What is the Worst Financial Decision/Mistake You Have Made?

I've been pretty lucky.

I do remember paying $3k to some firm that was supposed to help with resumes, job contacts, etc.. and it was all total BS.

They sold me big time. Got me at a time I was vulnerable, and I did what every sucker does, I heard what I wanted to hear.

Usually I'm very cynical and I have a good BS detector, but this one got past me.

Investing too much of my recent inheritance in mutual funds that were too tech heavy before the dot com bubble burst. I didn't lose it all, but it took a huge hit that took years to recover.

Is this going to happen again with Tesla, Zoom, and Amazon?

not a financial wizard wrote:

Is this going to happen again with Tesla, Zoom, and Amazon?

I think Amazon is a safe bet, Tesla stock scares me though...

Danny Bandana wrote:

I feel it helps being able to learn from others mistakes, plus misery loves company! :-)

What would you consider your worst financial mistake or choice that you have made in your life?

Hindsight is 20/20 but my late father invested his hard earned money in a farmer's Co-Op that went bankrupt and he lost close to $200,000.

I remember that one haunted him for many, many years.

I swear I just read this thread on bogleheads.

Worst decision - probably not buying a really nice house in 2010 when prices were low. Instead we bought a modest home that we outgrew in 7 years and had to pay 2X for our current home what we could have paid in 2010. We didn't have the stomach for that risk at the time.

Worst thing I've done that I shouldn't - probably investing in commodities related ETFs that I didn't really understand and didn't perform as expected. I.e., buying a gold fund and not having it track the price of gold.

I have run up credit card bills to pay for vacations, etc. I have always been able to get caught up and used 0% interest to pay things off. But I have been a little too close to the edge.

deja vu wrote:

I swear I just read this thread on bogleheads.

Guilty.

Choose your wife very carefully

Paying hundreds of thousands of dollars, actually more tan $1 million, in federal income taxes to help fund the corrupt government.

Under heavy coercion, of course.

This probably isn't that big compared to anyone else but years ago in March I was about to buy about £1000 worth of Ethereum - the price was £13 each. I didn't.

DON'T TELL ME WHAT IT IS NOW.

I have stopped checking :(

Chad Pitt wrote:

This probably isn't that big compared to anyone else but years ago in March I was about to buy about £1000 worth of Ethereum - the price was £13 each. I didn't.

DON'T TELL ME WHAT IT IS NOW.

I have stopped checking :(

Don't worry it would only be worth about 50,000 now...... oh no.....

In my twenties I refinanced my house with a decent cash out and spent the equity.

Sold my Amazon stock in 2001. Sold my Netflix stock in 2012. Sold my Lululemon stock in 2015 or so.

I think I may have actually lost money on Amazon, but my biggest flaw is selling my winners too soon. I started investing right before the dot-com crash and started accumulating decent savings right before the 2008 crash, so I tend to be trigger happy on the sell side.

Now I max my 401K, have 8 years left on my mortgage and try to hold good stocks until I need to sell. Making mistakes is natural, and sometimes beneficial if you learn from them.

I should t have taken an education although it is free in my country. I got a job because i chose a safe route, but the prices for apartments got up by almost 100% during those years

Rainy Day wrote:

Now I max my 401K, have 8 years left on my mortgage and try to hold good stocks until I need to sell. Making mistakes is natural, and sometimes beneficial if you learn from them.

I bought a "nice" 10 year variable annuity and an currently getting 1.1% this year on it.... Only 6 years left on the contract! At least I am not actually losing money, just missing out on the potential market gains right now.

I understand but equally I could have thrown it down the toilet had I picked another option (was looking at other ones too and bc I was undecided I didn't buy any - yes that bit was stupid).

Chad Pitt wrote:

I understand but equally I could have thrown it down the toilet had I picked another option (was looking at other ones too and bc I was undecided I didn't buy any - yes that bit was stupid).

Eh, it's only "stupid" now that we are looking at in the rearview mirror.

All things considered, at the time it was actually the smart call not to gamble your money on an crypto currency.

Got a full-time masters in engineering which cost me $40k in 2014. Considering loss of income and what the market was doing at the time, total cost to me was probably 150k. But it helped me change fields and get work I enjoy, so no big deal in the end.

Danny Bandana wrote:

Chad Pitt wrote:

I understand but equally I could have thrown it down the toilet had I picked another option (was looking at other ones too and bc I was undecided I didn't buy any - yes that bit was stupid).

Eh, it's only "stupid" now that we are looking at in the rearview mirror.

All things considered, at the time it was actually the smart call not to gamble your money on an crypto currency.

Thanks. Maybe 'cool game' poster bought lots of Ethereum, I don't know! If I remember rightly the other ones I was looking at were ripple and litecoin, don't know how they've done.

I did something better with the money, no regrets.

Taking out a huge student loan for my daughter to attend a private college.

Have been paying it back for 25 years and probably will continue to do so the rest of my life.