x 8 of my financial mistakes that YOU can learn from!

03/29/2009

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  1. Do not, under any circumstances, hit the Coach sale unless you can afford blowing $400 on half-price handbags, wallets, and scarves. Unless you want to dispose of your already indispensable part-time paycheck, that is.
  
  
  
• 2. Claim as few excemptions as you possibly can on your W-2 / paychecks at work. You'll thank me for this later, I'm sure! I claimed 1 instead of 0 and now have to pay $128 to the IRS. I only hope they won't mind a post-dated check.
  
  
• 3. Be nice to your car. A quart of oil costs about $5. Make sure you put oil in your car when the need arises - you'd rather do that than overhaul your whole engine, right? (This is the one mistake I haven't made yet - my pestering automechanic of a dad won't let me, of course).
  
  
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  4. Now is not the time to start smoking. It's ridiculously ironic; just as taxes on cigs increase, I start smoking 1/2 a pack a day. Talk about dumbb.
  
  
• 5. Do not fail your classes if you are on financial aid or getting money through a scholarship foundation. This makes for a complicated situation and can possibly put you in thousands of dollars worth of debt and an ineligible status for financial aid in the future. (Haha, oops!)
  
  
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  6. It's a good time to attack those costly addictive habits of yours (and mine), including (but not limited to): Starbucks, Jimmy John's, coffee, and energy drinks.
  
  
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  7. Do not pay $8 a day for parking out of mere laziness. Find the all-day ramp (that's a few miles further away) that costs $3, and run the difference. That way you get toned AND save money! My big issue with this plan is that it's hard running (or even walking for long periods of time) with 25 pounds worth of textbooks in my bag. (Uber sigh.)
  
  
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  8. Do not fall prey to getting parking tickets! While of course we want to keep park police in demand, $35 is a big chunk of change for a barely-expired meter. Please don't be like me and try to cheat the system by not paying them; it won't work out for you in the long run. lol.
  
  
  
  Feel free to add any of your own financial "oops"-es that you've made in the past couple of months, too. Maybe we can learn from eachother and our mistakes.