We all have those heart sinking moments when we realize we made a big money mistake. At least, I hope I’m not the only one! (Don’t worry, you’ll get a chance to share yours in the comments!)
Here’s one of my best:
A few years ago when I wasn’t as financially savvy and way less cool, we completely misunderstood my husband’s (then fiance’s) apartment lease.
My husband signed a contract with a company for a “12 Month Lease with 1 Month Free” deal. I was living in a different city at the time finishing graduate school and paying for my own apartment. When his 12 month lease was almost up, we shopped around for a bigger place to move into, an apartment that would become our first home together. I knew there would be a little overlap between my apartment lease and his new one, but I didn’t realize that we’d have to pay for all three apartments at once.
So, with moving day on the horizon, my husband cleaned out his entire apartment, moved everything into the new one (after paying a $1,150 deposit and $1,150 for the first month’s rent) and went to turn in the key to his old place. When he got to the leasing office, they were confused.
“Your lease isn’t up yet,” they said. My husband was, needless to say, really upset. Essentially, they said that his “12 Month Lease with 1 Month Free” was actually a 13 month lease. The “Free Month” was just a bonus at the beginning, with the real lease starting the following month. It’s true. The paperwork said that the lease was for 12 “paying months” from the time the lease started.
I know I could have been angry that the leasing agent didn’t explain it better, but I’m never one for excuses. It was our fault. We should have asked a lot of questions, we should have confirmed the end date to the lease, and we should have checked it over and over again. We just assumed it would be a 12 month lease like any other lease he had signed in the past, and we were wrong.
So, after we paid for his apartment ($725), my grad school apartment in another city ($500), the deposit on the new apartment ($1,150), and the first month’s rent on the new apartment ($1,150), we paid a grand total of $3,525 for living expenses that month. For two people who just got married, it was a pretty rocky start.
The story does have a happy ending though. I think the leasing agent felt badly about the whole situation, and they worked hard to get his apartment re-rented early. So, in the end they refunded him 1 week of rent because someone moved in, and he got his entire $725 deposit back for leaving it in good condition.
Moral of the story: read your lease carefully, ask a ton of questions, and remember that when things are free, there’s always a catch.
Now it’s your turn: What was one of your worst financial mistakes? Come on now; don’t be shy.
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That stinks! I think we’ve all made big money mistakes like that. Glad it worked out!
Holly at ClubThrifty Thanks, Holly!!
Wow that’s a lot of cash to shell out for living expenses in one month! I’ve definitely made some financial mistakes in my life, but none come to mind that cost me thousands of dollars.
Jordann I know. It hurt to pay it trust me!
Wow, you handled it much more gracefully then I think I would. ;) Glad it worked out in the end. As for me, it’d likely be funding a trip on credit cards when I did not have the money.
FrugalRules Haha well let’s just say I wasn’t thinking graceful thoughts in my mind at the time. I guess we could have pushed harder to try to get a better result, but we didn’t want any blips on our record, especially with rental companies, so early on. And I can relate to the credit card mistake haha.
Great lesson here. I definitely would’ve initially been upset with the lessor, but quickly it would have turned to some real self-loathing for not really understanding the contract. It was definitely an expensive lesson, but a good one nonetheless. Pretty cool that the leasing agent actually worked to get you some money back.
Matt @ Mom and Dad Money Yeah it was pretty questionable advertising at best, but you live and learn! And trust me there was lots of self-loathing involved!
My worst financial mistake was to purchase a Jetski. That was just stupid, but it was right when I got out of college and had all of that sweet money!
DebtRoundUp Haha wellll I do love a good Jetski but I can see why you probably regretted it! Much more fun to ride someone else’s jetski!
What a horrible feeling! I can imagine the pit in your stomach as I read along….ouch. Our worst mistake? I can’t think of “the worst” one, but here’s a bad one: we were on vacation a couple of years ago and had purchased tickets to a Pittsburgh Pirates game while we were driving through town. We’d gotten really good seats and were fired up about the game. However, when we arrived, we realized we’d inadvertently purchased tickets for the game that’d happened a day earlier.
Yeah….oops.
We had to rebuy tickets…and got ones that weren’t as good. The upside: Train was performing a concert for fans after the game. Your ticket got you into the show. My daughter thought I was the best dad ever for messing that up…..
AverageJoeMoney Ohhhh that’s awful about the tickets!!!! Thanks for commiserating!
Wow that’s a lot of money! My worst financial mistake was probably buying a brand new car at the age of 18 which had $400 monthly payments!
SenseofCents Ohh that’s a good one!!!
I’m impressed by this sentence: I know I could have been angry that the leasing agent didn’t explain it
better, but I’m never one for excuses. It was our fault.
