Financial Decisions That Have Long Lasting Effects
The pain was excruciating. I knew exactly what I had done as soon as I felt the burning sensation on the bottom of my foot. I had walked outside on my patio in stocking feet to dump the contents of my charcoal starter into my grill. In doing so, a piece of hot charcoal had fell to the ground,and I had stepped on it. It burned right through my sock and into the bottom of my foot.
My decision to work with hot charcoal in stocking feet was a poor one. The decision to walk out onto my patio in just socks took only an instant, but the burn on the bottom of my foot ached for a week preventing me from my usual running regiment.
A decision made in haste had long lasting effects. Life is like that sometimes, even with our finances.
Buying a House
Buying a house is an exciting event. People will talk themselves into stretching their budget to get a house that they fell in love with. They imagine entertaining friends, raising a family, or growing old within the walls of a potential home. Nothing else matters except getting that house. They would sacrifice almost any other discretionary spending to come home to that house every night.
What they don’t think about is what will happen when there’s a unexpected expense and there’s no wiggle room in that budget.
The financial pain of purchasing that too expensive of a home could last 10-30 years.
Financing a Car
A car isn’t just a way to get from point A to point B, it’s a status symbol. Well, at least that’s how many people view their vehicle. Whether they’re thinking about pulling into the next family event, giving co-workers and friends a ride, or just driving around by themselves many people believe what they drive makes an impression on people as to how successful they are. The result can be someone buying a much more expensive car then they really need, and picking up a massive monthly payment.
Subscribe to this line of thinking and you could feel the burn for 3-5 years.
Retirement Investing
The idea being paying yourself first is to put money into your retirement and savings accounts first so you don’t ever have the money in your hand. If you never see it, you don’t miss it. The converse is also true. People entering the workforce for the first time may opt to start saving for retirement immediately, or they tell themselves that they have plenty of time for that. Once a person gets used to having a certain amount of money in their budget it’s extremely difficult to cut their spending later.
It’s a financial decision that is made early in a person’s career, but the effects could last an entire lifetime!
These are decisions that people should take some time to think about. But many times they rush through them, and make their decision without thinking about their long term effects.
Have you ever rushed through a major financial decision and paid the price for weeks, months, or even years? What other financial decisions can you think of that has lasting financial effects?
Brought to you courtesy of Brock
Brock is a software engineer by day and personal finance blogger at night. He is a fitness junkie and enjoys grilling and smoking meat. Married with two children, Brock strives to improve his skills as a husband and father, and is always on the lookout to stretch his family’s budget as far as he can.
Refinancing especially can have a long term benefits.
Man, you hit it on the sweet part of the nail when it came to that house thing. I never saw myself buying one, but once my wife’s friends got it into her mind that we had to have a house that was that.
Yes, we’ve had some times when we wondered where we would get the money to pay for something critical, and there’s still lots of things we’d love to address. But at this point it’s home and we love it. Still, it’s not a decision to make lightly because it’s always going to be a struggle.
@James – Great example, James….and depending upon whether the homeowner did their research or not, it could be good OR bad!
@Mitch – There are certainly non-financial benefits to having your own home…..and many times having that struggle to have your own slice of the world to call your own is worth it. Thanks for sharing!