3 Financial Mistakes I Made in 2023 That I Don’t Want to Repeat

I do my best to try to run a pretty tight ship, financially speaking. But as a busy working mom, sometimes, a lack of time gets the better of me. So does sheer carelessness. 

With that in mind, here are three financial mistakes I fell victim to in 2023. Not repeating them is a basic matter of paying closer attention, which I hope to do better at in the new year.

1. Forgetting to cancel Subscribe & Save items from Amazon

The nice thing about Amazon's Subscribe & Save program is that it allows you to set up shipments automatically so you don't have to worry about running out of the items you use regularly. Plus, you can often free up some money for your savings account by using Subscribe & Save.

One of the items I'm signed up for is detangling spray for my daughters' hair. We stocked up on extra bottles before camp began, but my daughters wound up using very little over the summer. 

When my Subscribe & Save alert for September came through, I OK'd all of my items without taking inventory. The result? I wound up with a collection of six bottles of detangling spray -- the original three-pack my daughters barely touched and a new three-pack. 

At a price of under $20, I can't say that this was a major blow to my credit card bill. But it was annoying, and I should've taken the five minutes to see whether I needed those extra bottles.

Subscribe & Save is a great way to save money on some of your household essentials and personal care products. But check your orders carefully every month so you don't wind up with too many of the same item. And be especially careful if you have food items designated for auto-delivery. You don't want to run into issues with expiration dates.

2. Not paying attention to the cancellation policy of a vacation rental

I thought it would be fun for my family to take a trip to Vermont over Memorial Day weekend, so I booked a private rental through Vrbo. But life got busy around that time, and my kids wound up getting invited to a number of parties over that weekend to the point where it made sense to cancel our trip. 

When I went to do that, I realized the cancellation window had long passed. And so we were basically "stuck" going on vacation, even though it was no longer as desirable or convenient.

Now, the good news is that we wound up having a great time. But it was annoying to feel "forced" into going on vacation when we would've been happy staying home.

Any time you book a private rental, you're generally going to have much less flexibility with cancellations than if you're booking a hotel -- so keep that in mind. Also, if you use a site like Airbnb or Vrbo, mark your final cancellation date on your calendar. And when it pops up, think about whether you really want to stick to your plans. 

3. Failing to pay my homeowners insurance on time

I pay my homeowners insurance once a year, and the bill usually arrives in the mail in the late summer or early fall. This year, I somehow missed that bill. Maybe it accidentally got sorted into a pile of junk mail and tossed out. 

All I know is that not so long ago, I received a note from my homeowners insurance provider threatening to cancel my policy due to not having been paid. I rectified the situation immediately by sending a check, and my policy was not canceled.

But there was still a problem. When my homeowners insurance company sent me a notice of pending cancellation, it copied my mortgage loan servicer. My mortgage company didn't realize we'd settled the matter with our insurer, so it then sent us a letter stating that it would be purchasing homeowners insurance on our behalf and passing the cost on to us.

We were able to provide proof that we'd paid our original homeowners premium and had coverage in place. But the whole thing was a hassle. 

So lesson learned -- from now on, I'm going to mark due dates for bills I can't put on autopay on my calendar. And if I see that I'm not in receipt of a given bill by the time I'd expect it to be due, I'll know to follow up. You may want to do the same to avoid a needless headache.

And there you have it -- three blunders of varying consequences I fell victim to in 2023. I hope to do better in 2024, but I'm also only human. So chances are, I won't manage to make it through the new year without messing up just a little.