Can't Get Over Mistake

[Blue Collar Guy]

(b) how did you get past it ?

Thanks very much.

I missed part B), this is what I did. I no longer tried to hit home runs with dot coms, I dont buy junk bonds. and decided to be happy to run with the crowd(I buy total market now). I worked 5 extra years to make up for those perceived(real) losses. That was another mistake, but its what I did.

 

[travelover]

.......... Kiss the girlfriend's loan good bye, its just a source of aggravation that is behind you, move on. ..........

+1 It isn't gonna happen, so forget about it now and chock it up as tuition in the school of foolish love.

 

[Walt34]

We are make bad choices in our lifetime. Think about the good side of it; you didn't marry her!

Amen.

That's the mistake I made, and it cost me everything I earned for five years, but I learned some valuable lessons. (Tuition at the School Of Hard Knocks is frequently very expensive.) And frankly, if I hadn't been through that experience first I wouldn't appreciate DW of 29 years as much as I do.

Based on your post you're doing very well even if you don't have a pension or it is paltry.

As for selling the house, as others have noted that is only a mistake with the advantage of hindsight. I'd wager virtually everyone has made costly mistakes in hindsight.

Re renting vs. buying, that depends wholly on what you want, where you're headed, and what the local real estate conditions are and what you think they will be. If all this stuff in your life is fairly recent, as in the last year or so, I'd suggest continuing to rent until you have a firm idea of where you want to be in the next five to ten years or longer.

 

[Maenad]

I've always held that guilt over a mistake means I haven't really learned my lesson to prevent making that mistake again. For example:

Mistake #1 - selling the house: I may realize from this that I cherish the bequests from my parents more than I realized. I would take a look at all the other things they left me, and decide which ones would get put out and displayed nicely, so that I could enjoy my memories, which ones get stored, and which ones, yes, could be disposed of in the future if/when space restrictions become an issue.

Mistake #2 - moving in with GF and giving her money: I may look honestly at the relationship, identify the red flags that I had ignored, and swear to go into relationships with my eyes more open in the future. I would also set up some rules for myself as to how much money I would give anyone, and whether or how quickly I would merge households or finances in the future. Thinking about these things and setting rules for the future while I'm not deep in New Love would help me keep my wits about me.

So, what can you learn from these? Can you give yourself permission to let it go once you've clarified how to not make the same mistakes twice? I strongly recommend that you try - guilt can eat you alive and strip all the joy from your life.

 

[SumDay]

I foolishly -- VERY foolishly -- sold my deceased parents' small home (which I owned free and clear and was where I was living), several years ago because I was in a relationship with a woman, moved into her home, and didn't want to be a landlord or have to otherwise worry about my home. Plan was to get married. Well, as you probably guessed, the relationship didn't work out and, the next thing I knew, I'm moving into an apartment at the age of 58. Now, a year later, I can't get this mistake out of my head. .

This may or may not help, but I know two men who inherited their childhood homes, and were absolutely miserable living in them. The houses never really felt like "theirs". So who knows, you may have not liked it, or had bad neighbors, or the basement wall may have caved in... Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.

 

[David1961]

I think we have all made financial mistakes. I have confidence, though, in my financial decisions. I don't demand that I am perfect (nobody is) but I trust that most if my decisions will work out. So when I make mistakes ( and have made many) , I ask myself if there is anything I can learn from it and move on. And if helps to know that capital losses can reduce my taxes.

 

[madsquopper]

Making the right decision doesn't guarantee a good outcome. You probably did your best at the time, so don't worry about it that much.

 

[Starsky]

Congratulations! You got away without giving up half of everything [and more]. Consider it a big win, and a cheap lesson you'll never forget.

Well done sir!

 

[l8_apex]

(assuming you're in the USA) Compare your situation (I mean finances) to others, you're doing better than at least 95% of the population...

So I wouldn't go fretting too much about decisions that appear to be poor in hindsight...

And you have a job you enjoy? I can't even fathom that! I ER'd the moment the finances showed that I could.

 

[athena53]

Another example of how you could have done worse: my first husband inherited $300K from his late mother in 1983, mostly in Comcast stock. I had been buying Comcast around that time; my basis, adjusted for splits, was about $2.25/share. We put 1/3 of the inheritance down on the house, which was one of the real estate deals that DID work out when we sold it 13 years later during the divorce. The rest: pissed away. A new Camaro. A $6,000 sound system. He lost his job in 1986 and consulted successfully for awhile, then that fizzled out. He applied sporadically for jobs, but none suited his exalted credentials and he would demand twice what the job was worth and then tactlessly tell them all the things they were doing wrong. The rest of the inheritance went to pay his share of the expenses, till nothing was left.

Comcast has been as high as $50 a share; right now it's at $38. Do the math.

And he never recovered. His alcohol abuse was one of the reasons I divorced him and 7 years ago it killed him. Don't be like my ex-husband.

 

[NW-Bound]

OK, I am curious, so did the math. Or rather, I looked it up.

From 1983 till now, Comcask went up 144x, compared to S&P500 which went up 33x.

