Procrastination is costly

We've all heard the adage about the early bird being well fed, while the rest of the flock goes hungry. The true meaning of that hit me again the other day. About a year before the housing market crashed, my wife said that we should start looking to move. She defined her search area,
documented the requirements, started looking for houses, etc... Me? I'd dutifully look at the MLS postings that she'd email me, but I wasn't really in the "in the mood" to move yet. Yes, I want a more up-to-date house with. No I don't want to go through the hassle of it all. Well, I guess you know who came out looking like the fool in that one.

My fear of change and simple procrastination has cost me in other ways as well. Waiting too long to refinance cost us several thousand dollars by the time we finally did. I have probably spent more money in car repairs for the my current van that I would've spent in car payments for a new one (not to mention the cost of gas savings available now). It took us way to long to move to DSL, which we ended up getting at the same price as the dial up we had. There are probably countless others, but those are the recent ones that come to mind.

It's human nature to avoid change and I envy those of you who are much more risky (and successful) at that. Maybe that's part of growing up -- added responsibilities, more caution, greater fear of change and the unknown... Hopefully, it's something that we can learn to outgrow.