to take money out of a retirement account before you retire? Because the penalties & taxes will kill you. That year instead of the couple hundred we usually get back we owed $35K! It was a tough three years and we are just barely back on our feet. We now own a house in a place that we would never live, in a bad neighborhood that would take tons of work to sell. Even worse my MIL decided that we were rich and started calling us whenever she wanted something. When we refused to buy her a new dishwasher, replace the windows because she didn't like her old ones or replace her car she started telling interesting stories to the rest of the family. We started hearing that we plan on kicking her out & selling the house when our oldest is ready for college. She told the notary, in front of me, that we were forcing her to "give" us her house. She even told someone that she thought we had drugged her to make her "give" us the house. Some family members believe her.

 

Whew! Sorry this got so long. My DH just paid the homeowners insurance on that house and in November we will pay the property taxes. I guess you can say we are still paying for our mistake.

 

Amber in SJ

[Jumping In Puddles]

credit card debt. Crazy, stupid credit cards. :(

[laylamcb]

I haven't made a financial mistake that I haven't learned from, so I guess that's a good thing. Two things qualify, I guess, as mistakes. The first is that I bought stocks directly rather than mutual funds. I simply cannot handle that kind of fluctuation and volatility; it gave me ulcers. So we sold our Cisco, Microsoft, and Oracle stock, claimed the loss on our taxes, and now only invest in stock funds and bonds. The second is that I wish I'd gone with my gut and sold our house 2 years ago. We bought 6 years ago, so we're OK--but we'd have made quite a bit of money had we sold and rented for a couple of years. But then, we've LOVED living here.

 

So in the end, it's all good. As Ric Edelman says, when it comes to investing, bulls and bears both do fine. Pigs get slaughtered. :D

[Jami]

Well student loans are kind of a pain to still be paying on, but they're hard to completely regret.

 

We probably should have stayed in our first home and made it work for us. But housing prices were rising, we had equity faster than we thought we would, and when dh needed a home office, we thought we needed extra space. So we moved to a neighborhood that was supposed to keep improving rapidly and we wanted to get in on that. And it was near several of our close friends. But then the housing market started slowing, right when it was time to sell. And we didn't have the equity we'd hoped to have had. But if we'd stayed in our first house, it most likely would have sold better and we would have owed less giving us more of a profit.

 

Ah well. Hindsight and all that. :001_smile:

 

Now we're renting for the time being and will probably be very slow to purchase our next home.

 

Jami

[elegantlion]

The latest? buying this house. Dh might disagree with me. We have equity when we plan to sell, however....

 

We have to finish the remodel before we put it on the market. Our market hasn't crashed but is moving slowly and no one seems to want a fixer-upper in the midst of remodel. I can't blame them.

We have tons of trees that we had hoped to remove by now.

We've been here two years and hoped to have it all done by now.

 

We seriously would have moved already if we hadn't of purchased. I pray it will all work out in the end.

[1bassoon]

credit card debt...paid off with inheritance....credit card debt...paid off with 401k....credit card debt....paid off with house sale. None of the purchases were huge. Just a little here, a little there until we were in over our heads. I was the culprit with that for the most part.

 

 

:iagree: I'm there, Carli :glare:

[Mom to Aly]

The worst one was not taking better care of my teeth when I was in my 20's.

 

This is something I truly wish I had done differently--I haven't paid for it yet, because I can't, but I have very bad gum disease, because I didn't get scaling done when my ex was here & I could afford it (he insisted I not spend the money), and my teeth are slowly, or not so slowly, shifting and really bad now.

 

Plus, over the years, I have accumulated basically every color of nail polish in the world. At least one of each. Seriously. And nail polish is not as cheap as some would think--good brands! And a lot of makeup, from when I had money, a lot of it Clinique, unopened, and I don't wear makeup really! I think those were thinks I bought when I was down.

 

When we are out of money at the end of each money, and all we have is beans or something (luckily we LOVE beans), I sometimes take out my box of makeup and look at it :(.

[Blossom'sGirl]

When I was pregnant with our first the whole 2K scare was going on so we had withdrawn a good chunk of our money from the bank. Well, we had this salesman come and gave us the hard pitch on how useless regular smoke alarms are and pretty much scared me to death for the life of our unborn baby. He sold them to us that night (over $1000) using the cash we had withdrawn. When reality hit, we felt really stupid. I was so glad to leave those smoke alarms behind when we moved because they were an awful reminder.

 

I no longer will talk to salesman at the door or on the phone.

 

Thankfully we are totally debt free right now. We are driving beater cars and our house really could use some updating but it is way to freeing to not owe anyone.

