This is Optimal Finance Daily. Create a Stupid Mistakes Fund for your Stupid Mistakes by Kevin of

Financial Panther.com. A few months ago, I got into a dumb and completely avoidable bike accident.

My wife and I were biking to meet up with a friend that lives not too far from us. The bike path that

leads to our friend's apartment

winds its way through campus and part of the path goes through this narrow strip that's basically

an alley behind a building. Traffic on this path goes in both directions. You can probably see where

this is going. As I was traveling along this path, I ended up looking down at my phone

and found myself veering into the other lane. Another biker came around the corner and I rode

into him headfirst, toppling both of us off our bikes. The incident was definitely a learning

experience to not mess around with your phone when you're on a moving bike. Thankfully, neither one of us was

injured. Unfortunately, the crash did cause damage to the guy's front wheel. My bike remained unharmed.

And even if it was damaged, it wouldn't have mattered because I was on a bike share bike.

They handle the bike maintenance, not me. Another reason why bike share systems are

awesome. It's taken me a while to write about this incident because frankly, it's embarrassing.

But as I look back on it, I realize there's something that I can share here. After making sure

we're all okay, I told the guy to go get his bike fixed and send me the bill. He didn't expect it would be

super expensive. Only part of the bike was messed up. Still, it was a costly mistake. The repairs

ended up costing around $190. He had a pretty fancy bike that required a special part.

Luckily, for me, I've had money that I've been setting aside for the past couple of years

to handle situations exactly like this. It's my stupid mistakes fund. As a result, even though I wasn't

expecting it, I already had $190 set aside to cover this mistake. My Stupid Mistakes Fund. I first learned about the Stupid Mistakes Fund from Ramit Sati way, way back in the day.

I think I must have been in college or just out of college when I first learned about it.

...