your largest financial mistake to date?

[calico1597]

We invested $20,000 in supposedly Met Life viaticals thru a local banker at his recommendation. Later found out the company was fraud, the state of Florida took it over, we got about a third of our investment back thru court actions. The banker took bankruptcy. We could afford the lose but still leaves a bad taste in your mouth and a feeling of being stupid. The rest we took as a write off toward capital gain when selling rental houses.

 

[Winemaker]

I always throw a stinger to DW on the fact that she cost me millions, beginning on the first date.

I had asked her out several times; she seemed interested but always turned me down.
She was a neighbor, lived in the other building.

It was a Saturday, I got home about 6:00 pm, had to make dinner and I had planned on studying that evening for a professional exam early Monday morning. She met me at my car in the parking lot and told me that she declined my prior umpteen invitations and I had better not decline hers now. Never opened a book that weekend, failed the exam by 1 point. I had to wait 1 month to retest, and get the promotion and hefty raise.

The missed $900/month raise, compounded over 35 years, including 6% matching in my 401k/investment plan, and I always maxed out my contributions, I'm sure is a mighty tidy sum. Next Saturday will be our 33rd anniversary, and what a tidy sum to pay for marital bliss.......

 

[Dd852]

The missed $900/month raise, compounded over 35 years, including 6% matching in my 401k/investment plan, and I always maxed out my contributions, I'm sure is a mighty tidy sum. Next Saturday will be our 33rd anniversary, and what a tidy sum to pay for marital bliss.......

A bargain. What a great story, told well.

 

[HadEnuff]

Biggest financial mistake was to become emotionally invested in a start up and holding onto stock options at the urging of the crazy CEO. Lost ~ $100k early in my career when I had very little savings. Learned a valuable lesson there......

ouch!

 

[Totoro]

I had asked her out several times; she seemed interested but always turned me down.

Did you ever find out why she declined so many times, followed by an outburst of bravery?

Just curious.

 

[Winemaker]

Bravery indeed, she had just separated from her "practice husband" and feared bodily injury.

 

[athena53]

Getting married in 1978 to what turned out to be the wrong girl. Essentially it cost me my net worth at the time (which wasn't all that much but still...) plus all I made for the next five years. When the house sold we each came out of it with a bit over $7k. I put it in the bank, she took a trip to Europe.

Yeah, my biggest mistake was also choosing the wrong first spouse. Even when we were dating I was forking over my savings to bail him out of situations he'd created by making bad decisions. What can I say? My bio clock was ticking too loudly. Things got very bad the last 5 years when he was unemployed but still spending money faster than I could make it to live according to his splendid standards. Only two good things came out of that marriage: I got $100K for my share of the equity in the house, which I put into another that I sold at a $200K profit 6 years later, and I got DS, who turns 32 today. My Ex never did get another job and, after coming out of the divorce with $100K and no debts, was broke a few years later.

 

[scrabbler1]

To add to what I wrote in an earlier post, a financial mistake I made was choosing a 5-year ARM instead of a 3-year ARM or a 1-year ARM. I thought interest rates would remain high, if not go higher, back in early 1989 when I bought my co-op apartment. Instead, they dropped quickly throughout 1989 and dropped more in 1990 and 1991. This left me stuck with high mortgage payments in those years instead of declining ones (at least by 1992 had I taken the 3-year ARM) and making little progress in reducing the mortgage principal.


I ended up refinancing the mortgage in 1992, into a 1-year ARM, saving me $200 per month, recovering my closing costs in about 18 months. But the refinancing process was a tough one, as I somewhat reluctantly had to file a complaint against the new lender with the state banking department when the lender tried to change a term of the agreement at the closing AFTER both sides had signed that part of the agreement months earlier.


Thankfully, the lender sold the mortgage to another bank in 1997, 6 months before I paid off the loan. I was glad to be dealing with a different lender during the process of getting a payoff notice and making my final payment in early 1998. I shuddered to think about how the old lender would have given me a hard time going through the payoff process with our tainted relationship. I hade sure to tell the far friendlier reps from the new lender how happy I was with their service, albeit a brief time, with the payoff process and how they made it easy for me.

 

[gayl]

Just 2 biggest but don't regret either:

1. Settled for $1 a month in child support rather than going to trial (he blames me for not letting him take it into court??)

2. Retired early from county job due to burnout thus missing out on additional $800 month DBP

 

[athena53]

Settled for $1 a month in child support rather than going to trial (he blames me for not letting him take it into court??)

I settled for zero in return for him "allowing" me to keep the investments in my name (from investments made previous to the marriage as well as what I managed to save while scrambling to pay the bills during the marriage). Apparently states don't like that because of the possibility that the custodial parent and kid will end up being housed and fed by the government but that didn't happen with us. I also knew that giving up any if the investments in return for his promise to pay CS would have been a REALLY bad idea.

I should, however, have insisted on my half of the value of the 1950-something 'Vette he bought with a home equity loan, then totalled, then forged my signature on the insurance check and paid only part of it to the repair shop, which ended up getting title to it. Oh, well. Bygones.

 

[Bir48die]

Investing with a very smart sister that decided to develop a 21 lot subdivision in 2008. Lost $30k of a $50k investment. Bad timing.

Have lost numerous small amounts "lending" to friends that eventually became a donation.

 

[travelover]

............
Have lost numerous small amounts "lending" to friends that eventually became a donation.

IMHO, loans to friends and family are donations.

 

[Just_Steve]

Biggest mistake was not making contributions to my 401k for the first 10 years of my carrier because
"I thought I couldn't afford to"

 

[NW-Bound]

My mother inherited interest in a partnership from her second husband. A couple of years ago, she made a $230k mistake with respect to this partnership. She can afford it, but nevertheless feels badly about her mistake...

By being heavy in tech stocks, I lost nearly 50% in the tech-wreck of 2000-2003 despite owning no dot-coms. That's a bigger loss than that of the S&P, but much less than that of the Nasdaq. In dollar amount, that's several times the $230K loss of your mom. I made it all back later though (by switching to different sectors).

But the biggest financial loss came from me quitting a cushy job at megacorp to join a venture with friends. Had I stayed put (and continued to suffer fools), I would not have missed income, and would have a pension by now in addition to a bigger 401k. There's no point in sitting down and figuring out what that would be in dollar amount, but it's not small.

Well, if I did not do it, would spend the rest of my life wondering what it could have been. I am not in financial ruin, and could even retire early so it is OK. Could have been a lot worse.

 

[ponyboy]

Lost around $700 dabbling in penny stocks. I got off pretty easy to say the least.

 

[scrabbler1]

Lost around $700 dabbling in penny stocks. I got off pretty easy to say the least.

That's 70,000 pennies, a lot of pennies!