[nutmeg]

Loaning money to a relative. Actually, we felt pretty good about helping them out when they were in dire need. But it was a loan. And now that they have enough money to pay us back......the silence is deafening.

[Quiver0f10]

Using credit cards for living expenses while waiting for our house in Maine to sell.:banghead: We will be paying those debts off for along time.

[TXMomof4]

Cars. We're stupid with cars. When we got married, we sold both of our paid for cars because I wanted something cute. Got a Chevy Cavalier. Then I wanted an SUV - so we bought one. Then we had a baby, sold a truck dh had been GIVEN and bought a Malibu. Then we had more babies and we wouldn't all fit, so we traded in Malibu for Durango. A brand new stinking durango that only got about 12 mpg in town.

 

We've finally just about paid off all of our stupid car mistakes - 13 years later. We owe less than $4,000 on my car and it will be paid before dh comes home and I am NEVER going to fall for the new car smell again. We'll drive our old beat up cars until they die....

 

Unless I can convince dh to get me an Enclave.... (just KIDDING)

[G5052]

We hadn't had any major dental expenses in nine years, and the insurance we had paid for 1/3 of the preventive stuff, which we were OK with. That year DH and I had $5,000 of dental work that we couldn't put off.

 

The next year we got the add-on insurance, and I had another $1500 of work, which thankfully cost us $300. The savings paid for the dental premiums and more.

[Paisley Hedgehog]

nm

[Kris]

Turning my brain off and buying two new cars and then buying a house in 1982 (at a *ridiculous* 10% interest rate) and not canceling the purchase when ex allegedly "lost his job" the morning we were supposed to close. (Turns out he never had a job in the first place. The documentation was forged with the help of one of his buddies -- the guy he was supposed to be working for.) Believing said ex was actually looking for a new job. Hoping my salary (which didn't even cover the car and house payments) would keep us afloat while said ex supposedly looked for a new job.

 

"Standing by my man" and not believing my own eyes while we lost everything. And then waiting another five years before I turned my brain back on and got rid of him.

 

I was stupid stupid stupid and deserved everything that happened.

[Scarlett]

Turning my brain off and buying two new cars and then buying a house in 1982 (at a *ridiculous* 10% interest rate) and not canceling the purchase when ex allegedly "lost his job" the morning we were supposed to close. (Turns out he never had a job in the first place. The documentation was forged with the help of one of his buddies -- the guy he was supposed to be working for.)

 

Wow. That sounds like a made for TV movie! :D I'm not sure how YOU were stupid---sounds more like you were defrauded.

[Just Another Jen]

Nutmeg- Right there with you. We only here through my MIL when they are going on a vacation etc. I always think- I guess we paid for that too....

[Murphy101]

honestly?

 

hands down it's got to be homeschooling.

 

I'll never make a dime off it and I'm always sinking money into it and there's no way I can do it properly AND work even p/t.

 

for the first time in over a decade we have credit card debt.

 

it was not "living expenses", but it was absolutely neccesary to spend money on the unexpected costs we used them for - one of those times when it's not just one expense - it's a dozen, kwim? It's VERY hard for us to make ends meet now because of this and the outragious inflation of fuel and groceries. Esp as dh is actually making less money this year because all insurance went up too. He got a 2nd p/t job, but he hasn't been paid yet. And we're just hoping it gets us out of the hole in time to buy christmas presents and pay the midwife for our december delivery.

 

that said, we'd go on welfare before we'd stop homeschooling.

We feel that strongly that homeschooling is the best thing we can do for our kids and having a SAHparent who can literally be here for them is of utmost importance to us.

 

so I guess that's my poor financial choice?

can't say I think it's a mistake though.;)

[laylamcb]

Totally hear you, Martha, and you're absolutely right that many folks would call homeschooling a poor financial decision--but that doesn't make it one. Hang in there, mom!! :001_smile:

[Kris]

Wow. That sounds like a made for TV movie! :D I'm not sure how YOU were stupid---sounds more like you were defrauded.

 

Girl -- I could tell you stories. :D Hum -- maybe I could write a book about my ten years with that man? No one would believe it -- my family didn't believe it while it was happening!

 

But yes, I was stupid. There were signs, but I let him explain them away and didn't follow up. I didn't *want* to believe it. I should have been more like Perry Mason. :lol:

[lynn]

this was something my dad, dear 'ol " I'll tell them all we can put down for a down payment is $XXX" but never haggle over a price and you need to have the extended warranty on a

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyundai when they first came out in 87 or 88 I paid $233@ month on that stupid car. I could could have had a nice carollo or an older acura for that payment.

