Share your financial mistakes or coups

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents made an excellent financial decision on my behalf that I believe shaped my life and turned me in a successful direction: I was a trust fund baby, and was never told. I had to maintain a B average AND work AND volunteer for a combined total of 15 hours each week from sophmore year of high school onwards. My parents were willing to pay for private school, tutors, private college, as long as I kept maintaining that. It was only when I started talking about grad school that they told me there was an education fund for me that would pay for it if I decided to go.

DH & I are doing the same with our kids. They will NOT grow up resting on being trusties and not working hard.

Details please on what you and your parents did to make the trust fund grow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents made an excellent financial decision on my behalf that I believe shaped my life and turned me in a successful direction: I was a trust fund baby, and was never told. I had to maintain a B average AND work AND volunteer for a combined total of 15 hours each week from sophmore year of high school onwards. My parents were willing to pay for private school, tutors, private college, as long as I kept maintaining that. It was only when I started talking about grad school that they told me there was an education fund for me that would pay for it if I decided to go.

DH & I are doing the same with our kids. They will NOT grow up resting on being trusties and not working hard.

Not a trust fund baby here, but agree that this is a big coup. My parents paid for the entire education of all three of their children. I'm really proud of them for doing this on their strictly middle-class salaries, and have already started saving for our kids (when they were infants).

Actually, they didn't quite pay for our full education, as one sis and I got full rides to grad school (thanks to merit scholarships) and we both tutored rich kids for money while in school (for $50/hr), so best financial coup for us was having our parents pass along smart genes We got the balance of our education savings as help with downpayments on our houses. (Other sis went to med school and needed her education fund to help pay for lean times when she interned. Not too shabby either!)

[Anonymous]

Financial coups:

-we paid off DH's law school debt aggressively, and continue to maintain the modest lifestyle/budget that enabled us to do that.
-live in a modest house in a great area, and have resisted the pressure to take on more mortgage debt. We budget comfortably on one salary.


Financial mistakes:

-While I enjoyed my undergrad experience greatly and blossomed socially at a prestigious university, I wish I'd gotten better advice. I was a National Merit Finalist in HS, and could have had a full ride scholarship to a lesser-known, but still well-regarded college. If I were advising my younger self now, I'd say take the full ride, and study hard and do well in college so that you can get into the best graduate school you can (and use parent-funded college savings then).
I live a well-balanced life and am fulfilled in my career now. But, I wonder how much farther I could have gone career-wise if I'd really applied myself in undergrad and had been able to use my parent-funded college savings account for a top-rated grad school.

[Anonymous]

The wealthiest people I know did not show they were wealthy, but DH and I figured it out slowly throughout the years. Their gorgeous new homes are paid off. They drive humble and conservative cars that are paid off. They always have tons of food in their house. They are NOT fancy about their food or clothing and would NEVER pay for private schools. They both paid for their own educations, houses, everything and truly appreciate what they have. I have never once heard them ask or answer how much anything costs. They do not care what the next guy is doing. They have their own triumphs and tribulations. They are not trendy about investments or what others might be doing, they are some of the kindest people I know.

Op, it is more an attitude than anything, truly. If you adopt a certain conservative lifestyle, it makes all the difference. A good financial planner works for some, but a FP is not going to make you rich. He is there to basically tell you What you already know- stop trying to live beyond your means. Do you have to pay someone to tell you that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having your bff's husband be your financial adviser! While the market tanked it was understandable that we were losing money. However, the market has bounced back but our net worth has not. We have another financial advisor who we hired and he's been making us money for the last two years. We need to fire the guy that continues to lose our money.

Please the name of the good FA!

Ameriprise Gopala Krishna @ Tysons Corner -- http://www.ameripriseadvisors.com/gopala.3.krishna/profile/

[Anonymous]

Mistake: I dropped out of the workforce 110% completely to stay at home for years.

