Nobody’s perfect. I try to do most things the right way, or at least what I think is the right way, but due to some combination of laziness, inexperience, or overconfidence, I often manage to goof things up.
But even with money, I have made and continue to make choices that many would consider suboptimal. These are my top five money mistakes.
At the time, conventional wisdom would suggest that we would likely come out ahead by taking out a mortgage loan and remaining fully invested in the stock market.
The optimal way to use an HSA is to invest as much as allowed each year, track health care spending, save and scan every receipt, allow the HSA balance to compound tax-free.
Having a second home hasn’t made us wealthier, but it has given us the opportunity to spend more time with my wife’s family without taking over their homes.
We continued to donate some items we no longer need to the Salvation Army or Goodwill, but we would have been hard-pressed to come up with $1,400 in receipts for the year, let alone $14,000.