Share you biggest financial mistake thread.
 

I will start. See if you can top this. I still get shivers.

I bought 2 stocks (MBIA and AMBAC) at around 10am one day a couple of years back (I forget the exact date). At around 2pm ON THAT SAME DAY, the stocks dropped over 80%.

I put in $10,000 in the morning. At the end of the day, it was worth $2,000.

I share this story because I have been carrying this sack of bricks for a couple of years now and hopefully I have learned my lesson.

Just thinking about now makes me want to literally vomit.

I once failed to sell a bunch of company stock from a former employers 401k rollover because it was down and I thought it would recover. The company eventually went bankrupt, I think it cost me about $30k. That's what happens when you get too greedy and are unwilling to accept a lose.

One of my biggest mistakes was first buying, then holding on to my 190-E 16 valve. I sank way too much money into that car!!

28 years ago...Selling my house in Ojai, CA at the bottom of a R.E. cycle and getting locked out of home ownership for many years as the price of homes went up, up ,up...... I Squandered the profit on cars, boats & crap. (I was 23 years old) & paid capital gains taxes.

Playing the rigged options market.

Using credit cards to 'help' bridge cash flow in a small business and then not paying the cards off right away.

And Any debt.
Maybe these are the best financial lessons that ever happened to me....I learned my lesson.

Getting married has to be right up there . . . .

I just love these feel good threads. I have commited a few really great blunders as well over the years.

Total cost? I have no desire to tally them. The only good is the upside offsets minumised them to some extent.

No sense dwelling on them in my experience. Other than perhaps instiling some caution there is nothing worthwile in doing so.

Not me but my dad worked at Enron ,nuff said.The Jeff Skiling guy should have been just alittle more remorseful of his actions .The guy is a soulless pompous ars.The movie about the whole collaps of Enron is very detailed and informative about how this company went from bad to worse."The smartest guys in the room."

I've seen it and I was very impressed. (If it doesn't make you angry, you're a jerk)

on a side note, Bethany McLean looked pretty good but she obviously highly caffeinated during the interview.

Going to college? I guess we'll see how that one pans out

Waiting several years before adding my entire IRA nest egg to Berkshire-Hathaway stock, along with the individual account shares of same I originally bought. Not really a mistake, but a miscalculation. What's a few million more anyway, I laugh to myself?

Thankfully, all other actual financial mistakes/losses are small and total under $50K that I made along the way.

OK, I'll bite. Where was it before you put it into Berk?

He had Microsoft stock...

The IRA was in a mutual fund out of Kansas City, MO. Twentieth Century. It was all in the 'Select' stock fund. I believe it (Twentieth Century) was absorbed by another company. At the time, it's value was only about $60K. I had paid for 50% down on my home with individual account money. The IRA is never to be touched, was my belief.

Timing is everything, Rod.

Not going to a four year college.

Well he's in jail and his boss is pushing up daisies.

Tyco's CEO is in jail another 5 years, his trophy wife divorced him, took his cash.

He found Jesus because Jesus would give him a loan.

My biggest financial blunder was giving whunter $15,000 to start a company making a wonder elixir out of used diesel motor oil :eek::P Never saw that money again

Lesson learned? :confused:

X2

- Peter.

Buying my SDL and sinking $20k into it. I could have taken that money and started doing what I'm doing now sooner, and could have bought a new S class instead.:rolleyes:

Cars are absolutely the worst thing you can spend money on, might as well just burn it. I'm done for a long time, NFW am I buying another car.

The best thing I ever bought is a few building lots which some people thought were swamp land, but they are mistaking. In about a month after a bit more work their value is going to go from $30k to about $600k.:cool::D **** cars.:P

X2 on the car thing.

I bought a low mileage W123 300D last year...

Well i can't say as though college was a blunder, yet... so i will have to go with purchasing my 1978 300D, however my best financial decision has been owning my 300D.

I used to have Twentieth Century Ultra and several other of their funds. It is American Century Funds now, I believe. I cashed mine out and invested it into individual stocks and have done much better wth it than they did.

Probably one of the best things you can do is making automatic deposits from your paycheck into a savings account. Regardless of how much you save each paycheck, it's a good habit to get into.
What you do with the money you saved may end up being the worst financial move, but save something regardless.

I was going to make a comment along those lines...but involving my first wife.

I'd have to say the financial mistake I regret the most would have to be selling property I had in Ohio without knowing what the future for it held. I bought it for $500 per acre, and sold it at $750 per acre. 2 years later the guy who bought it sold it to a development company for an insanely high price and they built a shopping mall on it. I should have held onto it...I would have made a GREAT amount of money off of it.

Got myself into $45K of credit card debt after college. It took over a decade to get out of that hole and, as you can imagine, set back savings/investment.

Having four kids on one income (the Mrs. is a SAHM) hasn't helped although I wouldn't change a thing. I think. (the SAHM thing, not the 4 kids thing ;) )

Getting married young.

I once turned down a job working for the infamous porno king, Harry Mahoney.

I went to work for the Post Office. He made gazzillions of dollars peddling porno.












He ended up in prison.......

I'm glad I dumped it all into Berkshire-Hathaway when I did. It's hit it out of the ballpark for me. Once it surpassed 7,000%+ on my original purchase, I quit counting......

