Something that pretty much everyone experiences during the younger years of their life is someone, probably an older loved one, a close friend, neighbor, work colleague, or sometimes even a random stranger, trying to get you to learn from their mistakes so that when you get older, you might have fewer headaches to deal with.
For the most part, these are individuals who mean well but whom a lot of young folks take with a grain of salt because when you're young, you "know it all" and think you don't need the advice of those who have much more experience at dealing with the Life Happens moments than you likely have.
One example, one with which many reading this can probably identify, relates to financial advice. When I was a teenager and had graduated from high school, my only bills were my car payment and car insurance, because I was still living at home.
At some point, I got a credit card (or two) when I started community college, and mom and dad - who were paying for my education - both warned me not to let the balance get high. I didn't listen, and the balance got high. Not only that, but I wasn't treating college super seriously, and mom told me I could start paying for my own education, which I proceeded to start doing.
The result was that I wasn't able to move out of the house until later than most young adults typically flee the nest.
SEE ALSO (VIP): Caregiver's Diary Part 76: One of the Best Life Lessons My Dad Ever Taught Me
Though I still made a few financial mistakes after that, I eventually smartened up and started applying the lessons my parents taught me about finances, debt, and how life would coast along more smoothly if you had more money coming in than you had to have going out.
At the time I decided to become a full-time caregiver to my mom, I was at about the halfway point of paying my house off, and outside of that was debt-free. Because I had a two-story home, it was a no-brainer for me to sell and move back in with Mom, because she was at a point in her life where stairs and sidewalk curbs were a challenge that was hard for her to overcome. Plus, I had no downstairs bedroom.
Once I moved back in, Mom more or less handed over the reins to me to make the decisions on her and my dad's near-50-year-old home, which they were four years away from paying off at the time of his passing. After the home inspector and the structural engineer informed us there were things we needed to do to get the house up to modern times, Mom and I both decided the financial risk was worth it, and proceeded to get things done like a crawlspace reno and, most recently, a roof replacement.
Those items were a pretty penny, to be sure, but we made sure to get our money's worth.
A funny thing happened the day the roof work was completed. The company rep who we'd worked with to get the quote on the job and to make sure it could get scheduled and completed in a timely manner was in our house after the roofers were gone.
We got to talking, and he informed us that he has a home that is a similar style to ours and was situated on his lot similar to how ours is. It, too, is an older home, and he himself had, in the last year, gotten a roof job. He also has a crawlspace and informed us that, unlike us, he hadn't had anything done underneath it but "probably should" because "it looks a little scary down there."
I pondered for half a second as to whether or not to become "that" person before I launched into the "trust me, you should get that done sooner rather than later" speech, informing him that he should learn from the mistakes we (mom, dad, and I) made when we gave the crawlspace the "out of sight, out of mind" treatment until we couldn't anymore.
He agreed, but I'm sure he was just being polite when he said he was going to evaluate his again this past weekend to get an idea of what might need to be done.
I do hope he takes our advice, though, because if a crawlspace is virtually neglected for a couple of decades, what someone is likely to have to have done could be a small (or big) fortune. And that's assuming it is caught in time before the damage comes to a point where the home could be considered an unsafe place to live, depending on the situation.
In other words, learn from our mistakes, y'all. You'll be glad you did. ;)
