Hello, beautiful people from across the lands! Life has a way of teaching you things and sometimes those lessons are expenses. I’ve had plenty of expenses lessons I wish I could of have taken a rain check on. Some were due to my negligence while others were due to the ignorance of not knowing anything. The most important thing is I’m learning.
Lesson 1: Not Having Renters Insurance
As you know from my recent post “I Spent My Emergency Money, Now What?” I experience some unfortunate mishaps, one being a grease fire. Thankfully there was not much damage done beyond the kitchen. This would definitely qualify as an emergency so I was thankful my funds were available to cover the minor damages. Now what would have been more cost-efficient is having renter insurance. The damages caused by the fire would have been covered and there would have been no need to nearly deplete my funds.
Lesson 2: Not Having an Emergency Fund
Before I became more financially conscious there was no emergency fund put in place. Life has happened to me in more ways than one. There have been plenty of instances where having that money tucked away for the unexpected would have been a huge help. Unfortunately, then I was robbing Peter to pay Paul or worse taking out payday loans! Currently, my emergency fund is needing replenishment now and the anxiety I feel behind that is pushing me to get it back there ASAP. Not having it in place has cost me to pay double sometimes even triple to get back on my feet.
Lesson 3: Student Loans
Student loans are the plague that haunts many of us. Taking them out was expensive but ignoring them completing once I graduated school was even more expensive and detrimental to my credit score. I am ashamed to admit but once my grace period ended I ignored following for two years! Yes, two years of throwing away the bill statements and late payment notification.
I was a single mom of two at the time in constant crisis hit with the hard reality that my degree didn’t guarantee a good-paying job. At the time my set was I don’t have it so I’m not going to be bothered about it and boom in the trash it went! For two years I did that killing my credit score and adding so much more debt to my student loans. Ignorance just doesn’t even suffice for this behavior. That just goes to show how very little I knew or understood anything about personal finance. This is the most expensive lesson I am learning thus far.
What expensive money lessons have you learned? Comment and share, we’re in this thang together! Until next time keep dreaming, believing, and achieving.
