Share your financial mistakes or coups
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Anonymous
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best coup: buying a house in DC in the late 90s. it's more than tripled in value.
also, consistently living beneath our means. DH and I are either side of 50, and both semi-retired. biggest mistake: probably private schools for the kids. not just the expense, but also the rarified world our kids have become accustomed to. |
Anonymous
Can you elaborate? We are in a so-so school district in California. |
Anonymous
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Coup: getting close to full-ride scholarships to undergrad and law school.
Coup: always living slightly or far below my means for all of my 20s and early 30s. Possible fail: marrying someone with expensive taste without the commensurate salary ... But who may get a nice inheritance. |
Anonymous
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Big thanks to my parents for saving enough money that I had my in-state tuition paid for...big coup graduating in four years with no debt.
Another coup was going to grad school while living at home and working full time...not always possible but allowed me to pay for grad school myself and not end up in debt. Final coup...buying a house early (12 years ago) in this area and buying on one salary (my husband's) so we knew we would be able to afford it if I ever wanted to stay home (which I did for four years). One regret is not maxing out my 401k at my first job...lost three years of investment time. I thought I wouldn't stay long so didn't bother but it turned out to be three years which would have amounted to something. I have maxed out ever since. |
Anonymous
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Quick aside: What is "maxing out" one's 401k? I assume there's a limit to how much you can contribute? A percentage of your salary?
I've always contributed what I need to for the employer match. |
Anonymous
| There is max allowed per year - I think it was $16,500 for 2011 and if you're over 50 you can make a catch-up contribution of $5,000. Check the IRS website for 2012 limits. |
Anonymous
| I'd be interested in responses from 20somethings. |
Anonymous
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Financial coup: Working hard in undergrad and getting a full-ride for my doctorate in the social sciences. My husband also had a full ride for his master's degree in music. (we met in grad school). Which is great since we make nice salaries but nothing spectacular, and so student loans would have been a big burden
Financial mistake: Buying our starter home in 2004 in a neighborhood that is increasingly becoming downtrodden. We will lose at least 60 grand, and probably more, to sell it....which we will need to do in a few years, as the schools suck and we don't want to send our son there 
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Anonymous
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biggest "coup" was being born to parents who were able to save for college so there was enough not only to pay for college but to give us most of a down payment too (note that they were the first ones in their family to go to college-- my grandfather was a mechanic-- and they are not in need of cash from us).
second biggest "coup" was buying in Adams Morgan not long after the riots. on a small scale, we've steadily bought i-bonds, and some of the older ones earn over 5% right now, which is nice especially since they double as our emergency fund. biggest mistake-- that I know of so far at least-- was leaving money on the table when we sold that place in Adams Morgan (for which I partly blame us and partly our real estate agent) (on a purely financial scale, not keeping that place as a rental might have been a mistake but I did not want to be a landlord and I am not sure we could have swung the downpayment on a new place without selling it) |
Anonymous
1. My parents didn't bankroll my young adulthood. They had means, but I had to work to earn fun money from a very, very young age. I got my first job ~8 working for my Dad’s company. I paid for most of my education. Most folks will think this is crazy as it is definitely outside the norms. 
2. We live well below our means. We both work outside the home, but we could live on one salary with some austerity measures. 3. Reduce your taxable income. SPEND $$$ on a good CPA and/or financial planner. 4. Pay attention to your 401k, educate yourself about the market, and rebalance/adjust at least quarterly. 5. Live debt free. Pay in cash – to include cars. Never carry credit card debt. 6. Pay yourself first. 401k, 529s, etc… Fail: Investment property under water. |
Anonymous
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Re: 401k, etc., I have $410K in my gov't TSP and DH has $300k in his IRA.
DH is retired and I have ~ 6 years until first opportunity to retire at 56. Does this seem like a lot or a little to you? Currently putting max into TSP. |
Anonymous
That doesn't seem like anywhere near enough, but who knows what your pension/other assets are. Rule of thumb would be to take 4% a year from savings (although that is just a rule of thumb, and may not work for you particularly if you are retiring so young), so if you retire with $800k together, you would have about $32k a year for both of you. Forgot to add that one big "coup" for us was that we bought housing that we could more or less afford on only one salary, even though we both work. |
Anonymous
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biggest mistake: buying individual stock on a tip
second biggest mistake: having too much of the college funds in CDs |
Anonymous
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biggest coup: 14% decline in value of retirement and invested funds in 2008 and the 23% increase in value of those funds in 2009. Could I ever repeat that? Nope, but it sure helped.
biggest mistake: shutting down my profitable business to attend.....law school. |
Anonymous
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1. Biggest coup: buying Apple shares years ago when it was cheap.
2. Smaller coups: buying a fixer-upper in a great neighborhood and sending the kids to public there. Debt free graduate school. 3. Difficulty: leaving the workforce to care for my special needs child. But I am convinced he would not have developed as well had I not done so... extremely difficult choice there. Currently DH is out of a job, so we have no income, and are thanking our stars for coup 1. mentioned above. |