What was you stupidest financial mistake?

[bjl584]

This isn't the stupidist financial "mistake" but it is worth noting.

A few years ago I was eyeing a stock that had gotten beaten down hard during the market crash in 2008. I could've gotten in around $2 a share. I decided to wait. Two weeks later the stock jumped to $15 a share. I could've turned $2000 into $15000 in two weeks. I still kick myself over that one.

[kork13]

I'm not sure I've really make any big financial mistakes yet... Most of my "mistakes" just involve wasting money on stuff that I really don't need or end up not getting good use out of. Otherwise, I'm trying to minimize any major screw-ups... lol

Looking back with hindsight, however, I did recognize one thing... I first started investing in late 2006. One of my positions was a precious metals mutual fund (investing in mining companies, not the metals themselves) making up 10%-20% of my holdings at various times. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but basically, it had a stretch of about 6-8 months or so where it got hammered, I think sometime in early 2008. So in late 2008 (remember that happy time?), I sold out of it once it came up again enough for me to break even. Had I held onto it, even with just a smaller position, I'd probably have significant gains from it by now. But then....I'm not too broken up about it. As I mentioned in another thread, I'm no gold bug, and I really don't like it much as an investment. So whatev.....

I also narrowly avoided a HUGE mistake about 1.5 years ago... At the time, my father (living in Miami) had gotten very 'into' buying foreclosed homes at auction... He bought 3 (for something like $70k total), and he and I discussed for a couple weeks him picking one up for me as well. Some of you here may actually remember me discussing this here on the forums back then... Well, I eventually decided against it -- I was wary of buying something like that while living on the other side of the world. Turns out that was a GREAT choice... My dad's results: 1 home was physically destroyed by the previous owners when they found out my dad had bought their house. Unable at the time to get everything repaired, he couldn't rent it, all the while with HOA fees and property taxes piling up. The HOA (a gated community) eventually agreed to take the home instead of taking my dad to court for the unpaid fees. Another home was just disgusting inside (like it was left wide open during a hurricane). My family was able to clean it up just fine, and are currently living in it, but are fighting with the bank to get the title, and in the meantime they're unable to insure it. The last house was more of less fine, but again, my father is fighting to get the title. I feel bad for my family, but I'm VERY glad that I didn't let myself get into the same mess...

[cschin4]

Oh let me count the ways!!!

[cschin4]

I made LOTS of mistakes. And, i have done some things right. My biggest mistakes were whoppers. I bought an old house and had it completely remodeled and redone. Looks nice but i made a lot of mistakes in how i did it, the contractors i hired and while it looks OK, i am sure that it really isn't worth a heck of lot more. So, it is fine cuz we live in it now and i like it but looking back i really wasted A LOT stupid money! I had to get the Jenn Air Range with mushroom burners and stupid stuff like that. While i like cooking, it seems a bit foolish now.
My other humongous mistake was selling off a bunch of stocks when the market crashed in 08. HUGE mistake. But, oh well, what is gone is gone.
I did lots of things right. I have money saved, invested wisely in my career and education and business and our home and cars are completely paid off and we have no debt whatsoever. So, live and learn.

[maat55]

Not having a plan and sticking to it.

[cypher1]

Besides wasting money on gambling when I was younger, I'd have to say the biggest mistake was wasting time and money for freshmen year of college slacking off. I think my student loans 12 years ago was around 4500 for three semesters, which shortly I dropped out to work full time. A large part of me still regrets not completing a 4yr degree, for personal reasons, not monetary.

[papa_squat]

I can also sympathize with the slacking off freshman year of college. I got to live in an appartment with older friends rather than the dorm, so I learned a good number of financial lesons without major losses, but between working to pay the rent and partying with my drinking-age friends, I nearly wasted a year's worth of student loans. I cleaned up my act pretty quick when I realized that screwing up in college wasn't like screwing up in high school and I would have to pay to retake the class I dropped halfway through the semester and I later retook the class to get my one miserable D off my college transcript.

My biggest financial mistake though was trusting my landlord. After renting from him with no major compliants for four years of college, I called him when I graduate and told him I either needed to go month-to-month or find a new apartment before my lease ended in case I found a job out of state. He told me that I had always been a reliable renter so he'd cut me a deal when the time came to move if I signed another year-long lease. Five nmonths later, I had plans to move across the country, and he pretended we never had any such conversation.