 

DH could not believe it when I told him.

[Mom2jnb]

Ours was pulling about 1/3 of my DH's 401k money out to pay off credit card debt he had from his first marriage...it was a very emotional decision...it cost us financially 13K in taxes, we ended up selling out home to get the credit card paid off (after putting the taxes on it), living with my Mom and now that has caused me my close relationship with my Mom...hopefully time will solve that.......we are moving across the country and he has found a great job, we are debt free and hopefully that will give me time to work on my relationship with my Mom once again...

 

So financial...yes......but not just that

 

Alison

[Kris]

honestly?

 

hands down it's got to be homeschooling.

 

I'll never make a dime off it and I'm always sinking money into it and there's no way I can do it properly AND work even p/t.

 

for the first time in over a decade we have credit card debt.

 

it was not "living expenses", but it was absolutely neccesary to spend money on the unexpected costs we used them for - one of those times when it's not just one expense - it's a dozen, kwim? It's VERY hard for us to make ends meet now because of this and the outragious inflation of fuel and groceries. Esp as dh is actually making less money this year because all insurance went up too. He got a 2nd p/t job, but he hasn't been paid yet. And we're just hoping it gets us out of the hole in time to buy christmas presents and pay the midwife for our december delivery.

 

that said, we'd go on welfare before we'd stop homeschooling.

We feel that strongly that homeschooling is the best thing we can do for our kids and having a SAHparent who can literally be here for them is of utmost importance to us.

 

so I guess that's my poor financial choice?

can't say I think it's a mistake though.;)

 

I understand what you're saying, Martha and it is a double-edged sword. I know the money we've been spending on homeschooling, and will continue to spend for the next two or three years, is taking a *huge* toll on our financial security -- i.e., we don't have any. :D

 

As far as going on welfare, though, I just couldn't do it. This is *not* a judgment on you. It is actually a judgment on me -- that I'm so stuck in my ways. You're willing to do whatever it takes if you think it's right for your kids, and that's the way it should be.

 

I don't consider it a poor financial decision, though -- I see it as an investment. I tried for seven and a half years to make public school "work" -- about two years too long, actually. It's *not* that we didn't try. Maybe it's a worn out cliche (sp?), but the right thing isn't always the easy thing. It has not been easy, but I truly feel in my heart we're doing the right thing -- and I don't feel we had any other choice if we were to be responsible parents.

 

Who knows? Maybe The Kid can be our retirement plan. :D

[Barb_]

Buying an SUV!!!!

 

Our minivan died and, because I hate driving in snow with a passion, we bought a 4 wheel drive SUV (we needed something that would seat 6, because that's how many members of our family there are -- and it also includes room for the pets, because we have 3 dogs and a cat).

 

But...that was before gas prices went through the roof!! :(

 

My SUV gets barely 15 mpg and it drives me crazy!!! And it won't be paid off for another 3 years!! And, they're offering next to nothing on it as a trade-in (we've already tried!), so we're stuck! And, wouldn't you know...we haven't had a decent snowfall since we bought it! :glare:

 

Don't feel badly...our 7yo Grand Caravan is only getting about 16mpg these days. The grass isn't always greener.

 

Barb

[newbie]

Starting new business and getting dream house, right before economy crashed last yr. If we would have known it would have taken such a dive, we would have definitely made different choices.

 

Now we are stuck.

[Barb_]

We should have put our PA house on the market in '05 before the real estate crash. Instead I dragged my feet for almost 2 years...until March of '07...before listing it. I thought I could convince dh to find a job back East and so we wouldn't have to move to AZ. By the time the house sold, we were down about $50K from what we could have made at the height of the market. At the time, I knew the market was 'softening' but had no inkling of how bad it would get.

 

HOWEVER! Being the eternal optimist that I am (no sarcasm intended; I really am a Pollyanna a lot of the time), I have to think that if we'd sold our house in '05, we might have rushed into a house here in AZ at the top of the market. That decision would have left us worse off. And even though we bought this house at the end of '06 and would have done better pricewise to rent and wait until our first house sold, we got the pick of the litter just when the builders began unloading their overstock. After $180K of incentives, we were really happy with the price. Unfortunately, the value continued to drop and now we owe just about what the house is worth (our down payment is a complete wash), we really love, love this house. It's the prettiest one in our corner of the neighborhood and has a huge front porch that I live on year round. We may have gotten more house for our money if we'd waited, but this one is just so right for us that I can't regret our decision. We plan to stay here for around 10 years, so we have plenty of time to build the equity back up.

