Learning From Stupidity

Debt Kid is hosting a "share your dumbest purchase ever" contest -- take a look!

http://www.debtkid.com/share-your-dumbest-purchase-ever-win-my-ds-lite

I don't care about the "ds-lite" Debt Kid is offering, but I did enjoy the idea. Readers' comments got me to thinking about our dumbest (and smartest) purchases. So here goes...

DUMB AND DUMBER

*Appliances. When we were first married, we tended to buy our appliances -- coffeemaker, blowdryer and such -- new. What were we thinking, when you can find perfectly good pieces at the thrift shop, Craigslist, or on sale? Fortunately, we soon wised up.
Dave's best find in this was an imported espresso/coffee maker at the local thrift shop for $10. In spite of having all the proper accessories, it didn't work properly. No problem -- Dave is a genius at fixing things. Another ten bucks for a part, and it worked like new. Best Girlfriend stopped by for coffee, and stared at the machine: "you got one, too?" Turns out her son bought her the same coffeemaker -- for nearly $150! (Maybe this should be in the smarter department!)

*Clothes -- new. See the comment above. (And later on in the smarter department, too.)

*Refinancing -- only a few months before we paid the house off. We ended up with a lower interest rate, true. But we also paid fees, and the whole process required time and energy better used elsewhere. In the long run, we didn't save money -- we lost it.

*Too many fancy foods. We could have done just as better using these as an occasional treat, even if they were on 'sale.' Artichoke hearts and shrimp were wonderful -- but they should have been a treat, not a privilege.

*Going out to eat. Read the previous paragraph? Ditto.

*Buying 'bargains' instead of investing in higher quality. Quilts, clothes, embellishments like lace, buttons and so on, fabrics -- especially hand-dyeds, BEFORE I learned to find them more reasonably priced, or make them myself.
After a number of hard lessons, I realized this: money invested in a well-made piece will keep its value and last far longer than the same amount used to purchase four or five 'bargains.' (The only exception: a well-made unusual quilt sold at a bargain...that I can restore!)

And the top two winners in stupidity:

*Not arguing harder for our daughters to attend community college for the first few years. Both went to a much more expensive state college. Both came out of their first year with no discernible improvement for having gone to State U instead. (In spite of their initial rude remarks about Community U, both have gone or are going there now. Lesson learned) Guess whose pockets furnished the extra hundreds (no, thousands) of dollars needed for attending State U?

*Buying a larger home. Husband and I fell in love with the open, spacious feel of our current place. (We live on a hill with hundred-mile views in three directions, and a wooded bluff in the fourth.) The house was twice, no triple the size on a larger lot. It had a fireplace. A master closet.
And it was a bargain by Colorado standards.

But our much-smaller house had a much smaller mortgage. It also had wonderful views, a fenced backyard with deck, fruit trees and a productive herb garden. We could have remained there quite comfortably, even though we didn't have as much room as the Big House.

The owners of Big House insisted on the sale going through, regardless of whether we sold Small House or not. (We referred to them as "Ma and Pa Kettle" for their rabbit hutch in the garage, school bus full of tomato plants and multiple barking dogs.) Ma & Pa were most anxious to leave -- it turned out they were being chased by their debts. (We found this out the hard way during the next few years when irate bill collectors would show up on our doorstep and INSIST that we were them.)

We did it. We went through with the purchase. We wanted that house.

The upshot?

Ma and Pa Kettle finally moved out -- only because we were moving IN. We literally passed each other, carrying boxes. Their stuff ended up in piles on the lawn, the littlest kids peering out the schoolbus windows. (We had to wait a week before the rabbits followed their reluctant owners.) I found misc. left-behind items for months, but Ma and Pa refused to give us a forwarding address. (I understood when the first process server showed up.)

Ma & Pa 'forgot' to mention that tree roots in the backyard not only clogged the sewer system, but were literally tearing up the concrete walk. They didn't point out that the same tree's leaves helped clog an outside drain and flood the downstairs library during heavy rainstorms. (We finally cut the tree down, broke out the old concrete, and repoured a new walk. All expensive.)

Ma & Pa neglected to tell us that the house's wiring was not only antiquated -- but half of it was backwards. (It was a miracle everything hadn't shot up in flames long ago.) They didn't mention the leaky spots, the holes in the siding that let in mice, the cheap & shoddy 'improvements' they'd made that would have to be torn out and redone properly.

Thankfully, we had a wonderful friend who was also a genius at home inspection. He noticed things, and we submitted a lower price -- the difference which was finally 'eaten' by the desperate realtor listing the property!

We knew the carpet was old. Big House's siding was an awful blue that made me cringe. Doors and windows would need to be replaced upstairs, and repainting done from stem to stern. (What we didn't realize was how long that process would take...and how much it would cost.)

And Small House? We cleaned it up as best we could with limited funds and put it on the market, where it waited...and waited. And waited. Any number of would-be buyers traipsed through, but no one made an offer for more than three months. We couldn't afford both mortgages, so I took an extra job doing layout and editing for a local newspaper. (That was fun...trying to take care of the house, my normal work,the kids...AND the second job.)

We finally sold Small House, for a reasonable-but-not-great profit to an investor who tried to keep all of the furniture we'd put in the house for show. Plus the deck furniture. Plus a gorgeous 1890s Ocean Waves quilt top I'd had displayed in the stairwell. (He managed to weasel out with the deck furniture and the quilt top -- darn him.) I gratefully left the extra job. And over the next decade, I learned another lesson: extra space only means it gets filled up faster!

Big House has appreciated in value...thanks in great part to our hard work. But it has taken much more energy and effort to keep clean and tidied up. It has a widening maw for even more improvements.

And within only a year or two, it swallowed a huge percentage of our funds. If I had known our total income was going to shrink by two-thirds, I would have never gone along with Big House's purchase. (Husband was in "love," me in "like.")

It came out all right in the end -- but there were some seriously iffy moments in between.

Next time: Our Smartest Purchases!