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When we were newly married, we paid an architect over $3000 to design a house that we couldn’t afford. We relied on advice from others. We ended up keeping those plans in the closet, bought a house plan for $50 and built a house we could afford.

Thanks for sharing, Kathy! You broke the ice.

I remember buying a 68 Mustang as my first car based entirely on 2 things.

1. I thought they were the coolest cars on the road (actually, just the old ones 64 1/2 - 66) — never mind that mine wasn’t even within the right model years–I just had to have it.

2. I could almost afford it.

Turns out there was a reason it was so cheap. The thing had a new paint job covering a rusting out disaster! After only a year the thing was rusting through and I was soon to feel like Fred Flintstone when I drove (remember how he put his feet through the bottom of the Flintstone mobile and ran along the road to get it going?

Bad as that car was, I still had to pay another 2 years on it after it disintegrated into thin air!

Oh well, lesson learned!

Only four months after Adam and I were married, we bought a house. That was not the stupid part. The stupid parts were paying $2000 in breaking our lease, instead of just waiting and builing up a down payment, and the even stupider part was falling for a scam.
We got a flyer in the mail one day to come check out thie ‘discount’ home builder/furnisher. Just for coming and listening to their spiel, you had a chance to win steak knives, steak, a vacation get-a-way or even a car! So being the suckers we were, we went. Even worse we fell for the scam and paid the $2000 enrollment fee! Yeah, the discount-furniture there was 2 to 3 times more expensive than our Value City and Target furniture. And since our house was a new build, we had not need for any of the other ‘discounts’ available there.
We were so mad. But we figured it was better to make a stupid decision when we were young than to do it when we were older and could possibly make bigger mistakes. But whenever I see the commercials on TV, I still get sick to my stomache and have to change the channel.

When Liz and I first moved here we needed a new car, as ours was on the way to car heaven. (it died) so we went to Mr ” We’re Dealing “(Samson’s Auto Sales). He was quick to show us things in our price range and we really liked the White Chevy Van in the back of the lot. We really should have taken the hint when he had to replace the battery in it just to get it started but we were so happy to be aproved for a loan we left that day with the Chevy Van. In less than 1 month the Transmission blew up and needed to replace it. so another $2500 was added to the loan. That was the beginning of our adventure with our Nice New Chevy Van…
Be careful what you wish for is what I told Liz after the rush in buying our first vehicle off a lot with payments..

And for those who don’t win the book, you can always obtain a copy through my web site http://www.josephsangl.com or through Amazon.com!

Thanks again, Southbrook Church, for allowing me the opportunity to come share!

I was in my first year at Wingate College (aka. Wingate University, 1982 it was still a college).

Out of High School I followed my girlfriend (Jane) up here from Florida. She was going to St. Andrews College down the road in Laurinburg. Yea I was chasing after a girl and this story is about a bad financial decision. I know many are shocked already but it is not going where you may think…..

For me College was a financial gold mine…. Based on the situation I had come from, I was living the high life. For one set price (via a string of student loans I could not afford) I had a roof over my head, three meals a day, and could work on campus to make money under the “Work Study” Program…. I was more into work than study. As the first few months of school got rolling, more and more people dropped work study jobs to party and socialize so I picked up their jobs. At one time I held down 6 jobs on campus.

After my first year at Wingate, my 1971 “Datsun” pick-up had seen better days and my new found income was burning a hole in my pocket. I went to Griffin Motors in Monroe and bought a basic yet new little GMC pick-up at a decent price.

More than anything I wanted to put a cap on that new truck. After buying the truck I had no cash for the cap so I financed it at the cap place for $23.00 a month. To be more exact, the cap was $750, and the financing was for 4 years at 21%…. Yea not the best deal I have ever made.

The real pain came when I left Wingate a year later and hit the ground running. With rent and all the other real life expenses, the truck payment had to go. I just could not afford it. I traded it and new truck payment was gone for a smaller used car payment, but I spent the next 3 years paying off the loan on a cap on a truck I no longer owned. In the end that $750 cap cost me over $1,200 and I only had it for a little over a year.

