We love hearing about personal finance success stories but the hard lessons learned through bad experiences can be just as good at teaching us how to handle money.
The same way a child learns to walk near the wet edge of a pool after falling, I learned to wait and compare prices before making large purchases through an equally painful experience.
I already owned a perfectly good bike, but after seeing the alarmingly low prices of what seemed to be significantly cooler bike I decided it was time for an upgrade.
The next day I woke up to an unsettling feeling which I later learned is commonly known as buyer’s remorse. I realized that in less than four hours I had spent all of the money I essentially made in an entire year.
I did the best I could to justify the purchase in my head and felt a little better until around noon when I asked my mom for five dollars to buy an ice cream cone.