Can't Get Over Mistake

[Senator]

I sold AMZN for ~$68 and lost money on it a while ago... Among many others.

I did do well in real estate. Never underestimate the power of a successful person to rebound. You will rebound too.

[Meadbh]

You made what you thought was a good decision based on the information available at the time. People do that every day. There's nothing you can do to reverse the decision, so it's best to learn from the experience and move on.

[RenoJay]

As someone who used to lose sleep over financial mistakes, my thoughts are:

1. Every millionaire I know has made some doozies. It's part of getting to millionaire status.

2. I used to own a home 5 minutes walk from the new Apple HQ. It's more than tripled in value since I sold it. BUT...rather than dwelling, I recognize that I put a bunch of the money into the stock market when I sold (which has more than doubled) so the opportunity cost isn't as large as it could have been. I suspect the OP didn't just stuff the cash into his mattress.

3. If the parent's home was, say, $500k at the time of sale and has since appreciated 30%, then the "loss" is $150k. Out of $2MM, that's less than 10%. Most of us have had worse rides in various assets classes.

4. To stop dwelling, I quickly mark down my "whoops" moments on my spreadsheet and accept whatever the new number is as "the number" since I can't change the past.

I hope OP stops beating himself up. The cost of marrying the wrong person would have been way higher than the cost of losing some appreciation on a house.

[Luck_Club]

Many mistakes over the years, fortunately few regrets. Most recent mistake was taking a year off to start an import business. Was sure I could build it to $20 Million in short order. Lost about $75K plus lost wages. It is a tough long road to build a respectable name even in commoditized products.

[Aerides]

I think you have to be a little zen about it.... we've all had our share of mistakes, some of them down right trainwrecks that we are lucky to have recovered from alive or with a penny.

First (second) spouses, first houses, addictions, career mis-steps, bad investments, you name it, everyone's got one or more.

I just figure life is not a straight line. There are detours and back tracks, lulls and potholes, but they all get you to where you are NOW. Would you trade that to be somewhere and someone else?

If you are fundamentally happy with your life, you just have to dismiss the "gdi what if I'd never or I had...." stuff.

If you can't do that easily, meditation might be an idea?

[ncbill]

Trusted the wrong (financial) people based on their prior relationship with other members of my family.

Oh, and worked for a "social drinker" in my last corporate job until it became obvious that habit had grown into something much more serious than "social" drinking...

[MRG]

I believe I'm the only person who ever owned Berkshire Hathaway long term and lost money.[emoji111]

[Lawrencewendall]

How appropriate. I just came across this.

https://satisfyingretirement.blogspo...is-advice.html

EDIT: Sometimes making seemingly wrong decisions or decisions against other's advice, leads to other/better things.

[GravitySucks]

Nope. Never made a mistake.
Anyone want to buy this Cisco stock I still have? I'll let it go for 1/2 what I paid....
Out packing up the 39 year old RV I bought as I honestly thought I could get some collector value out of it. Selling in the spring and will be lucky to only be out a couple of thousand and maybe 200 hours labor.

$2mm in investments. Most people would love to had made that many mistakes.

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PFloyd Hello, (2) Because of my "mistake," as described above, compounded by another thoroughly stupid mistake of agreeing to help fix-up (financially) my ex-girlfriend's home -- money I'm sure I'm never going to see again, even though she promised to pay me back if we ever broke up

I assume you at least took it out in trade?

Don't be embarrassed, sometimes this isn't a bad deal at all.

Ha

[Winemaker]

I had 10,000 shares of megacorp with a goal to sell at $120, my basis was $7.50. I was hoping to take advantage of NUA in my 401k but I was only 53, so I was just going to sell.

It reached $119.75 and fell from there. I ended up selling most at about $70. I only own 100 shares and it's $15.00 now.

[burned out shift worker]

I took 100% of our cash out of markets when S&P went up to 1332 around 5/2011 from a low of 666 and placed the $850,000 into 2.9% 5 year CDs 2008 had me so upset I told myself if I get back what I had in I was out forever, Last 15 months since the CDS came due I have 40% stock 60% bonds managed by Vanguard. Think how I feel retired 6 months ago with 1.25 should have been 1.6

[OHjosh]

I don't see your attempt to be in a committed relationship a mistake. Congratulations for taking a risk, even if it did not turn out as you had hoped. So this experience cost you some monay. I left my partner of 13 years free and clear of debt. (That took about $10K a decade ago.) I can't justify it financially but I can in my heart. As others have said, it was a life and learning experience. Move on...

Financial mistakes, oh yeah. Damn REITs. They set me back at least a year in FIRE-ing.

I had the opportunity to purchase the fam home for a song 30 years ago and turned it down. I didn't care for the layout and it never would have felt my own.

With the funds you have, I think rent or buy is at your option.

Enjoy your life!

[timemoveson]

Really enjoying hearing these stories because I've done the full beat up as well, many, many times.

- Buying at the very top of a big regional real estate bubble, never recovered, paid to get out of mortgage;
- Tech crash losses, never recovered;
- Treaded water with overpriced investments and/or terrible investment strategies, for years;
- Too many houses, traded serially and at one time!

But: business life was a successul earnings machine, saved efficiently, controlled lifestyle, SO totally aligned, got investing house in order, de-risked continuously, set clear goals, etc.

Now nudging $10M in NW as we speak. You can recover and you definitely learn.

You do have to put it behind you. I'm convinced you have to make some of these mistakes.

But I'm also convinced I could have done with fewer of them. That would have been nice.