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My Worst Financial Mistake
And it has nothing to do with money.
My wife and I have recently been using a set of icebreaker prompts as an exercise to learn more about each other’s history. It’s been fun and has sparked quite a few rabbit hole conversations that would have otherwise never come up.
A question from last week was, “What is your biggest financial mistake?”
I’ve made plenty in my life, but three come to mind immediately.
My most embarrassing mistake was actively choosing to overdraft my checking account, with the accompanying $35 charge, to fill up my gas tank with $30 worth of gas.
My biggest monetary mistake was choosing to take out student loans in order to attend Butler University, a private school, when I could have gone to any state school in Indiana tuition-free due to my father being a disabled veteran.
My biggest overall mistake was not learning how to talk about money with my wife from a position of love, trust, and respect at the beginning of my marriage.
Instead, I had an approach that combined two bad financial attitudes, both of which (of course) were rooted in my childhood.
