176 | Ratcheting Up Regret

A big home project can make you want to fix everything at once.

"It'll cost more if we come out twice," says the contractor.

"You don’t want to deal with the hassle again," says the neighbor.

"Interest rates might move in next few years," says the lender.

Why stage a master plan when you can do it all at once?

But that ignores the reality of regret.

There's always a chance that you don't know exactly what you want. Or that what you want might change. Or that what you get done just doesn't meet expectations.

And then regret becomes an unwanted squatter in our financial lives.

Every additional dollar spent tends to ratchet up the risk of regret.

Just like every bathroom done today, instead of tomorrow, cranks it up too.

Staging it isn't the same as dragging your feet or kicking the can down the road. It’s certainly not the easy way out either.

But it helps limit the risk of regret even if that cost isn't as easy to measure as the dollars spent.