Okay, I will take a stab. I have tried to live my life having the goal of no regrets but I have made my share of mistakes.

1. I regret taking chemistry my first semester of college. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have lost my scholarship and that would have saved me 20k in student loans.

2. I regret not discussing money issues with husband before marrying. If I had, I would have discovered that my husband didn't really know anything about personal finances and we could have saved ourselves at least 10k of credit card debt, if not more.

3. I regret that we expanded to fill our income and then some when we moved out here. Its as if I forgot everything I already knew about money simply because I suddenly had more of it.

4. I regret that I didn't restart my retirement savings until last year. Poor financial decisions on my part resulted in my retirement savings starting over at age 26 when originally I had started at age 23.

5. I regret that I have a spender mentality. I am not sure why I have a spender mentality but its definitely been something I have had to work around.

6. I regret not trying to talk my friend out of buying a car at a dealership on her own. I have paid dearly (enough to buy a decent car outright) for her mistake because I wasn't actually willing to let her lose her apartment and wreck her credit further. While she still probably would have bought a car, I might have convinced her to pay attention to the total cost instead of focusing solely on the monthly payment.

7. I regret that I didn't realize immediately that my husband was incapable of telling me no. Simply being aware of this fact would have made me examine his side of the finances more closely. Now I know to interrogate my husband if I want to do something beyond what is budgeted.

8. I regret never having a written down budget until this past year. I always tried to keep monthly bills low but never had an overall plan.

9. In relation to number 8, I regret never having saved up for my really big ticket items. Its only been in the past year that I have actually saved in advance instead of taking a couple of months to pay off the financing. While I never paid a lot in interest, it was still a very bad habit to get into and lead to higher debt in the long run.

10. I regret that I let my obsession with food consume so much of our disposable income. I don't even want to consider how much money we have spent on food over the past 7 years together. I will never stop being obsessed with food but I can restrict it to a reasonable portion of our income.

I acquired my debt for one item at a time. I always knew the full amount I was paying for that item and made the choice that it was worth it.

What I don't understand even 6 months later was how my friend who bought a car justified to herself accumulating a 10k (actually 14k once interest is added in) car loan when 3 months earlier she made that kind of money in a year...

Yes she had a new job at that time that paid better and was up to 30k per year (she lost the job within 3 months) but she had just moved cross country, no ef but she was comfortable buying this car.

Do people really only see the monthly payments? She told herself she could afford $200 per month without calculating the cost of gas and insurance. She realizes she went overboard now but I still don't see how you could just go and buy a car (she only spent a few hours shopping before she closed on it)without thinking about the fact that she could have bought one for 1/3 of the price.

Maybe I don't get it because I don't feel the need to own a car? I mean this loan has a strong chance of outliving her car.

I just don't get it.

By and by, so far she has managed to make ends meet doing temp work so she is doing okay. I need to help build a new budget and actually figure how much she needs to save for her goals which I will probably help her with this weekend. (Hence the reason I was thinking about it.)

My dear husband has joined the forum instead of just lurking and is going by the name of Cylenchar now.

I have to laugh because one of the things we have in common is dragging the same user name around to various forums.

So don't be surprised if our stories sound remarkably similar, we have been together for 7 years now, lol.

Hmmm..no wonder we have been able to be over budget without needing extra money. A quick glance at my dh's salary resulted in my realizing I had his salary too low. We went from being in the red theoretically to being in the black by $400 per month. Minor detail...

No this won't require me to take on more debt or slow down payment. It just means that next month I need to be on the skimpy side with the budget.

So the rest of this month and next month we will eat out of our pantry (we need to do this anyway).

No more toys in May (given what we have gotten, that shouldn't be a problem, lol).

Reduce the amount of eating out over the next two and a half weeks.

No more bad luck (losing bus pass, forgetting lunch at home on the counter, etc). Yeah I know, I can't completely control this one but I will do a lot better if I don't have anything else go wrong this month.

Frankly, I am not in a bad place, I just spent a little more than I should have (husband is not guilty, he only spent his allowance). Given my past splurges, this one was relatively teeny so I am headed in the right direction.

I have to admit, I think its a little weird seeing financial blogs on Saving Advice. I understand that a lot of people come here seeking advice but the majority of people want to learn how to fix things themselves, aka they are DIYers. They don't want to read a blog that sounds like a sales pitch.

As to linking to other sites, why? Why not just maintain that other site? I guess the saturation must be bringing in more business but the natural skeptic in me harummphs every time I see a new one pop up.

I visit plenty of personal finance blogs outside of saving advice but they are the ones just like the ones here, personal attempts to take control of one's own finances.

I am not suggesting they need to be banned or anything, I just don't see the point. Aren't they sort of preaching to the choir here?

Nothing too much happening so far this month. I did get a Nintendo DS to occupy me on my bus rides home from work so my allowance for the month has been spent but I am happy with the purchase.

I had been debating one for about 4 months but I kept remembering my old fashioned green screen gameboy from way back when and how I couldn't stand that bad of a screen anymore with my eyesight. Walmart of course had one demonstrating and I realized that handhelds have come a very long way since my gameboy. My husband is so impressed with it that he is considering getting one of his own.

Our anniversay is coming up at the end of this month/beginning of next month and I got my husband a kumquat tree and lemon tree. He is excited and this weekend we should go get large pots to stick them in when they arrive. He hasn't told me my gift yet because he likes to surprise (and I suspect he doesn't yet know himself).

Normally we aren't big special occasion celebraters but this will be the first time we could take time off for it so we are excited about a 4 day weekend.

We even have money set aside for the weekend since our savings is currently used for vacations, clothing and house downpayment. So no budget blowing.