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"stupid money mistakes"

I was so pleased with my "I AM CREDIT CARD DEBT FREE" blog post that I couldn't bring myself to follow up with the next post: "Stupid Money Mistakes."

Back in 2011, just a couple of weeks prior to my "DEBT FREE" post, we moved out of our two-bedroom rental and into a friend's house for a couple of months. He wanted someone to be there while he was away, to watch for basement leaks and look after the lawns. He did not want any rent money, and would not take a cent towards utilities. He said it would give me an opportunity to save some money, and I corrected him and said it would help me pay off my credit card debt. And it did. Which was fantastic.

But I made a couple of really stupid spending mistakes and I could not bear to come back on here to blog about them. The first one I made on the day we moved out (I just realized that was exactly two years ago today. Bean's birthday!) The property manager had given me a year's free cable, and I had to return the boxes to the cable company. I received the boxes, packed everything up nicely, and then left them in the foyer in front of the mailboxes. For some reason I thought that the cable guy would pick them up when he came to disconnect my cable.

I put the boxes out on a Friday, and returned on the Saturday to clean the apartment. In that time I had figured out that I was supposed to return the cable boxes to the post office. But the boxes were gone and the superintendent said she had not seen them. Sure. I called the cable company immediately to see if the cable guy had returned them for me. He had not. Our building had our own dedicated cable guy and I found his number and left voice mail, which he did not return. I waited a couple of weeks, then called the cable company again. Still no boxes, and they informed me that I now owed them $400 to replace them Yeah, oops. So much for saving money.

I guess I could have neglected to pay the replacement fee but I could not bear to have a red mark on my credit after working so hard for so many years to keep my head above the dangerous waters of bad credit. Bye bye $400.

That was the big unforgettable mistake. I'm sure there was another one but it does not come to mind right now. It was two years ago after all. When it returns to my memory I will write a Part Two :)

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