3 Financial Mistakes I've Made as a Mom -- and How to Avoid Them

Since I write about personal finance, some of my friends tend to incorrectly assume that I've never made any big money mistakes in my life. But that's not true at all.

For one thing, I waited a few years to contribute to a retirement account and lost out on years of compounding returns as a result. I also went super-cheap when I bought my first car and ended up not getting my money's worth due to having to replace it within months of purchasing it.

But some of the blunders I've made in my day are child finance-related. Here are three mistakes of mine you can learn from.

1. Buying nice clothing for my kids

When my kids were young and we'd have a special occasion, I'd spring for a nicer outfit and shoes to match. That's something I sorely came to regret.

Not only do very young kids (meaning, toddler age) tend to outgrow their clothing and shoes in short order, but they also tend to utterly destroy it. So once I realized I was flushing my money down the toilet, I stopped that practice and instead started asking friends with older kids for hand-me-downs. To this day, it's a practice I employ for all things clothing- and sports equipment-related.

2. Throwing expensive birthday parties

I'm actually quite ashamed to admit this, but I once spent upward of $1,000 on a birthday party at a local bounce place. To be fair, I have twins in separate classes at school and didn't want to exclude anyone, so I invited roughly 50 children and pretty much every single one (and some siblings) said yes.

But other birthday parties I've thrown have only been marginally cheaper. It cost me $700 a few years back to rent a room in a video arcade for my son's party between the initial fee, pizza, goody bags, and cake. And even an inexpensive spa party at my house for my daughters cost almost $400.

At this point, my kids know I'm done busting my budget on birthday parties. Now, the rule is that each child gets to invite a few friends to dinner or to participate in an activity. Sorry, but no more "whole class" invites. I feel bad not being more inclusive, but I refuse to fall short on my savings goals in the course of treating several dozen kids to a couple of hours on trampolines.

3. Not getting more help with child care when my kids were younger

When my daughters were in preschool and my son was in kindergarten, I often did not work a full day because I had limited child care coverage. My girls' preschool ended at 2:30 p.m., and my son had to be picked up from his school just one hour later. From there, I was generally on full-time mom duty until my kids went to bed. And by the time they did, I was often too tired to go back to my desk for more than 30 minutes or so.

What I should've done back then is more aggressively tried to find afternoon babysitters. Yes, I would've been paying them an hourly rate that would've eaten into my earnings. But I still would've benefited financially from more working hours since I had a lot of projects going on at the time and frequently had to turn work down due to having limited hours available.

Nobody's perfect, and as a mom, I'm fully aware that it's easy to end up in a situation where you're spending more than you should in an effort to make your kids happy. But I'm sharing these mistakes in the hopes that others will learn from them -- and, ideally, steer clear in the first place.