Not only did my contract require me to sublet for a new tennant (which meant paying the rent while paying for advertising and the time spent interviewing people and showing the place), but my landlord had the luxury of rejecting every potential tenant I offered. Eventually I had to move and my mother was so nice as to take over the subletting duties, but I still ended up pay six more months of rent. The month before my lease ended, he finally took a tenant candidate that was no better than the previous 5 he rejected, just so he wouldn't have to start advertising for himself. The lesson I took was to never rely on a verbal contract if it's different from a written contract and especially to never trust anyone who holds all the cards, no matter how nice you think they are at the time.

[Banimal]

My biggest mistake was traveling abroad with out a strict budget. I went to lots of places but what got me was when I went to India. You can get great stuff there like hand made rugs, decorative marble, custom made jewelry for a fraction of the cost compared to the US. Unfortunately i thought everything was a great deal that i splurged and bought so much stuff for myself and my family that I didn't realize how much it amounted to. That really set me back when I was trying to pay everything off. I learned a lot from that trip and haven't made that mistake. I went to Egypt a couple years later and I was a lot more aware for what I could buy with a strict budget, I still got great stuff but with out all the regret.

The second biggest mistake was moving into a place I couldn't afford. I thought I could because on paper it seemed that I could be able to get everything paid. The things i didn't account for was all the new FURNITURE and the new GIRLFRIEND. I soon moved out when my debt wasn't going down.

That was all about 4-5 years ago and now I'm debt free because all the hard lessons learned.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

The lessons some of us have learned.

[MonkeyMama]

I think we are pretty lucky.

A - Parents taught us very well, financially.

B - We are not real risk takers, so when we have taken risks, they were small.

So, not a lot comes to mind for me. Meaning, I am sure we have done many stupid things, but just nothing really *substantial.*

We graduated college in 1999 so lost a fair amount of money in tech stocks. No doubt this was our dumbest financial move.

We owned two homes for a time because of stellar timing in trying to sell home #1 - The market was red hot, homes sold in 5 minutes (As they had for decades), and not even our really fiscally conservative relatives thought twice about our plan our cautioned us. But 9/11 happened and we lost $100,000 over night. {To be fair - with the last bubble burst, it was much slower in coming - and far more predictable, if you ask me. People weren't losing $100,000 in "one day" just out of nowhere}. BUT, we were buying the second home very conservatively, and had lots of options, so just went through with it. I can't say I would change anything (except selling house #1 sooner if I had a crystal ball). But I do admit next time I would ask myself, "How would I feel if house #1 plummeted in value overnight?" It's kind of a catch 22, because I have seen real estate skyrocket here overnight too. (& if we abandoned our planned and bought any later, we might have had to pay $100+ more on new home - which is largely why we just went through with home #2 purchase). So, I can't say I learned to "never buy a new house without selling the old one." I have just learned that nothing is certain - don't count your eggs before they hatch - *anything* can happen!

Between those two experiences, I have a strong sense that paper gains are just paper gains. We watched our second home triple in value in a few short years, and didn't do anything in regards to that development. But, watching both our homes rise and plummet with so much volatility in such a short time frame has certainly been a great lesson - we learned all this very young. I have no doubt it was easier to sit back and shrug the second time because we had already been through the whole cycle on a smaller level with our first home - a home we only owned for 2 years?

[ecoadapt]

Didn't save enough for the first 20 years of my adult life. Need I say more?

This said, I think it's too late for me to start saving as well?

[LivingAlmostLarge]

It's never too late.

[EEinNJ]

Stupidest mistake? Marrying a spendthrift & a deadbeat. Divorce is expensive.

I've made a couple of bad investments, but I was young enough & the amounts small enough that they were good lessons learned and recovered from.

[dawnwes]

In hindsight, we should not have bought this house. We are down to a 15 year mortgage on 25% of our take home, which is well within guidelines, but I would have preferred to have a house that we could have paid off in 5 years. Hard to move now as market is difficult but we think about it every now and then.

Sigh.

Dawn

[Petunia 100]

My biggest financial mistake was buying my current house in late 2007. Prices had already fallen nearly 50%, so I thought it would be safe to buy. "How much further can prices fall?", I thought. Now I know the answer to that question.