s/o the worst financial decision you made
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Anonymous
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Doing a ton of research and investing in a bunch of actively managed funds that didn't even begin to beat the indexes.
Never again. We're 100% in index funds. |
Anonymous
| Got three misdemeanors by the time I was 21. Two nights in jail, $3000 in lawyer fees and fines, three 2.5 hour each way trips for court and endless stress. |
Anonymous
| My worst financial decision was pursuing a degree and career field I loved without realizing it would largely not allow me from having children. |
Anonymous
It's hard when they're happy, but kids are resilient and can adjust. If it's affecting your retirement savings, it's too expensive. I posted about this regret earlier- we are sending our son to public middle school and using the money for his college and our retirement- debt free college and elderly, financially solvent parents will be a wonderful gift some day. I have nothing against private school btw. |
Anonymous
| If you all want to feel better, I once met somebody who turned down an offer to be one of Google's very early employees. |
Anonymous
| Selling Apple stock during recession. Had to do it but sigh |
Anonymous
| Becoming a journalist. |
Anonymous
What was the field? |
Anonymous
OMG I bet that person would have some stories. This is OP: and THANK YOU all for sharing your tales of financial regret. I would like to think the lesson is that you can really f*ck some things up and still turn out ok - hopefully we will all find ourselves at that fortunate stage of things, when push comes to shove. Oh I forgot a good one - though, I don't know; I only half-regret this one despite it being clearly a stupid thing to do: I was an expat for about 5.5 years. I'd left my overseas job where I had $10k in a retirement fund that I had to take out. Instead of putting that money into savings or another retirement fund, I blew it traveling for two months. Then I came back to the US with basically zero dollars to my name, and was unpleasantly surprised to discover that there was no magic presto solution to that problem. |
Anonymous
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1. Cashing out my 401k when I was in my mid-20s and laid off during the financial crisis. The good news is I have around 500k at 34 and now contribute 50k per year including employer matching. But it still hurts
2. Renting pricey apartments in my 20s 3. Buying a condo. Worst investment ever |
Anonymous
You are only 35 at least - start now, can you direct money from your job into your 401K and perhaps also a monthly automatic deduction into an index fund (start small, don't worry if the value goes down in the next few years, as you'd just be buying at cheaper levels, you'll be dollar-cost averaging until age 65). These would be good decisions, I don't see how you can mess it up if you do automatic monthly deductions for the next 25-30 yrs. Take charge and take care of yourself. |
Anonymous
| I bought $2000 of Amazon stock in 1999 and sold it during the dot com bubble in 2000 -- at a LOSS. |
Anonymous
| Cant believe nobody said HELOC from the mid 2000s. 2005 it was soo easy did a cashout refi and heloc at the same time. Invested some of it did ok but spent a lot of it.. the ole house=ATM.. this was a major contributor to foreclosures of the 06,07 buildup to the financial crisis. I had to empty many of those same accounts and then some just to sell that house |
Anonymous
| i remember an almost bad decision- came to know a guy who was selling a "double your money" in like 9 months thing he called it a debenture back in 2005..hmmm put money in double in 9 months take it out or let it double again? If you ever heard about Bernie Madoff that was probably where this money went. Luckily never did it but several people got suckered. |
Anonymous
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Buying a condo
getting married having kids |