It's better than what your records show.

 

[athena53]

OK, I am curious, so did the math. Or rather, I looked it up.

From 1983 till now, Comcask went up 144x, compared to S&P500 which went up 33x.

It's better than what your records show.

Well, maybe I was wrong years ago when I calculated the basis- they seemed to split every year for awhile. In my case, I either donated mine and just took the current market value as a charitable deduction, or sold it and declared a huge capital gain. If the real basis was something less than $2.25/share I doubt it would have had big effect on my tax liability so I didn't get too precise.

Wow- my Ex really DID make a mistake. So did I with my holdings, of course, but the amount of money involved was much smaller.

 

[Elbata]

I met this woman and oh man, was she bayewteefool. She knocked my socks off. She was 11 yrs my senior but acted 11 yrs my jr. OMG, let me tell you.

So, I'd been working hard for years, getting my things in order and saving. But what the hell, I thought. I'm going to loosen up the purse strings.

Bought her a nice ring, spent lots of money and had loads of fun. It lasted an eternity for me. I think that'd be ~3 months.

Oh, the ring. Yeah, not even happening.

 

[Gumby]

Oddly enough, my largest financial mistake was probably leaving my job as an engineer at a nuclear plant and going to law school when I was 30, in 1989. The tuition (which I paid in cash, in full - no financial aid), plus not working for 3 years, put me back to zero net worth at 33. I missed most of the the big market run-up of the 90's. I was making some serious coin as an engineer and it's likely that I would have more net worth today if I had stayed put.

Another big mistake was taking my 1999 year end bonus ($15,000 IIRC) and buying tech stocks instead of paying off my car loan.

How do you get over a serious financial mistake? Realize that it's a sunk cost.
You can't change the past, you can only focus on what you do going forward.

 

[NW-Bound]

... Wow- my Ex really DID make a mistake. So did I with my holdings, of course, but the amount of money involved was much smaller.

I would be glad to get the S&P 33x gain since 1983. But no, I had to keep lots of money in CDs and money markets.

Not being astute in investment matters, is it not amazing that I still managed to retire early with a 7-figure portfolio? But, but, but it could have been 8 figures, darn it.

 

[Looking4Ward]

Heck, I sold my mint 1965 Corvette roadster in 1976 for $2000. Think I left $75 K on the table by today's values.

Mine is very similar. In 2010, I sold a sweet cruiser (boat) for less than half of what I had paid for it ten years earlier. It was in show room condition, everything worked, the gel coat had no scratches or nicks and shined like a mirror, the carpets and canvas looked new, all surfaces and compartments were clean, the engines were shiny and not a spec of dirt or water in the engine compartment, etc. The first person to come see it didn't even need to take it for a sea trial when they told me they'd buy it.

Today I got back from looking at similar used cruisers. They are all beat up pieces of you-know-what and every one of them is asking more than what I sold mine for seven years ago.

New ones are FIVE times what I paid in 2000.

I was kicking myself in the butt all the way home today.

 

[ocean view]

Thanks for this discussion. I too was holding the guilt of financial mistakes, now I know I'm not alone and it's time to move on.

My mistake was hiring a financial advisor, who I never really trusted. One week in early 2016 he decided that he needed to "go in a different direction" with our investments during a market correction. He sold virtually all of our holdings and realized losses equal to my last year's gross salary, yet he still got paid 1.3% (mistake #2) of my shrinking portfolio. It was a joy to fire him and move to VG.

 

[Ronstar]

I've made many mistakes - one of which similar to OP's. My parents passed away in 1986 and 1991. My sister and I inherited the house - a 1440 sf ranch. I bought out my sister and remodeled the house.

Now here's the mistake. I sold it. I wanted to move into it, but DW refused. I should have kept it and rented it out. Now it would make a perfect home to downsize to. I could save a ton by living in that house.

 

[Closet_Gamer]

Since we're doing "here's how I got my scars..."

In the late 90s I had amassed what to me felt like quite a sum. I was worried I would screw it up...so I hired a financial advisor to REALLY screw it up.

I should have known on day 1 that I had made a mistake. The day before I handed him the keys I looked at the price of Cisco and said "This has got to stop at some point." The last trade I made before he took over was to sell my Cisco position.

The first trade he made was to triple what had been my Cisco position.

But I was young and dumb. I figured "well, this is why I hired him!"

He proceeded to load me up into tech stock h***. He bought into JDSU at about $95/share. The the great implosion hit.

When JDSU broke below $2 per share he told me that it would come back.

The next day I told him that JDSU might come back but he wouldn't. I told him to liquidate everything back to cash and I started over.

Two good things came of that:
1) Enough capital losses to offset pretty much everything for seven years or so
2) I'm now a self managed, index fund junkie

#2 has saved me more in management fees and advisor stupidity than I lost learning the lesson!

 

[Birdie Num Nums]

We are make bad choices in our lifetime. Think about the good side of it; you didn't marry her!

Heck, I sold my mint 1965 Corvette roadster in 1976 for $2000. Think I left $75 K on the table by today's values.

Only worry about what you can control.

