What's one thing you know now, that you wished you had known as a kid?

[Snattlerake]

NEVER, but NEVER, play the other man's game. I dropped $75 on this damn crooked rules game one night at the Tulsa State Fair. I was 15.

Yeah I knew not to shoot the star but to cut out around it but those guns were not very accurate and you only got 100 BB's. That sucker took out a magnifying glass to find a small piece of red every time. I swear he had red magic markers for fingers.

 

[MacFromOK]

NEVER, but NEVER, play the other man's game. I dropped $75 on this damn crooked rules game one night at the Tulsa State Fair. I was 15.

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Yeah I knew not to shoot the star but to cut out around it but those guns were not very accurate and you only got 100 BB's. That sucker took out a magnifying glass to find a small piece of red every time. I swear he had red magic markers for fingers.

Lol, yeah... I tried cutting a circle around one of those at the Texas state fair when I was 16, and almost got it done. So I tried again, and guess what... there weren't near so many BBs loaded into that one.

My oldest brother taught me to "never play the other man's game" when I was 17. He was foreman at the shop where I was tire-man for a small trucking company (we had a dozen or so tractor-trailer rigs leased to Pillsbury).

Someone had left a mule shoe in the break room (lol, this was in the '70s). We were passing it around (mule shoes are a good bit different from horse shoes), and I commented how thick/heavy it was.

He said, "I bet I can bend it with my bare hands."

I popped off and said, "I bet 5 bucks you can't."

So we went out into the shop. He laid the shoe on a metal bench with just the curve hanging off, and heated the curve red-hot with the torch. He then picked it up by the ends and proceeded to bend it open an inch or two (the steel table had absorbed most of the heat from the ends).

Being the big brother he was, he refused my $5 bill, then told me to never bet on another man's game.

He passed the day after Christmas in 2012. I still miss him.

___

 

[Aries]

Sorry for your loss, Mac

Sounds like a lesson my big brother would have taught me. Except he'd have kept the $5.

 

[VarmintHunter59]

"Don't have sex with Brenda"

Yeah, but which Brenda?

 

[Retired1]

First of many - buy land, not toys.

 

[orangevale]

Rub her feet.

You can be right and you can be happy, don’t count on being both at the same time.

 

[Parks 788]

I wish I would have kept contributing to my Roth IRA when parents opened it up when i turned 18. Even if $50-$100 per month. DId it for a while then stopped. Didn't really get going on my retirement until about 35 years old and have been contributing 18% ever since. Doing fine not and have a decent amount saved up but the extra 18 years i missed probably would have me well into the $1M+ range by now if i kept it up.

Remember about 8 years ago i heard about BTC and thought it was a scam. Sure wish i would have drilled into it more and taken a chance with $500 or more. Also, wish i would have applied myself more in HS and college. Really pretty happy with how my life has turned out. Still have a lot of living to do.

 

[HFS]

I just wish I had listened to about half of the advice I got as a youngster.

 

[dennishoddy]

Wish I'd been more into stocks when younger like some said, but in those days prior internet, traders took your money and put it into funds that benefitted them.
Later when day trading was a big thing, that wish became true making good trades on my own.
Decided to not play football as a kid or any other sport other than baseball and motocross which should have caused bad knees, but never did.
At our latest class reunion, all the big sports jocks were in walkers or crutches and could barely walk.
Listened to my parents to save money and not spend it on foolish things. My sister didn't. She is just maintaining.
Probably the second best thing that ever happened to me as a teen was to get a draft notice into the military, taking the unopened letter to the recruiter to sign up for three years and gain a technical MOS that served me well over the rest of my civilian career until retirement.
I think the number 1 best decision ever made was to not partake in the drug life. I've passed many joints down the line at concerts, and so on, but have never taken a single illegal drug in my life. I don't care what you participate in, that's your business. It's not my concern. I have lots of friends in their 60's that are still using it, some abusing it, but that is their decision, not my concern.
Yeah, there were some dumb decisions as well. We all made them, but that's life.

 

[HarryBear]

Save up for a first vehicle!!