Your best & worst financial move in 2010?

ProspectiveBum

ProspectiveBum

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With the year winding down, I'm seeing lots of 'Best of 2010' lists online. So, what was your one best & worst financial move of 2010?

For me, the best move was to take a new job. While my theoretical salary stayed the same, my real salary increased 15%, because the old job had a monthly bonus plan that factored into my overall compensation. With the economy being in the tank, none of us were receiving bonuses. The new gig is straight salary.

For worst move, it was buying a new (used) car. I've posted previously about my object d'lust, and I finally pulled the trigger in May this year. I do enjoy driving it, but not as much as I imagined I would. Buyer's remorse settled in shortly after I got it, as I imagined the other things I might have done with the money spent. I'm keeping it for now, but if I had a do-over, I probably wouldn't have bought it after all. Is this change in attitude the first step in my transformation to miserly curmudgeon? Hmmm...
 
Best - retiring in August

Worst - buying a $70K Lexus. But I love that retirement present to myself, and at least I paid cash for it.
 
My best move this year was not waiting till a certain date to re balance but time it according to the Whee threads . I may be a dirty market timer but I'm happy with the results . My worst move was to not sell a speculative stock after a run up and before it dropped . Luckily I do not have a large amount in it and it is still fluctuating . What I learned is that gambling is best done in places with slot machines & free drinks .
 
Best: started tapping funds and giving money away and traveling and buying clothes.
 
I didn't really make any financial moves in 2010, other than staying the course as always, and spending according to my plan. I have always been able to make a plan and follow it, and doing nothing is something I have become very good at in retirement. :2funny:
 
My best move was letting my boss know several months in advance that I was retiring and that if there was going to be any downsizing, could she put me on the list.

She managed to get me on a downsizing list and I got a years severance pay that I hadn't been counting on. DH got a new Harley out of it and I discovered I wasn't terrified to ride on the motorcycle with him.
 
Best: retiring

Worst: giving too much notice - should have just given 3 months and out; as it was, I part-timed until replacement arrived 8 months later. That was a long time to wait once my decision was made. Kind of like "ready, aim... ... ... ... ... .... ... ... ... ... ...uh, fire."
 
Best: DH putting in for retirement
Worst: DH putting in for retirement
 
Best: Maxing out the retirement contributions in the face of some bad market returns.

Worst: Ignored my knee pain too long and now have to go through physical therapy, which is time consuming and is not cheap.
 
Best - actually spending money. We have a "home improvement" fund that we use judiciously for things we want to do around the house. This year we actually broke down and did 3 things - granite countertops, remove the in-ground pool, and repave our driveway. We got quotes and were pretty surprised at how much prices had come down. Contractors really want/need work. Our money wasn't earning much in the money market and we figured in another year or two it would probably be worth less and the prices would go back up. These were 3 things we had on the plan to do at some point in time - so it seemed like it made sense to do them all while costs were down.

Worst - revisiting my asset allocation earlier this year and deciding I wanted more in bonds. Or should I say "way too much more" in bonds. I am now 50-50 with 2 years to retirement. I think this is where I want to be...but I took the long way to get here and have the capital gains to prove it. :rolleyes:
 
Best: Bought stock in a good company with a great dividend.

Worst: Listened to analyst and media reports about above company saying dividend is "not sustainable at current level" and sold stock. Since then, stock up 15%.
 
Best: investing all my income/savings into equities instead of paying down mortgages or buying bonds. In spite of the sell off in the last few weeks, it's been a good year for equities

Worst: not being retired - at least 14 months to go :(

Second worst: thinking that China's consumer sector was over priced and missing what I suspect has been the best sector to be in
 
Best move: Submitting a ridiculously low limit order to buy on May 6th and having it fill.

Worst move: Filling out a FAFSA. What a waste of time.
 
Biggest fiscal adventure - buying a second home for winter at an online auction. In 5 years or so we'll see if it was sage or stupid. i do know it's pretty comfortable....
 
Best Move: Buying some high-beta ETFs around June-July when the market slumped, as a short-term market play.

Worst Move: Selling them or writing covered calls way too early in Nov. If I had sat on them until now, could have had $20K additional gain. Yes, I am very greedy. :blush:
 
I don't think so. One must allow time for people to heed the experts' advices and buy, buy, buy.

I am 76% in equities, and will not sell for a while. If some stocks that I own get too hot, I may look to shift to another sector, but will not raise cash level or buy more bonds.
 
Best move: taking a bonus in stock options instead of cash. I ended up with 3 times more money.
Worst move: spending too much on a new hobby.

Whether retiring early in 2010 was a good move or not, only time will tell.
 
Best: taking losses on non-performing funds and switching them to Asia ex Japan equity funds and asian bonds - recovered my losses with slight gains as of now.
Worst: bought 2 China bank stocks which took a slight plunge after hike in interest rate announced. But I am going to hold these long term and think they will come up again next year.
 
Best moves. Selling calls and puts. I figured the market would be in a trading range between 9800 and 11,000 all year long (of course did break out a bit the last couple of months.). So I wrote a lot of out the money calls when the market when market was high and sold a number of puts when the market was lot (and also when the situation looked really dire for BP). I only had one really go against me Caterpillar. But over all they boosted my returns by more than 1% and it is all spendable cash.

2nd best reducing my risking (high yield, and muni bonds) and putting the money into equities.

Worse move: Not paying my property tax and getting hit with $150+ in penalties. I paid off my mortgage this year so the escrow account disappeared, but still needlessly stupid.
 
My worst move came in the 4th Q of 2009- I sold a LARGE position in AAPL and in 2010 it became one of the hottest stocks of the year.

I had no best move.
 
They say you cannot take it with you. And if you could, it would burn anyway.

calmloki said:
Biggest fiscal adventure - buying a second home for winter at an online auction. In 5 years or so we'll see if it was sage or stupid. i do know it's pretty comfortable....
Click to expand...
 
calmloki said:
Biggest fiscal adventure - buying a second home for winter at an online auction. In 5 years or so we'll see if it was sage or stupid. i do know it's pretty comfortable....
Click to expand...

+1 Not in an auction, but we bought our dream "log cabin in the woods" in July. After deciding that I'd have to work until my federal MRA for the health bennies (which is 5 years later than I was shooting for, up until recently), I re-crunched numbers and decided we didn't need to save nearly as much as we were. But, we are LBYMers by heart, so decided to invest in a cabin now instead of when we retired.

I have no regrets. We love the cabin, love the town/mountains etc. It's a financial adjustment, but I know we'll enjoy it for years while we are still w*rking.

Possible biggest change in 2011: After going out there last weekend in the snow for the first time...I may have to trade in my 2008 Saturn Vue for a 4WD. :rolleyes:
 
Best move: sold a big chunk of BAX just before it went from ~$60 to ~$40.

Worst move: made a loan that I'll probably never see repaid.
 
Best: Buying as much equity funds as I could, especially early in the year
Worst: Megacorp put too much matching money into 401K last year and then pulled it out this year WITH earnings.
TJ
 
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