What's the worst financial decision you've ever made?

[TTM0TION]

Going on an HPDE and liking it.

[JustinHEMI]

When I went to college in the early to mid 90's, the first thing I noticed when arriving on campus was a long line of credit card vendors offering all sorts of trinkets and incentives to sign up for credit cards. I fell into their traps and I entered my 20s deep in credit card debt that would haunt me for a while.

Big lesson learned, and I guess I'm sort of glad I got it out of the way early in my adult life, but it hurt a lot for a while.

[JustinHEMI]

The second worst is I put 5K into a shitcoin which is now worth 250 bucks.

[UncleWede]

About that timeshare I "bought" back around 1990.

Still never been to Palm Springs. . .

[dradernh]

Originally Posted by TTM0TION

Going on an HPDE and liking it.

No kidding. I spent a few hundred thou driving down that road.

It was fun, though!

[snowbimmer]

Originally Posted by MunkyTool

You are assuming everything would have gone the same way with you involved.

God dammit. That's just plain funny.

[tcphoto]

Trusted my best friend of fourteen years with investing $20K, thankfully I recovered $11K and was met with a stonewall when asking WTF happened.

[ASAP]

Originally Posted by Nachbar

Not buying Bitcoin in 2014, when a friend told me about.
Did first in 2017.

my friend was kind of a nerd and was always into computers... he is now a sw engineer at a major company

back around 2011-2012 he mentioned something to me about bitcoin and something about digital currency... i laughed it off as nonsense which at the time it was... he didn't do anything with the info either but there were many ways to accumulate bitcoin at that time... if he did, we would be talking multimillionaire status

either way, i don't regret it because it was like buying a lottery ticket at the time... everyone thought of it as nonsense and no one thought it would go where it did

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by tcphoto

Trusted my best friend of fourteen years with investing $20K, thankfully I recovered $11K and was met with a stonewall when asking WTF happened.

Something similar happened to my brother.

A good friend of many years asked to borrow him quite some money. Given the friendship, my brother gave him the money - trusting "that's what friends are for", no ? Clear commitment by the "good friend" to return it within a year, no interests due. The "good friend" was all smiles when he received the money.

Well, it took a couple of years and lots of frustrating moments for my brother to get his money back. The "good friend" became unrecognizable: broken promises, excuses, pretexts, "health issue", to the point that the "good friend" became increasingly aggressive and cut all contact. No penny refunded at that time. Stonewalled.

File a lawsuit or not ? In the end my brother managed to speak to the "good friend"'s wife. Serene conversation. She admitted that it was a total shame how badly her husband had treated him, but her husband had encountered some "setbacks". At last, my brother got his money back. My brother cut all ties with the "good friend".

Often, if you want to lose a friend, borrow him/her quite some money.

[tcphoto]

Artemis I remember him telling me about a series of investments that had paid off and he asked if I wanted in. About a year before, he got me into a side hustle that did quite well and I gifted him regularly to show my gratitude. Anyway, he shared reports showing that my $20K had grown to $33K but when I had a need for cashflow, he wasn't available and promised to FedEx some cash but it never came. He told me that he quit drinking, promised to repay the money and $11K was mysteriously slid under my door one morning. After a couple years, I tried to reconnect and ask about the backstory but he quickly changed the subject. Needless to say, he is dead to me.

[Serf27]

My dad bought 2 small houses and a duplex about a year before Covid. He asked if I wanted to invest a bit just to be a part of it.

I said not right now..

[UncleWede]

Accepting the role of Successor Trustee for my parents' Trust

[Watching The World Burn]

Originally Posted by UncleWede

Accepting the role of Successor Trustee for my parents' Trust

Yeah, haven't done it myself, but seen what my Mom has gone through acting in that role and it is not fun.

An older couple who are clients asked me to be the executor of their estate when they die. I flat out said no. Zero interest in that crap, despite the fees I could charge. Plus, I'm pretty sure it would be a contentious estate since I understand they are pretty much planning on cutting their daughter out and leaving more to the son.