 

We probably don't save as much for retirement as we should. Stocks and bonds make me snooze. We put stuff in money market and leave it there for the long haul. We don't do very well with the long-range abstract planning, but we are very, very good at recognizing opportunities as they arise and taking advantage of them. We also are pretty well-armed against making bad decisions and sabotaging ourselves. So I have faith it will all work out.

 

Barb

[Murphy101]

Maybe The Kid can be our retirement plan.

 

Yep. whenever someone gripes about over-population and how many kids we have, I always note that someone has to pay that someone's social security. God willing, at least ONE of our kids (and we certainly hope all of them!) will be a better return on our investment of time and funds than social security or disappearing company pensions and stock values!:D

[Laura K (NC)]

I was tired of asking my parents for money. I got an arts and sciences degree that didn't seem to get me a job, so I went back to school for another degree.

 

I put my tuition on my Discover card. 21% interest. :banghead:

 

I sold a family heirloom mandolin for the cash. :banghead:

 

I never investigated student loans. :banghead:

 

I worked about 15 hours a week at Hardees, and expected that to pay my rent, my credit card bills, my food, and my books. They didn't give me any more hours. I couldn't find any other job, yet I continued for 3 quarters this way. :banghead:

 

Fortunately my dh is much more money-savvy than I am and he rescued me. To this day I have no credit card in my own name apart from my husband. I can't be trusted with money.

[lynn]

My parents made a decision that made us all sick. if mother waits until 65 to retire she gets a wopping $500 more a month. We tried to tell my parents to sell their S FL home 2 years ago and they could have walked away with $200,000 cash moved to GA and paid cash for land and trailer like mother wanted but no they wanted $500 more a month which they would not have needed if they moved from S. FL where they pay just about $$4-500 in insurance and taxes a month just to live there. We tried to tell them to take the money and run, run FAST. but they were convinced things would only get better after all they had a pool that was a good "selling feature" but costs them $100 a month to run and NO ONE is there to use it. Oh and did I tell you about the newly built Berkshire Elementary with in walking distance. It's a good school after all it's a pretty building:001_huh:. My parents gotta love them. No one on their street has sold a house in over a year at any price. They all want top over $200K for a house they purchased 30years ago for $72K.

[Moxie]

We pretty much blew all the money I made while he was in school and we didn't have kids. We ate out at least 3 times a week. We could have totally paid off my student loans in that time. Stupid!!

[Joanne]

1) Not saving.

 

2) Stupid spending.

 

3) Eating out too much; not even enjoying it.

 

4) 15 year marriage, 3 year aftermath. I should have absolutely insisted that he take a job, any job, during the last unemployment he had instead of us living off credit cards. I'm not sure, but I think his 7 year mistress probably was a bad investment of our marital funds. :lol::lol::001_huh:

 

This is something I truly wish I had done differently--I haven't paid for it yet, because I can't, but I have very bad gum disease, because I didn't get scaling done when my ex was here & I could afford it (he insisted I not spend the money), and my teeth are slowly, or not so slowly, shifting and really bad now.

 

 

Yes. I could have written this. :confused:

 

Declaring bankruptcy represented some bad financial decisions, some were mine, some not. But declaring bankruptcy was a good financial decision for me at that time.

[Renee in NC]

Too many to mention.

 

We've almost hit rock bottom, though, and we won't do this again. At 31 and 32, we have a lot of years left.

[Amy in NY]

Too many to mention so I'll just pick a few of the big ones.

 

Buying a house in NY. I had the opportunity the year before we bought this home to purchase a townhome for under $100k. Dh didn't want to own one (we were renting one right across the street.) I deferred to dh on that decision. The family that bought it sold it 2 years later at a profit of almost $40k. I was kicking myself when that happened.

 

Instead, one year after the townhome opportunity, we bought this home. The mortgage is fine - it's the taxes that are killing us. Currently, they add another 50% to my mortgage and will be going up again next year as the NYS Gov't continues to 'cut' spending on mandated programs; it just shifts the tax to the county level. I am most likely going to be taxed out of my home when that happens.

 

Add to all of this, dh owns his own business and we are having a hard time getting customers to pay us. Dh took a bunny trail last year and opened a retail shop with a friend here town. $30k in debt is out in our name and the 'friend' kicked dh out of the shop after a disagreement over a discount to a customer, changed the locks to the shop and refuses to pay the debt off in our name. (We are seeking legal action to resolve this.)

 

Oh, I could go on and on. The things I hope my kids won't go through....