A bit off-topic, but related:

A few months before I graduated from high school, a long, long time ago, my Mom's friend found for me a 1952 black and white Ford--knowing that I wanted a car of my own at age 17. My first car! Man, it was so nice! Not a dent! The bench seats were clean and not torn. And it cost me only $25! And the radio worked! I remember hearing Eric Clapton's "Layla" for the first time in that car, cruising Colby in downtown Everett with some high school buddies, and wondering if I was getting some weird radio signal as the song ended with that long odd-sounding coda (with guitar, piano, drums sounding a bit bizarre).

Then, a couple weeks after driving that beauty around, it just died. I had no knowledge whatsoever about auto repair/mechanics. So I left that sweet car in my driveway and went on to college. A bit later a neighbor offered to buy that nice Ford for $50! Twice what I had paid. Sold! I later learned that he blew out the fuel line (it was a clogged fuel line that had stalled the car), and it ran fine thereafter. When I learned that the "repair" of my first car, a so very nice car, had been so simple, I got sad. But then I moved on. And we all shine on...

 

[Katsmeow]

I've made many mistakes. One of them is particularly relevant because it involved real estate.

About 7 years ago we decided to sell our very large, expensive to maintain home. Our kids were starting to go off on their own and would all eventually be gone and we didn't need a large house.

We wanted a home where we could have all 5 of our dogs and our cats. That is not so easy to find. We found a house in the ideal location. It was close to everything and was unrestricted. The house itself was terrible, over 30 years old and had never been updated. But, it had a roughly acceptable layout (it needed a new master bath). I could envision remodeling it into something that would be exactly right for us. We did get an inspection which didn't turn up anything unexpected in a house of that age.

So, we bought it. I even lived in it awhile with the dogs and tow our kids while we were selling our other house (DH and our other son who was a graduating senior stayed in the house we were selling).

And, I loved the location, I love the outbuilding on the property (great for the dogs). We started slowly replacing things in the house (new kitchen appliances, new hot water heater).

You are probably wondering where the mistake was? Well, I don't like to dwell on it but suffice it to say that underneath it all the house had major problems. The house had had no signs of foundation problem, but one day it started major cracking and shifting. So that was on top of everything else. Ultimately we decided it would be too expensive to try to remodel it and, if we did, it would still be an over 30 year old house if we ever tried to sell it.

Finally, we decided to demolish the house and just build a new house on the land. We loved the location and really wanted to stay there. So, we did that. We started working on a design. And, we eventually worked out that building a new house was going to be very expensive. Far more expensive than it would be to just buy a comparable existing house.

So, we bought the house we are in now (it was a much newer house and in great condition). We sold the land. The land by the way sold instantly for about 50% of what we had paid for the property with the house on it. The value had mostly been in the land which was in a very desirable location.

So, we lost about $100,000 there. But it was really more than that as we had spent probably $20,000 on fencing (1 acre lot) and on appliances.

I really still feel guilty about it because this was all my idea and I made a very bad misjudgment. I realize now that just getting a regular inspection to buy a house was inadequate. I should have had a contractor come in to tell me more about what was involved in remodeling and who maybe would have seen all the potential problems.

And, I sometimes wonder if we shouldn't have just gone ahead and built something there even though it would have more expensive. But, it is easy to second guess myself.

But, I've more or less gotten over it. The thing is that I can't do anything about it. That ship has sailed. I've tried to learn from it. I might buy a house with a plan to remodel in the future. I know that I will never buy a house of that age again and if I plan to remodel I will get a contractor out to talk about it before buying (in fact, we did that when we did buy our next house). I can regret the mistake I made, but I can't be consumed by it because a different outcome is no longer possible. I have to look forward and not backwards.

 

[Desirespeace]

OP,
I'm too embarrassed to share my mistakes. Let's just say they trump yours.
As a parent, I would never want my kids to beat themselves up over a house just because it used to be mine.
Forgive yourself and don't waste any more of your precious time looking back.

 

[RobLJ]

SDRL stock! (good thing is that I sold almost all when it bubbled up from 2ish to 6ish in one day a few years back, which meant only my hand was amputated, not both arms.)

Has anyone made a stupid financial mistake?? Hee, hee..... Has anyone never made a stupid financial mistake?

 

[DSC800]

Heck, I sold my mint 1965 Corvette roadster in 1976 for $2000. Think I left $75 K on the table by today's values

If you put that $2k in a Roth S&P fund in '76 you wouldn't be too far off from being able to buy it back (of course the Roth wasn't born yet).

Owning nice driver C2 is on my bucket list. I'm targeting the year after my son finishes college. That's 4 years from now and could be my FIRE year.

 

[tinlizzy]

OP,

As a parent, I would never want my kids to beat themselves up over a house just because it used to be mine.

This is what I was going to say! I've never thought about my child keeping my house. I'll be happy that he gets whatever it's worth (which is a lot more than I paid for it).

And every parent wants their child to be a caring adult. You were nice to another person and got nothing in return. That's what every parent teaches their child.

I think your parents would be proud of you on all fronts if they could read what you wrote.