I did hesitate for just a moment, because I figured fees could be roughly $60-$70K based on size of their estate...but still, I've got better things to do than appear in court to defend the will (well, guess my counsel would), so I turned them down.

[///MPhatic]

Originally Posted by Kolyan2k

Seating on cash all my life. Never had money issues (at least not yet), but I would be a millionaire by now if only I invested, wouldn't have to work either. And guess what, I am still not investing much.....just afraid

Same.

The learning curve is so steep, just not willing to lose everything in an effort to possibly gain something when there are so many smarter investment-minded people out there just itching to make my money theirs. I may not have a lot, but what I have is mine, I don't give it away so easily.

[bucketfoot]

Originally Posted by ShopVac

Having kids.

This... Not that it was the wrong decision, but purely on a financial basis it's a big loser!

[ZHP to B58]

The worst: bought Dogecoin in June 2020 at $0.002721 each. Sold it all days later and was smug to have gotten a 30% gain.

If I had just left it and sold it later at even $0.25.....could've paid off the house, picked up some more, retired early, etc.

[Murf the Surf]

Second marriage......made the first seem like a weekend golfing with my buddies.

[infinitekidM2C]

leasing a car during college cause i got tired of repairing my acura. i should have just bought a beater outright.

[XutvJet]

Owning a 7 year old BMW and a 12 year old Porsche at the same time.

[dradernh]

Originally Posted by ShopVac

Having kids.

Originally Posted by bucketfoot

This... Not that it was the wrong decision, but purely on a financial basis it's a big loser!

When I suggested to a friend in the mid-00s that raising a child in the upper middle class to age 18 cost $250K in after-tax dollars (a number I'd read in the WSJ a decade earlier), he looked me right in the eye and very quickly brought me up to speed. It wasn't a quarter of a million after-tax dollars any more, he said, it was one-third of a million dollars. Per child. After tax.

Mind you, that's to set the child up to win economically for the rest of his or her life – to be one of the 10%. After that, of course, it's up to the kid to make the grade.

This wasn't a family splashing-out in any visible way, and I didn't ask for a breakdown, but I found that to be a very sobering number. The wife and I were well beyond having kids by then (we chose not to have them decades before), but it did give us an appreciation for what parents wanting their kids to have - not the very best of everything by any means, but a fair shot at most of what our country has to offer - had to pay to make that happen.

[ricardofors68]

Build a racecar. Then do it all over again...

[XutvJet]

Originally Posted by dradernh

When I suggested to a friend in the mid-00s that raising a child in the upper middle class to age 18 cost $250K in after-tax dollars (a number I'd read in the WSJ a decade earlier), he looked me right in the eye and very quickly brought me up to speed. It wasn't a quarter of a million after-tax dollars any more, he said, it was one-third of a million dollars. Per child. After tax.

Mind you, that's to set the child up to win economically for the rest of his or her life – to be one of the 10%. After that, of course, it's up to the kid to make the grade.

This wasn't a family splashing-out in any visible way, and I didn't ask for a breakdown, but I found that to be a very sobering number. The wife and I were well beyond having kids by then (we chose not to have them decades before), but it did give us an appreciation for what parents wanting their kids to have - not the very best of everything by any means, but a fair shot at most of what our country has to offer - had to pay to make that happen.

I really don't understand where this math is coming from. My wife and I don't spend $17k/yr or $1400/mo raising our kids. Yes, some months or years are more expensive, but overall, not $17/yr. Not even close. We'd still have the same cars and house if we didn't have kids. My health insurance would only be marginally cheaper.

Seeing that the median household income is around $78k year, and many households have 2 kids, it's hard for me to fathom folks making $120k or less a year are spending $17k/yr raising each child until 17 as this data suggests. I think weathly folks sending their kiddos to day long daycare and private schools are really skewing this number.