My Best and Worse Money Moves

I'm chiming in because Nickel started this on 5 cent nickel. I'll probably be the only person who will write about their best and worse money move being the same thing. But

My Worse Money Move:

Buying a home with DH back in 2002. Sure we made a lot of money on it, and it was a great investment, but the truth is there were a lot of unknown risks I certainly didn't imagine. First we weren't married, or engaged really (we knew but hadn't done much), we decided impulsively "let's buy a home together we're tired of moving." Well we didn't write up a contract, we didn't figure out how much each of us put in, and we didn't discuss what might happen if we broke up.
Um, yeah, now 4 years later I realize the stupidity looking back.

Actually I pretty much realized it immediately, when people stared and gaped at me when I mentioned buying a home with my at the time boyfriend. Did I mention I got numerous people tell me their horror stories about having to sell a home or move out after they bought and broke up with their significant other. It seems everyone does something this stupid at least once in their life.

Did I mention I compounded the stupidity by going solo on the mortgage application because DH was on a Visa? And that I quick claim deeded the house to us jointly? He could have walked off without any debt and half a home. Sigh, definitely not exactly my smartest moment.

After I realized this 4 years ago, I decided if it didn't work out then it was just a huge tuition payment to Life University (aka stupid tax).

Best Money Move:

Well buying the condo was the best thing that happened to us as well. We rode a huge appreciation wave and sold the condo for about twice what we bought it for. We had considered that perhaps we were buying at the peak, but decided the risk was worth having a place we never had to move again. Our investment not only benefitted us financially, we also had less stress from not worrying about moving again. Also we were able to get a dog, actually the reason we bought because we wanted to get a dog together. And here's the kicker we finally said we were getting married before we bought. We knew we were in it for the long haul, but we said this is instead of getting married. And yes we could have gone down to city hall, but we didn't, instead we just called this our early wedding present to ourselves.

So my best/worse money move was all rolled into 1 thing. Now when people talk about buying a home together, I warn them of the dangers involved in buying something when you are not legalled wed. Of course this probably would have been told to me if we had bothered to tell anyone instead of hiding the fact. Yes we knew our parents would disapprove, so we decided not to mention it to anyone until we closed on the condo.

Would I change it if I could go back in time? No way! I adore my DH and our life, but if my kid every does something this stupid, I'll reach through the phone and strangle them.