Making mistakes

I think today is an ‘owning up to mistakes’ day. A moment ago I sent an e-mail to a company. They make really nice rolling garage doors out bright baked-polycarbonate rollers. They look super smart, the quality is really good, the reviews are really positive, but it’s also quite a lot of money. Money I do not currently have.

I took a visit from a really nice salesperson who talked me through my options, showed me how it would work, looked at the garage, then gently persuaded me to hand over a deposit and sign a contract. I then developed a classic case of buyer’s remorse almost immediately after he got in his car and drove away. Asking myself why I thought this was important to do now. For context, I had just agreed to spend almost thrice as much on 2 new garage doors as I had just spent on the complete new heating system for the house.

I made both decisions at almost the same time. On the one hand I leveraged in a government grant and a chunky rebate from my mortgage provider to get a huge discount on the new modern heating system. Then almost in the same stroke ordered garage doors which I don’t need and which cost more than twice as much. Crazy.

Inevitably, given it’s August 2026, I had a short conversation with Claude about where I stood commercially. The garage doors are bespoke and the good news is my garage hasn’t yet been measured by their agent nor have they begun any sort of ordering or manufacturing process. I think this means while they may be able to deduct a reasonable admin or processing fee, they essentially need to return the vast majority of my deposit to me. The other good news is I made that deposit using a credit card and so my credit card provider will be in my corner and will help make sure that I’m treated fairly when it comes to this deposit.

The other mistake that I made is that I filed my tax return for the 2024 to 2025 tax year very late. I am ashamed to say that 2/3 of my tax refund is going to be consumed by the penalty. Even worse, I have paid a penalty of the same amount before for precisely the same reason and I can remember quite clearly thinking to myself, after paying the penalty last time, I will never submit my personal tax return late again. Two years later I’ve done exactly the same thing and sat on it for months. On a lighter note, I have now done my next return some five months early. Go me!

I don’t have any excuses for these decisions. I do feel a bit better now I’m doing something about them and trying to put in place the steps for corrective action. I sometimes wonder why I’m not better able to immediately admit I’ve made a mistake and make these corrective decisions sooner. Not only do I make the mistakes and procrastinate the making of them, but then when I need to fix things I can then sometimes linger on fixing them too.

I didn’t sleep very well last night and part of the reason I didn’t is precisely this. I was worried about what I was going to do with all this money I need to pay for the garage doors that I don’t need. I’m also very dismayed that despite getting a small tax refund I’m going to lose nearly all of the benefit because I submitted my tax return late. I even have an accountant who does most of it for me! Let’s hope that my newfound conviction to submit my tax returns on time hold strong.