I have been a housewife for almost 6 years. Sunday will be my "I quit my job" anniversary. Due to extreme stress, I quit very suddenly and without any planning. My dh and I quickly went from a two income household to a one income household. The sad and good thing is that we have not once missed my income. I was not making a large amount of money, but at the time I thought we needed that income to survive and keep up our paycheck to paycheck life.

I wish I had known that we could have saved 80% of my income. I know that I needed part of it for clothing, transportation, and a few other working life necessities, but the remainder was all extra moeny. I wish I had known that part of my income could have gone toward saving for a new house. I could have been contributing to a 401K. I could have been setting aside money for a vehicle purchase. I think of all the interest I paid in as interest that I could have been earning.

Hindsight, of course, is 20/20. I can see now that I should have spent my five years of married/working life saving money. It would make life now easier than it is. Looking to the future I can see that it now makes me more careful with money. The things I did not do are now things I want to do. Rather than being careless with money in the present, I try to be careful with it so that my future is better than my past. I believe that mistakes are only truly bad if I do not learn from them. I cannot change the past, but I can and will definitely do something about tomorrow.