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I spent about $400 to speculate on Lehman for fun in 2008 only to lose like 90% of it.. this is my worst investment return but nowhere near my worst personal finance decision.
Worst personal finance decision is waiting until I finished my 2 Masters Degrees before entering the workforce at age 26 when I first started saving money as well. I wish I had begun much earlier...
Basically, I bowed to pressure to pursue an education to fulfill "family obligations" rather than pursuing my passions. Btw, Masters degrees = failed to get PhD.
That was my biggest financial blunder in hindsight too, I started a PhD and left almost 3 years later with a Masters. In my field having a MS pays you only slight bit more than having the extra experience would've paid me, I actually have a BS from a fairly prestigious college, and I wouldn't have had to pay to take the last few courses to get out with a MS. The opportunity cost of not working for full salary, getting just a student stipend, and then nothing for a few quarters was high.
At least I get to root for a college football team that is actually division I and wins.
Enrolling into a for-profit IT school that cost more than three times what the technical school charges for an associates degree.
Ya, but isn't it true the for profit IT school trained you and had you earning a pay check way faster than the free tech school? You can go to college to take dental hygiene, for example, and complete the course years faster and making money so much sooner, you are paid back many fold for the extra money spent initially.
Not necessarily; I guess it depends on where in SE FL we're talking about. Coincidentally, the condo building I'm in was built in 2004 and units here are now selling for more than when the building first opened 10 years ago. Of course, the market value of these units went down significantly during the first 5-7 years and have skyrocketed up since. In fact, units are now selling for exactly 50% more than I paid a mere 15 months ago. The original owner sold me his unit in 2012 for almost the exact same price he had paid in 2004 after riding a rollercoaster down and then back up to his starting point.
The unit I bought sold new in 2001 for 210k, I paid 375k in 2005..... Current value 160k. I am still stunned that it is worth 25% less than it was new after 12 years!
The issue with condos is the HOA fees/management....they can really destroy equity fast (underfunded building with a big assessment in the pipeline).
Buying a house. At the time (March 2008), I planned to live in Houston for several years with my then-fiancee. Nineteen months later, the relationship ended badly and I had to evict her brother - who was living with us - for lack of payment of rent. Shortly thereafter, I moved back to my hometown in Ohio to a better job and much better life.
I ended up renting out the house a few months later, and the family has lived there now for almost four years and been excellent tenants. The rent covers the mortgage, but still, there are the inevitable fix-up costs, etc. Definitely ready to move on.
Getting cancer. Between my insurance not covering procedures, medical billing screwing up and not sending me bills until they were in collections, and just general financial strain, I entered my 20s in a pretty nasty place.
Good thing we don't have that nasty "socialized" medical care some other countries have, and also the best healthcare system in the world! Right?
Choosing a whack job for a business partner. Easily. Otherwise, we have made pretty logical decisions with money. We live below our means, protect our cash, and invest conservatively. We have never been sucked into the bubbles such as real estate and the dot coms, instead making calculated risks in real estate and blue chips.
Buying our first house. The year was 2003, we were paying $600 in rent for a place that was comparable in size, but not as nice as this brand new house we bought. Our mortgage payment was ~$1100. We sold it in 2012 for 20K loss, because we moved out of state.
However, I can't say that we didn't learn our lesson. Our next house purchase (our current house) was way more prudent - we didn't overbuy, it was a very good move financially (we are now paying what we would pay in rent for a much smaller place), and over the past 18 months the prices went up at least 10% on comparable houses in our neighborhood.
Last edited by OhioToCO; 01-11-2014 at 10:57 AM..
Reason: typos
1. Instead of going back to school and getting some kind of degree or technical skill when I got divorced with two small children, I slaved away for years at a go-nowhere retail job thinking I was really doing something by not getting any "handouts" and standing on my own two feet, and got exactly - nowhere. Years wasted, hours and years of my life wasted, hours away from my children during critical years, cost of everything going up while my wages stagnated, beneftis were yanked, and we have stayed at near poverty level.
2. Buying my current home in August - in the year 2008. Market crashed the next month.
3. Had I waited just 6 more months to buy my home, I would have been eligible for the $8000 homebuying credit and could have paid off all of my credit card debt with that amount.
4. Bought a brand new car. Spent several thousand dollars recently selling it back to the dealer to get out from under the loan payments and higher auto insurance while it was in good enough shape that I still could, and I'm glad I did. NEVER again in this lifetime.
What I have done right is to be absolutely diligent about paying my bills. I don't make a lot salary wise, but have an extremely good credit score, and that helps greatly in a pinch. I am also very resourceful and frugal and manage to live "well" on very little.
Canceling my car insurance after I junked my worthless car (it needed many repairs), and decided to use public transportation. I was in my 20s and lived in Philadelphia. I had no idea that a year later when I got another car so that I could move to the 'burbs, I would be dumped into a high-risk insurance pool, even with 10 years of a clean driving record and no claims against my insurance! I should have just paid the premium for that year or so--I would have come out ahead. The kicker? The insurance agent asking if I had ever been married, since even a divorced or separated woman's premiums would be cheaper than a single woman's. I was livid!
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