Oh as for Jane, well about 3 months after she started school she found a new guy and we faded apart. I will forever remember her not just because of the friendship we had, but because she gave me my first Bible.

In it she wrote
“When I gave you this you had no idea of the power contained inside. Now I hope that you realize all the things this wonderful Book & God can do for you…”

It would take almost 25 years, the love of my wife Susan, and my new family at Southbrook before I would begin to understand how incredibly true the words she had written are.

There is a lot going on in what I just shared and all of the “stuff” in this story except the Bible is no longer in my life. What is also around from “back then” is the love of Christ that has always been there even when I could not see it………..and now my understanding of how God has always tried to guide my life if I would just listen.

My biggest regret???
Not a loan at 21%, but the fact it took me so long to open up my heart to God.

[...] with me. Just leave it in the comments section after yesterday’s post. You can access it here. By Friday I will pick the winner (or loser, depending upon how you view it ). Thanks everyone for [...]

Ok well here we go. Matt and I in our past (before marriage) were VERY young and STUPID when it came to financial decisions. I would like to think we have made better decisions as we have aged but we still fall into that hole from time to time.
Our latest adventures have been with cars. It seems that for the past 4 years or so we haven’t had the best luck with cars. When we moved here from Raleigh we had two paid for vehicles. Let me say I miss my paid for car!
Matt’s car had a broken seat (we had to prop the seat up with a kitchen chair just so he could drive it). So I get a well paying job and what do we decide to do, HEY let’s buy a brand new car! Oh no not a brand new car we have to have something that will fit all of us in it, oh well then we need a truck! This is before gas prices hit $3 a gallon!! So instead of picking a good gas mileage car that Matt could drive back and forth to work we pick an expensive gas guzzling truck! Mistake #1 making a financial decision based on excitement and spending anticipated money!
About a year later my paid for van died in the middle of Hwy 74 (Independence) with a dead starter. After replacing the battery and spending $700 to fix the starter. We decided we needed to get rid of that minivan since we couldn’t afford anymore maintenance on it. As a side note, a few years previous we put $3000 into another van and we were fearful that we would have to repeat that situation.
Mistake #2 making a financial decision based on fear.
Not 2 months later I lost my good paying job and we had two car payments with gas prices well over $3 a gallon. So we decided to buy a hybrid without trading in our truck!! Mistake #3
After that we realized that we weren’t going to sell the Truck on our own and the new minivan we got was too small for our family so we took both cars and traded them in for a bigger minivan. We lost all the equity we had in the new minivan and the truck came in under what we owed so now we have negative equity in the “new” Used minivan we have!
Mistake #4 was we decided to trade in our hybrid to lower our payment on a “good” used car off of eBay. We got a GREAT deal; to have the transmission die this past weekend! I returned home from a fabulous retreat in the mountains. As soon as I dropped the last person off the car made a bad POP sound and I knew I had lost 1st gear! So last night we had to trade it in on another car.
At the I moment I believe we made a good, prayerful, wise decision as we got a good deal and we were able to get out of the used unscathed but these past 4 years have definitely been a rough and tumble learning experience!

Wow what is it with transmissions. I thought we were the only ones that got a used Lemon with a bad transmission for what we thought was a good deal. We got had for $1500. We still have the old van and limp it through the gears jumping like a bucking bronco. Well the guy down in Fort Mill got over on us but the good news is that the transmission still has enough left that we can still get where we are going even if it is like being in the rodeo. I have to say that I will not buy another car from a Used car on lot financer ever again. Lesson Learned. Maybe someday we will be able to get rid of the bucking van and get something that will not jump down the road.

Wow where do I begin…Buying stock of a failing airline thats guarenteed to make a comeback(ever heard of Braniff airlines ..didnt think so) investing in a porsche with friends to fix up and sell for a big profit(lost those friends and the money) Buying more houses that we could afford in Ca. where property values never drop(enter recession) How about paying a company 600 to get my cannot fail invention off the ground only to find out that I bought into a scam that netted me a bunch of nice folders that looked all profeesional than the fool proff idea was only going to cost me another 12-15,000 to get it manufactured and into the stores where it would sell for 7.99(I’m pretty sure I would be to old to spend it by the time I recouped the investment.

