June 25, 2016. Harper, Texas. Bad Ideas.

Ken and I have made many good decisions but we have also made some  really bad decisions too.

I taught for the Toronto School Board and always contributed the max to the pension plan.  When we moved to Texas, we made the decision to take my money out of the plan.  With the funds we bought a new car and left in great style.  Now we loved that car but had we left the funds in the pension plan, at retirement I would have hundreds of thousands of dollars in Canada.   When we talk about it, Ken says that we had no money so we needed to cash in the fund but had we been smarter, we could have found another way to buy a new car.  It was a bad idea.

We owned 4 rental properties in the Washington area.  After about 10 years,  one by one we sold them. We were tired of tenants.  And there was always a reason to sell them.  Once Ken was having surgery and I could not deal with them.  Another time we were renovating and expanding the Nova Scotia house and wanted the cash.    So we sold our rental properties.   We sold them all at a hefty profit but had we kept them, they would be worth much more dollars today.  It was a bad idea to sell them.  We should have hired a property manager.

These bad decisions keep us humble I guess!!