Really admire your mentality, Cat!
This is a really great cautionary tale. I probably would’ve assumed the same thing you did, so now I’ll know to be more cautious when I eventually move apartments. Perhaps you’ve now saved me a $1,000+ in the future!
BrokeMillennial Thanks!! I try hard to take responsibility when things like this come up. It’s hard though! Glad it could be a cautionary tale!
I’ve had a similar problem with a 6 month lease that you couldn’t give notice before the 7 months. I lived with horrible people so was really counting the days and finding out there was another month to go was terrible, but like you say, you can only blame yourself for not reading the fine print…
RFIndependence Ohhh that does sound rough!
One of my worst money mistakes was having my fiancee at the time join my health plan. It seemed like a better deal on the surface, but we did not appropriately take into account imputed income. I won’t bore you with the details, but imputed income basically increases your salary for tax purposes without you actually getting the extra money. Needless to say, adding her to my plan added a considerable amount of tax liability that we hadn’t taken into account.
Roger@lifelaidout Yikes. That sounds like a mistake I would definitely make as well! Talk about fine print!
A roommate and I once signed a 13 months lease on a brand new building. It was the same as your husbands. The last month was free. We loved having that month free. It was nice to get a break. I haven’t seen too many apartment buildings offer that anymore.
TacklingOurDebt Haha well I’m definitely glad you figured out the 13 month thing!!
Ugh. That’s rough. I don’t know if I’ve had one big money mistake but more like lots of little ones that still add up. Once upon a time, I used to be NOTORIOUS for buying clothes I never wore. I donated way too many clothes with their tags to still attached. Yup, a definite head slap moment. I got suckered in by sales, thoughts of lost weight that never materialized and the misplaced idea that a leopard stripe halter top looks good on anyone not a Real Housewife or a Kardashian.
Tanya@The Heavy Purse I just LOL-ed at your comment about leopard stripe halters. You never know. It could come back in style!
Ouch, that hurts. Moving has always ended up working out fine for me. I had to double pay one month when we bought our house (and I still had an apartment), but that’s it. Even though the details on those documents are boring, it is crucial that you at least browse through it to make sure you understand everything.
CommonCentsWealth Oh for sure!! Like I said, I was younger, stupider, and way less cool than I am right now. ;) Lesson learned.
A few come to mind, but I think the biggest money mistake I made was back in University. I had a really sweet job for most of my undergrad, and had built up just over $10,000 in savings. This would have been great to either buy a car, or pay down a big chunk of my student loan debt upon graduation. Instead, I decided to take an extra year of school (I wasn’t ready for the “real world”), and assumed that I could keep my job. This wasn’t the case, due to restructuring, so I was unemployed for months before finding a crappy retail job. But here’s the mistake – I didn’t change my spending habits AT ALL even though I had no income. I’m sure I would have to dip into my savings, regardless, but the dip didn’t have to be as dramatic as it was…
mylifeiguess Ahhh if only we could both go back!
Thanks for making me feel better Cat. It makes my $100 mistake (which I wrote about today) on Monday look pretty paltry in comparison!
Thanks for sharing that story. We have a pretty bad one: when trying to purchase a home for the first time, we agreed to a change in the contract language from the seller that put our earnest money at risk if a few things happened (like a loan falling through). While our realtor didn’t think it would come into play, low and behold, it did and we ended up losing our $2,000 in earnest money when we couldn’t get funding without coming up with a lot more money (like 5 figures more) for an additional downpayment.
Our realtor tried to make it up to us by giving us $500 in Lowes gift cards when we finally closed on our eventual first home. And our final home was much more modest & nearly $100,000 less expensive than the first house we looked at, due to the continued decline in the housing market. Still, I hate thinking about it…
DonebyForty Well hey thanks for sharing yours!!! It helps to know I’m not the only one who has lost 1k+ on something like this. That was nice of your realtor to make it up to you or at least try!
I can see how that can happen. :( Sometimes when you’re in the thick of things it’s hard to see between the lines. You know I’ve had so many money mistakes it’s hard to keep track, but here is one I will say that happened recently with my car. If you don’t trust a place, pay the extra amount to have it towed to someplace more reliable or someplace you trust, or better yet pay the extra fee (especially if you have an old car) for unlimited towing mileage for triple a. I think I could have saved myself a lot of trouble and a lot of heartache…and a lot of money.
Beachbudget Ooooh sorry to hear about your car. :( Thanks for feeling my pain today!
Twice I have paid to break a lease at an apartment and I cringe every time I think about it. I didn’t have any life altering events that caused me to move before my lease was yo, so with a little patience and better planning I could have timed my move better and saved thousands.
HeatherShue Ohh I’m sorry to hear that Heather!