When I was younger and being totally enamored with the 1970’s hippie thing, I decided that THE car to have would be a Volkswagon Bus. After looking at several rusted out clunkers, I finally found the car of my dreams in Texas. By the way, I lived in Western New York. I ended up purchasing a 1976, 2 tone red and white VW bus…without having ever seen it myself (my grandparents who lived in TX went and checked it over for me). I hired a guy to haul it up from TX for me for $500, on top of the $1500 sale price. Not too much money spent so far….except for when I got it home! It took $1200 worth of repairs just to get it running safely. Soon after, it died on the road, and I ended up with another repair bill in the $1000’s. However pricey, I enjoyed that bus (which I named Dr. Eddie, due to its former life as a delivery van for “Dr. Eddie’s Catering) for all of that summer. It was fun to cruise around with the windows down and beep the ridiculous sounding horn at passers-by. I even rode it in the local 4th of July parade. Then came NY winter….the van had no heat, so I had to keep a stack of blankets in the back for any unlucky passengers. The defroster was also bad, so some rags were necessary next to my seat to periodically wipe down the windshield. One morning, after an all-night blizzard, I came out to find a snowbank INSIDE the van - due to the wind driving the powdery snow in through all the many cracks and holes. Eventually the thing died with smoke pouring out the vents while I was driving on the freeway (not the best experience for a young lady at dusk). Dr. Eddie was laid to rest in the back yard, until I was able to sell it to a teenage guy who “really wanted a VW!” I also got married that summer, so I’m sure that Jeff really appreciated me unloading it before we got a joint bank account!

I guess my biggest(dumbest) financial decision was about 20 years ago. Just after HS and just into college, I received my credit card. You know, the pre-approval ones! I thought cool….instanst access to ANYTHING. After uses it for a few months, another card came! WOW…two cards with a nice credit limit. Not much, about 2K, but that was alot in college 20 years ago! I told my mom and she asked…”how are you going to pay for these cards?” and she told me I had to get a part time job to work. I didn’t like the idea of having to work…and thought I was smarted than than and had it figured out. My credit cards had “CASH ADVANCES” on them…..I used the cash advances on each card to pay the other’s monthly payment. And it actually took a few months before I realized this wasn’t a very smart move financially. Fortunately, I wised up, but it took about 6-8 months to do this….and even longer to pay them off.

Running up over $18,000 worth of credit card debt not once, not twice, but three times. Oh yeah. My husband took away my credit cards. Now I have no credit card debt!

Posting this one on my husband’s behalf…

In 2001 he was driving a 1986 Nissan, which was “almost reliable with 250K”, but had major issues. While at work, it broke down and he incorrectly thought that was “it” for the Nissan and it was time to get another car because our daughter was two and he needed something more dependable. So that night, he went out and bought a Kia Sephia, cheapest on the market at that time and picked it up the next day. When he showed up at work in the Kia, someone asked about the Nissan and basically implied it needed to be out of the company parking lot and asked what he was going to do with it. Jokingly my husband said, “Why, do you want it?” Then the person said he had a neighbor that was down on his luck and needed a car. My husband explained the car probably wouldn’t work. The man told my husband the man that needed the car was a machanic and that if it didn’t work, he’d remove if from the lot anyway. Sold my husband, sold the car for $25.00. Come to find out the car only needed spark plugs and it ran like a champ. Also, the person that the man gave it to found $13.00 in the glove compartment. And to top that, my husband had lost the title, so in order to sell the car, he had to pay $10.00 to get a copy of the title. So, in all actually, he sold the car…..a fully functional, dependable car, which he past going to work each day for two years after the sell…..for an amount of $2.00

When my husband & I were first married, we needed a dresser and had about $100 to spend. We looked in the Iwanna & thought we had found a deal. When we got to the house we couldn’t bring ourselves to say NO THANKS, it’s not for us. So we bought it even though it didn’t look that good. When we got it home and opened ALL the drawers, there were roaches in it and we carried it out to the apartment dumpster right then! 13 years later, we stilll laugh about that dumb choice !