Looking back, it's clear I should have either hung out a shingle and done a little contract work here and there, or, taken some low-paying, quasi professional job in my field for < 20 hours a week.

**** I do not want to start that stupid SAH-WOH debate!!!! ****

The assumptions we made about DH's earning/investing/saving ability did not pan out

[Anonymous]

Financial coup: Gave ILs a suggestion for where to invest a spare $10K for a few years. It turned out to be magic. Now they love me and think I'm a genius. (Well, at least until the near future when I'm bound to screw up.)

Dumb mistake: paying for private school for a few years. The kids are getting better educations in public.

[Anonymous]

Biggest large-scale coup: Pay up to get the best education possible. Opened a lot of doors for me in job market.

Biggest large-scale failure: Majored in English. Should have picked something more immediately marketable.

Biggest smaller-scale coup: Refinancing aggressively with unconventional loan vehicles. Currently sitting on a 2% home equity line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents tought me the value of saving for retirement when I was 10!
They started IRAs for all of us - and forced us to deposit $3k a year to the account until we all graduated from college. I have done the same for my kiddos. !

how did you earn 3k a year as a kid?

[Anonymous]

Financial coup -- living slightly below my means the entire time I've been a professional. It really opens up your options and makes you less nervous in an unstable economy, if/when job volatility hits - which it typically does at some point in the private sector.

I'm not suggesting that you have to work hard and then deprive yourself all the fruits of that labor and be eating Ramen every night, driving a moped, and never going out and doing anything fun. But I don't understand why it's impossible for people who make 250k but live as if they're making 200k or 180k and just save the rest for a rainy day -- it's not like you'd be living an uncomfortable lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

Here's a question as I'm financially planning -- do you all have a dollar amount in savings that makes you feel comfortable, that if something bad happened job-wise, you wouldn't worry THAT much if you had x dollars on hand? I'm asking about liquid savings - not a house or 401k/IRA, but cash in a bank or personal investment accounts that you can pull money out of, even at a loss. If there isn't a solid number, how do you calculate it -- i.e. how many months of expenses?

[Anonymous]

Worst mistake ever - getting a credit card as a college freshman with no income. Then charging it to the limit. Then getting more cards. Do they still give credit cards to college students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's a question as I'm financially planning -- do you all have a dollar amount in savings that makes you feel comfortable, that if something bad happened job-wise, you wouldn't worry THAT much if you had x dollars on hand? I'm asking about liquid savings - not a house or 401k/IRA, but cash in a bank or personal investment accounts that you can pull money out of, even at a loss. If there isn't a solid number, how do you calculate it -- i.e. how many months of expenses?

Most recommend 8 months of an emergency fund in essentially liquid assets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a question as I'm financially planning -- do you all have a dollar amount in savings that makes you feel comfortable, that if something bad happened job-wise, you wouldn't worry THAT much if you had x dollars on hand? I'm asking about liquid savings - not a house or 401k/IRA, but cash in a bank or personal investment accounts that you can pull money out of, even at a loss. If there isn't a solid number, how do you calculate it -- i.e. how many months of expenses?

Most recommend 8 months of an emergency fund in essentially liquid assets.

That's 8 months of living expenses saved in an"emergency fund.".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Financial coup -- living slightly below my means the entire time I've been a professional. It really opens up your options and makes you less nervous in an unstable economy, if/when job volatility hits - which it typically does at some point in the private sector.

I'm not suggesting that you have to work hard and then deprive yourself all the fruits of that labor and be eating Ramen every night, driving a moped, and never going out and doing anything fun. But I don't understand why it's impossible for people who make 250k but live as if they're making 200k or 180k and just save the rest for a rainy day -- it's not like you'd be living an uncomfortable lifestyle.

I agree with your principle 100%, but for those of us with student loan debt, living on 3/4 of our salary in an high cost is pretty impossible. Add in the cost of child care, and we are pretty much living paycheck to check (though we do auto-transfer for some savings and put nearly $15K into our retirement funds).