What were your biggest financial mistakes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Private elementary school for my kids. Realizing now that I could have taken that $500k, invest it, and then buy their way into a college.

What do you mean by this? I could barely if I push it and pinch it out my kid in private elementary so curious.

[Anonymous]

I erred in thinking that one of us would ever make as much money as we did in the year before we married. Twenty years later, it turns out that neither of us succeeded in our careers. Throw in a couple of kids with expensive health issues and the money just disappeared.

All the other mistakes are just noise.

[Anonymous]

Letting credit card debt build up, more than once. It's so hard to dig out from!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In 1997, some friends and I had a stock "club" where we pretended to put money in stocks and watched what they did. I had $2000 in pretend money invested in Apple, which was deep in the depths of its John Scully days at the time.

Had I put $2000 of real money in AAPL, it would be worth about $3 million today.

Oops.

Had you invested in 2007 when Iphone came out, you still would have made money. I think every person at the presentation bought apple stock the next day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't invest in my company's 401k when I first graduated from college because I didn't know retirement savings were important then. Where I grew up everyone lives off social security.

I also blew a ton of stupid money on restaurants and taxis when I got my first good paying job.

+1. And I had matching funds (up to a certain percentage) available, and I gave up free money. I was 22 and didn't know what I was doing, had parents who were on pensions and didn't know the first thing about 401ks, I was just thinking hey I need all of my money *now*.

[Anonymous]

Doubling my money in many tech stocks in the late 2000s and selling my shares. I thought I was a genius at the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Going to law school at the best one that accepted me T-15, instead of taking a near total tuition free ride at a respectable T-25 school.

I did the same thing. Well, similar. I ignored a scholarship from Notre Dame and went to a school that was ranked lower because I wanted to move to that city. It all worked out, I loved my law school years, but it wasn't the best financial decision to just ignore the full scholarship offer.

This is insane. I could see turning down Notre Dame for a higher ranked law school, but to go to a lower ranked school and pay more just because it’s in the city you want to practice in makes zero sense. The Notre Dame degree travel well.

Oh, it wasn't even the city I wanted to practice in. It was just a city I wanted to hang out in. But I have no real regrets about it. I loved living there; it all worked out well. And although the school had a lower ranking, it wasn't all that much lower.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't invest in my company's 401k when I first graduated from college because I didn't know retirement savings were important then. Where I grew up everyone lives off social security.

I also blew a ton of stupid money on restaurants and taxis when I got my first good paying job.

+1. And I had matching funds (up to a certain percentage) available, and I gave up free money. I was 22 and didn't know what I was doing, had parents who were on pensions and didn't know the first thing about 401ks, I was just thinking hey I need all of my money *now*.

LOL. I spent the first decade of my career working for one company where the retirement plan was the company stock and another company with an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Suffice to say that those "savings" are now worthless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 1997, some friends and I had a stock "club" where we pretended to put money in stocks and watched what they did. I had $2000 in pretend money invested in Apple, which was deep in the depths of its John Scully days at the time.

Had I put $2000 of real money in AAPL, it would be worth about $3 million today.

Oops.

Had you invested in 2007 when Iphone came out, you still would have made money. I think every person at the presentation bought apple stock the next day.

I bought AAPL stock when the iPhone came out. I knew it would be a hit - an iPod that made phone calls.

I sold my position when I made a 100% gain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sending my kids to private school for 6th-9th grades. Biggest waste of money (almost $350K+). Last 3 years in public HS and both went to T-20 colleges and are now doing great in their careers.

+1

Same mistake. Public high school has been better both academically and financially since we pulled from private middle school.

which public school did your children attend? the PS seems important.

no really, please come back and tell me your public school district and the year your children were in school! i feel like this is important.

i

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Letting credit card debt build up, more than once. It's so hard to dig out from!

+1. Same

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:let's see:

Not participating in ROTH IRA
Not contributing the max to 401K
Taking money out of 401K

Same! Ugh

[Anonymous]

Buying timeshare. The most stupid decision ever.

[Anonymous]

I’m 72 and my list of stupid stuff is long. But I’m big net positive so I’m OK. But the losers are hard to forget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sending my kids to private school for 6th-9th grades. Biggest waste of money (almost $350K+). Last 3 years in public HS and both went to T-20 colleges and are now doing great in their careers.

+1

Same mistake. Public high school has been better both academically and financially since we pulled from private middle school.

+1
Also three years of private. I wish I had that $ for college now.