Major financial mistakes

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What kind of major financial mistakes have you made?

Last year a hacker almost took all my money. Thank Buddha he was not successful.

Failure to enroll in company sponsored insurance

Got in car crash that insurance ruled, was half my fault

Let someone drive my car

Went to college

Uhmm...

Buying a 30USD worth of pinhole shades when it can be brought for less than a dollar.

Ending up purchasing a 140USD worth of 'insurance' and doubting if it's actually a form of time deposit.
I've yet to find out, regardless I'm not ready for that.

Years and years worth of snacks, which did took about a decade worth of most of my allowances, salary AND monetary gifts for not being able to figure it all out earlier.

Yes, I consider 'coping with crap' as a financial mistake.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

Signing over my rights to his pension.
Giving him winning lottery numbers only to find he lied and didn’t play them like I told him to. $500k lost.
Listening to him and not gambling in Tahoe instead of following my intuition. Went to Reno instead. He said roads to Tahoe weren’t safe in the BMW. And nobody ever wins at Tahoe. Rented a souped up Mustang muscle car. Jet black. Beautiful powerful V-8 and went to same casino I wanted but in Reno. Lost big time. Came back home only to find someone sitting at the same machine I wanted at the same time in Tahoe struck it big. Loss: $1million and that was the first and last time anyone ever won big like that in Tahoe incidentally.
So yeah I kick myself everytime I think about it.

Both times he didn’t say a word. No apologies. In fact when I got back from Reno he accused me of meeting a man. He then started an argument. I didn’t and I wasn’t by the way. At least not that time. But the argument was the way to steer the conversation away from the fact I was right and he was wrong.

I was born. That seems to be the root of the rest of my mistakes, financial and otherwise.

I went to a pricey college and made a poor decision as far as the major I chose. The problem is that I pursued a special interest rather than something that could actually serve a practical purpose in my life.

I married an abuser. Now I’ve got PTSD, so it’s kind of hard to make progress. When presented with options, it seems like I invariably make the wrong choice. I have a knack for it.

I think I just needed more guidance and support when I was a kid. I was entirely self taught from 6th grade through high school. I needed career planning, sex education, and instruction in math and science from an actual teacher.

“Life is stranger than anything the mind can invent.”

If you know you have a knack for making the wrong choice then do the opposite of the first thing that comes to you.
My ex had a habit of always being wrong. Finally learned to ask him for advice then do what I wanted. Just made sure NOT to do what he suggested. Worked out well for me eventually. He was helpful in that way. It Let me know I was heading in the right direction as long as I wasn’t going in the direction he said I should.

The only mistakes I regret were the ones where I didn’t listen to myself. Those are the hardest. Life is filled with mistakes. That’s how we learn.

Lending money to a (now ex) friend. Not getting repaid wasn't the worst thing. I didn't even ask for the money back, but she just wrecked our relationship and blamed me. She eventually converted to another religion and never saw me again. I still don't get how that could be my fault. Anyway now I never lend money to people.

I let my OCD get the better of me in some of my hobbies, and I spent more money than I should have by pursuing upgrades to equipment that I really didn't need to upgrade and should have happy with. I recovered some of the money by selling the equipment I wanted to upgrade, but it was still at a significant loss.

Hello Elon here, (not really)

My biggest financial mistake was “ to incorporate in Delaware.”
$56 Billion dollar mistake. (Really)

Since I am not autistic, my husband is, I will share major financial mistakes WE made until we made.

*We thought that since he was smarter, he should take care of anything "complicated" (turns out I am better at finances and at home construction)

*We didn't realize that I could always talk on the phone for him, even for his solo accounts, so he would sometimes go into collections because he simply didn't want to talk on the phone, not because he couldn't pay

*Thinking a newer car was a better car

*Buying another car instead of fixing the old one, "because another one will last longer"

*Forgetting to sign our infant up on his insurance (because we didn't realize I could call, not him) so we had to pay out of pocket for ALL pediatric visits for our son's first year

Not buying bitcoin when it was like $0.00001 in 2011/12 then it went up to like $60k in 2021.

Those who bought back then, didn’t sell or get their wallet hacked suddenly became multi millionaires some had 10s or hundreds of millions of dollars.

In a parallel universe somewhere someone told me about it and I got involved for a few hundred and I was able to retire early not having any further financial problems

When I quit my first job they put my accrued pension into an insurance scheme which now pays me a pittance that doesn't increase over time, so it becomes worth less because of inflation. My mistake was that I didn't take advantage of a redress scheme for people who had been mis-sold that kind of thing, and the deadline went by. I took very little interest in "bread-head" matters in those days. The consequences aren't devastating because I have 2 other pensions that aren't affected by that mis-selling scandal and they do increase over time. Also in those days I had nothing like the outgoings I have these days. I had way more than enough to live on, but now my expenditure is beginning to get uncomfortably close to my income.

Another mistake was being too kind to a spouse (now divorced) who kept getting into debt and begging me to bail her out. She also kept having grandiose, unrealistic ideas about getting rich, and I foolishly put money into them for the sake of peace and quiet.

Beyond those things, I've been fairly prudent with money.

Oh man, where to start. I've never understood money. Here's a choice selection:

My first big mistake was when I was at university. I shared a house in my second year and I couldn't take it, so for the third year I rented a flat on my own which I couldn't really afford. I was working part time but I also took out student loans to help pay for it. I burnt out in my third year at uni as well which means I didn't actually graduate. I shouldn't have been there at all.

Having not graduated, I somehow found someone to give me a post-graduate loan which I spent on an expensive, intensive journalism course. Which I also couldn't finish.

I did get a job in journalism which I initially thought justified the loan but I then found out they were giving jobs to people who had no training at all. Complete waste of money. Not even my money.

What I should have done was drop out of university and work full time instead which would have paid for my flat and not put me in debt. Or, I could have stayed in university, taken out the student loans and used them to put a deposit down on a flat, which is something people I knew were doing. They got on the property ladder just before the boom started and now own their own homes outright while I'm still struggling with ever-increasing rents.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I also fell in love with someone who has never been able to contribute financially to our life so we've always struggled to get by on my salary (which has always been below national average) while couples with two reasonable incomes have enjoyed more comfortable lives. I don't regret that but it's a fact.