I have terrible judgement

[DrFaroohk]

I get upset sometimes because no one ever listens to my ideas or accepts my judgement on anything. But then I realize that it's because I have crappy judgement. I have stupid ideas.

But the reason I have crappy judgement and stupid ideas is I've basically never been able to make my own decisions. No matter where I am in life, from the time I was like 10 years old, basically anything out of my mouth has been wrong.

So I've never been able to make any decisions to learn from. And now I have crappy judgement.

[blas87]

Everyone is usually their own worst critic. And people that aren't, well, they are usually pretty cocky and arrogant.

Do you have proof of your judgement, or are you just being overly hard on yourself?

[DrFaroohk]

In general, when it's completely left up to me, I make stupid choices. In everything. I can't even go to the grocery store without buying something that seemed like a good deal but it's really not.

I'm kinda like George Constanza, but doing the "opposite" isn't as simple as it is on TV.

[Andara Bledin]

Maybe you could keep a pad of paper on you and start listing pros/cons for decisions to help yourself make more informed choices.

^-.-^

[Boozy]

You should give us a more concrete example.

I think you'll find that your judgment is lacking in certain areas, and is far better than average in others. That's true of most people.

I have a friend who's a complete idiot when it comes to women (always getting taken advantage of), but he's the savviest person I know when it comes to personal finance.

[Cheshire]

Care to enlighten us with some anecdotal examples?

Usually people judge themselves in a far better light then how others see them. You might be poor at judgments, but I'm sure you're great at other things.

[DrFaroohk]

Things I frequently do that suck:

I pay the wrong bills, or too much to one bill. Oh boy, I've got 500 dollars in extra money this week, time to pay that light bill off! Of course I forgot that car needed work, and now that I've spent the money we had to just ride the car till it was even worse. Should've realized that the electric company won't shut us off in winter and fixed the car. But no.

Dealing with the kids. I always let things go that I shouldn't, but then something that's maybe a minor issue comes along and I feel like I have to start handing out timeouts or loss of a privilege, for something that's really not that important.

A recent example that I can remember clearly: I stopped at the local auto shop because the lugnuts had fallen off my car, and I wanted to buy a few more just to put on. Turns out, it wans't just the lugnuts, but the studs and everything, I had two left on this one tire. So the guy says "Hey, just leave the car here and find a ride home, we'll fix it." So I, in all my genius, made the decision that I was going to chance it and drive home anyway with the 2-stud tire. I think I posted about this in another thread, actually. Made it about a mile.

I'll think of more.

[Andara Bledin]

I pay the wrong bills, or too much to one bill.

Keep a written budget. It's a lot easier to keep track of where the money is going and where it needs to be saved if it's all down on paper.

Dealing with the kids.

Set rules and punishments and keep by them. It's best to stay consistent in your dealings so they know what is expected of them and can behave accordingly. (note: not a parent, just working from life observations)

A recent example that I can remember clearly: I stopped at the local auto shop because the lugnuts had fallen off my car, and I wanted to buy a few more just to put on.

Driving a short distance on only two lugs shouldn't be too great a problem provided that they're on opposite sides of the wheel (as much as possible) and properly tightened and you drive gently. Honestly, there's no reason why you shouldn't have been able to get home, provided they were arranged properly. Also, did the shop not have the parts? There's no reason that replacing the lugs on a car should take more than five minutes, unless the lugs were supposed to be attached to the car itself and you had a much greater problem than just missing connectors.

Note: I despise cars that don't have the lugs attached to the axle. VW Jetta, I'm looking at you. >_<

^-.-^