New Year's resolutions that hit your wallet hard

My most financially disastrous New Year's resolutions I've ever made was a determination to restore my credit after a split from my !!!!less first husband by getting on the property ladder with a mortgage. As I lived in the States, frequently visited family over here, and couldn't afford to buy a home, I decided to buy a share in a holiday apartment. Yes, the dreaded time share! This was in the very early days of time shares, early 80's.

I didn't appreciate how much the annual charges would be. On the face of it, pre-paying accommodation near my family with the option to switch my two weeks to other locations while building up equity and most importantly, establishing a new clean credit record in my own name with a mini-mortgage and removing myself from my ex-husband's crippling debts he just kept on running up (but I can't be skint, there are still cheques in the cheque-book mentality!) seemed like a good idea.

But after a few years of increasingly exorbitant maintenance and annual fees, plus a booking fee whenever I wanted to use my time, I realised what a mistake it was and started looking to get out. Initially I tried to sell my time, but eventually, I cut my losses by turning it over to the company in exchange for no further bills, in other words, just gave it back, and this of course went against the credit record I'd worked so hard to establish, leaving a big black mark. In the States, you can hardly do anything without a clean, established credit rating with a checkable record.

However, I made a clean break of it by leaving the US and returning to live in the UK at the same time so the US credit record no longer mattered. I reckon all in all, I paid about four and a half times what just renting a self-catering flat over here when I needed it would have cost me!

Groan, BUT, lesson learned, and I've not made a bad financial decision since then and am debt-free since then (I use my credit card like cash, only using it when I can pay it off in full when the bill comes) and very happily money-savvy with the help of this excellent site.