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I can remember a long time ago when I was dating this young lady and I was "crazy in love" with her.  In February of 2007, I decided to trade in my 2004 Expedition XLT; which was not paid for, to a brand new 2007 Ford Expedition Eddie Bauer EL version.  Even though I was upside down in my trade of about $12,000, I still wanted to do the deal.  If you think that was stupid, on the same day, I co-signed for my girlfriend a brand new 2008 Ford Escape; which we thought was impressive...buying a 2008 model in 2007.  Our monthly payments were outrageously high, and my girlfriend had a habit of making her monthly payments late.  Eventually, me and her parted ways, but it took about two years of plenty more late payments and a lot of convincing and pleading to finally get her to refinance her vehicle out of my name.  The Cost of Common Cent$ of those two vehicles were very expensive.

Tim C. Lee

CEO & Founder

TCL Financial & Tax Services

I consulted with Mr. Tim C. Lee on some financial decisions I was making in regards to medical insurance on my job.  Mr. Lee advised me that I did not need the additional medical insurance (cancer, hospitalization, sick, etc.) because I was duplicating coverage I already had and it would not benefit me long term.  To make a long story short, I did not listen to him.  Overall, I paid an estimate of about $4,000 over a 10 year period to only get paid $321 when it was time for me to use one of these particular insurance policies.  Wow, the COST of COMMON CENT$.  So now you can imagine, when it is time for me to make changes to my employee benefits, these particular insurance policies will be cancelled.

T. Jones

The Cost of Common Cent$ is a lesson learned.  Years ago, I asked my uncle to co-sign for me to purchase a vehicle; which he agreed.  I soon ended up getting behind on the payments, even to the point of facing repossession.  My credit was already bad from the beginning, but now I was destroying my uncle's credit as well.  Eventually, I paid the car off and my uncle signed the title over to me and said, "Do not ever ask me to do this again."  I had no choice but to agree.  I started by saying that the Cost of Common Cent$ is a lesson learned, but I think my uncle learned more about the Cost of Common Cent$ in this situation than I did.

J. Catchings

My Cost of Common Cent$ came at a very expensive price of around $17,000.  I can remember working at Canton Ford in the year of 2000.  I was currently driving my husband's (at the time) Nissan Sentra that was paid for, but I began to see others riding around in the more sportier vehicles, and I wanted one as well.  I wanted to live like the Jones'.  I eventually talked to a salesman at a dealership and decided to trade in the Nissan Sentra for a brand new car.  Since this was my first time purchasing a vehicle, they financed my new 2000 Ford Focus at a very high interest rate.  Needless to say, I ended up paying double what the vehicle was worth and made my husband upset for trading in his first vehicle; which was paid for.  The Cost of Common Cent$ in this situation lasted me a couple of years.

C. Wolfe

In 2006, I had saved up some money to go on a family vacation for the summer.  My husband thought that it would be a great idea for me to take out a loan so we could have extra spending money.  I agreed, because I wanted to make sure we had a nice time on our vacation.  My husband agreed that he would make the loan payments.  After the vacation, he was late paying the loan almost every other month.  The Cost of Common Cent$ left me with an extra bill that I could not afford to pay and a divorce a year later.

C. Armstead

In 2005, I was totally in love with my boyfriend who did not have a reliable cellular phone, so he asked me to add him to my current plan.  I reluctantly obliged.  At first, he made his payments on time and there were no problems.  Afterwards, we broke up, and years later he decided not to pay his portion of the bill.  I was a struggling college student at the time and I could not afford to pay both bills, so I went to the phone company to remove his phone from the account.  The cost to make this change was $400; which I did not have.  Long story short, the end result was me owing the cellular phone company, and having to pay them off in monthly installments.  I will never, ever, do that for anyone in the future.  The Cost of Common Cent$ was definitely learned.

A. Lee

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