When my wife and I first married, we attended seminary. Being in graduate school, I felt the need to have a computer. Our quest for the best deal led us to Computer City. We looked at all kinds of computers, and my head was beginning to hurt. A salesman told us we could finance one for really small payments. Not wanting to rush into any major financial decision, we told him we needed to pray about it. After all, we were in seminary. So we retreated to the put-it-togther-yourself office furniture section of the store to seek God’s wisdom. We bowed our heads and prayed God’s direction would be clear. After we prayed and waited at least four and a half minutes to hear from God, we then decided that if God wanted us to purchase this $1,600 Packard Bell, He would allow us to be approved for financing. (I don’t think God was in on that one.) We used that computer for five years. When we finally let it go. we were still making payments on it. When it was all said and done, we paid over $3,000 for a $1,600 computer. I wish I could say it was my last bad financial decision, it was just one of the bigger ones.

This is one of the “simply” DUMBEST things I have ever done in my entire life. So, I already had a ton of debt at the time ($30000) between my fiance and I, not including my student loan debt or hers to come since she was still in her last semester of college. We were getting married that December and neither of our parents made plans for us; I come from divorced parents and she has too many siblings to name. Long story short, we put the entire wedding, reception, and honeymoon ALL on my credit cards because I had to give my bride, who never asked for anything more than me standing at the altar, her fairy tale wedding. This really isn’t the worst part of the story because we did a pretty decent good job of getting creative and bringing down the cost of the wedding because we made our own beautiful invitations, strung icicle christmas lights in the church, used candles instead of flowers everywhere because it was a winter wedding, etc.

No, the worst part I saved for last-after all, we had to buy the wedding bands right? So we did our research and found we liked platinum (most expensive) the best. We “responsibly” found the best priced jeweler anywhere, and since we didn’t want to incur any more debt we “responsibly” put them on layaway. Well, to my everlasting shame, every time we went to make our layaway payment, we put it on one of my credit cards anyway… Hows that for just being “simply” dumb!?

Anyways, I’m glad we have wedding bands and all, but I realize that it would not have mattered; not with my wonderful wife who loves me! We could have been married in our hiking boots on the steps of the courthouse and tied string around our ring fingers and she wouldn’t have cared. I am thankful to the Lord everyday for bringing someone so wonderful, to a sinner like me.

[...] most bone-headed financial decision (story) with me. Just leave it in the comments section of this post. You can access it here. By Friday (today) I will pick the winner (or loser, depending upon [...]

I was a freshman in college at Clemson University. I lived in a dorm for that first year and I absolutely hated dorm life. I hated it mainly because I had to park my car so far away from where I lived. So… eventually I decided to start playing “games” with parking services. I found out that there were a few timed parking spaces only feet from my dorm. I also found out that after 8 or 9 PM on weeknights and any time on the weekends, students could park in faculty parking spots. After learning all of this information I started taking advantage of these opportunities to have my car close to me again! Then, I started pushing the limits until I got my first parking ticket costing about 20 dollars! I freaked out, but then paid it off and continued to push my limits with parking services. I just figured it would not happen again. Well… that one ticket turned into two, then 5, then 7 and so on. I did not learn my lesson even when the fines increased with more violations. I loved having my car (a little too much)! Then, it happened!!! I got my tenth parking ticket and I was declared a “habitual violator” with parking services. This meant that I was no longer allowed to even park my car on campus for the rest of the year!!! Fortunately I was a part of a nearby student ministry and parked my car the for the rest of the year, but that was even farther away than the freshman parking lot where I should have just left my car all along! Needless to say, after over 500 DOLLARS (this is a lot of money to a college student!!!!) worth of parking tickets, I moved off campus the following year and I was able to park my car within feet of where I lived for FREE! Every time I drove on campus after freshman year for class and passed a parking police, I felt like I was being watched! To this day I believe that everyone on staff with parking services knew my car! I recently graduated from Clemson and sold that car. If the buyer of my car goes to Clemson when he graduates from high school, he better paint the car or he might just be in for it with the CU Parking Police!!!

[...] Rob Singleton gives his thoughts about the book and gave a copy of it away HERE. [...]

[...] Singleton gave a copy away HERE to the person who shared the funniest/dumbest financial decision they ever made.  Be sure to [...]