I wish I had that problem of counting profit percentages. Instead I get to sit here and wonder how I'm going to afford to put gas in my damn car so I can get a damn education.

Can't you sell the cabriolet? Nice cars can wait until after college.

no one will buy it.. the top hydros leak, the effing odometer needs to be repaired, it has over 100k on it.. cabrios aren't selling for anything now.. I should have kept the damn SDL. I kick myself in the ass everyday because I couldn't bring myself to sell it before everything started to break on the stupid car.

I just can't sell it.. I would feel bad. I just need a stupid W123 or something old and fuel efficient.

When you start making more than you need to spend supporting an acceptable lifestyle when working fulltime out of school - save/invest all you can. That's what worked for me. It just took 3 decades or so to really get the compounded earnings where they throw off more than your job does. Seems like forever 'til that happens though.

I hear ya. Mercedes are money pits, no way around it. Might just have to nickle and dime to get it saleable then dump it.

I just cant bring myself to selling it. I really can't. I was thinking about bringing it to carmax one day a while back and I just couldn't get in the car to drive there. The cabriolet is very special to me now. How it was put into my care and what it means to me. I just need to get that darn odometer working again. I don't think I can fix it myself.

So far, loan free..

As with anything else in the world, lower the price.

I wish

Why not?

Lost about $45,000 when my small internet service company was crushed by AT&T

They got the FCC to change some tariffs that increased the price of large size phone network links about 2,000 percent higher.

I knew I couldn't fight them.

He passed on alot of nice cars when he first got it. :o

Now I wouldn't take it for free. If I fixed everything it needed there wouldn't be any money to be made. Its one of those situations.

Mine was choosing to buy a BMW X5 with my graduation gift rather than buying something reasonable and putting the rest away. $35,000 and probably another $5000 into it post warranty to keep it in top notch. Traded it in for $17000 after 3 years of ownership.

My single biggest regret though is building my house new from the ground up and not spending an extra few thousand to give myself more garage space.

lol at loan free Don *****ing. You're better off than most of your peers dude. Most people get a crap degree and 40K+ of debt.

I know a few with an utterly useless degree and six figures of debt.

Don,
Why don't you sell it to forum member? that way you are assured it will not be abused.

In the future, when your financial situation gets better, you can buy it back or buy a different car from another forum member. Also to be assured that you are buying a car that has not been abused.

I've got someone that I know here that might but it's hard forbme to think about selling it. I'll be fine this week is just killing me. No hours at work,need to renew y registration, get a new license , pay other stuff. All on 5 hours a week. Yay!

Our parents wouldn't allow myself or my Brothers to own an automobile. My older Brother and I were permitted to use Mom's '66 Ford station wagon, or Dad's '69 Mercedes-Benz 220D, and later his '74 240D & '77 240D. :D

Dad's reasoning was while living at home GOING TO SCHOOL on the parent's dime, a car would keep you broke. He was insightful, and naturally correct.

He instead had each of us build our savings accounts so we would have a nest egg growing as youngsters - by forcing each of us to save a portion of every lawn cut, etc. by sitting us down every time we earned chore money on a weekly basis and filling out a savings account slip depositing a portion ($2 or $3) in our individual savings account's. It was a totalitarian exercise with your own spending money earned!;)

I'm glad he did. I paid cash for my first car - a new '74 Cadillac Sedan DeVille when I was 22 yr. old. From then on, I could buy whatever I wanted to without even thinking about how to pay for it. The habit on accumulation of money had been set since a kid. Fast forward - two of my Brothers are broke with no savings, and one is able to also buy what he wants now as a working adult, with a large savings account.

Cars and other toys will keep you broke for your lifetime - if you always pour all your money into them, regardless your age. That's the scary part about 'em.:eek:

Yup its best to always pay cash. Only borrow money to buy an appreciating asset.

I pay cash for everything. I don't have a single credit card. I tried to get a starter credit card through my bank and they denied me on the basis of no credit... ha! I should join my works credit union but I dont know how much longer I plan on being with that place

I agree, I use cash and debit cards. I do have a couple of emergency credit cards because sometimes a debit card is a problem (some car rental companies). Cash is always best.

It's probably a good idea to pick up a credit card someplace before you need to buy a house. Maybe use it a little every month and pay it off in full.

A car can still keep one broke, regardless how old you are. It all has to do with income and savings, versus outgo of your cash. That's why I drive an old car today - even though I bought it new, which will be the last time I do that, (buying new).:o

Worst mistake? I never made any financial mistakes. I HAVE made a few bad financial decisions, but nothing I couldn't live with. Paid too much for a few horses, sold a few more too cheap. Lost a couple thousand in the first dot com bubble, made it back in spades with Apple. Carried paper on some land I sold right before the bust and have had to take it back now that the buyer can't make the balloon, but on the other hand I got 5 years worth of interest payments on it, the buyer put in power and improved the well, and I sort of regretted letting it go in the first place. Some people take great pleasure in owning pieces of paper that have value because the financial world SAYS they have value. Me, not so much. I like land. You can't eat stock certificates, and they won't protect you from the elements. I like my assets a bit more tangible. It all comes around. It's just money, and money is just a tool, never a product.