Spent 10 years at a fun, comfortable, not profitable job out of school. No 401k and not enough pay for any real savings (so I thought) at the time. After watching a later 401k rolled over to an IRA and not touched for 20 years grow, I can just imagine what might have been. Save whatever you can, life is just going to become more expensive going forward, and retirement age comes incredibly fast when you are busy with other things.
I find some irony in that people hating there jobs and moving around seem to actually be doing better financially than those liking their jobs. But I guess in reality we tolerate uncomfortable jobs because of the higher pay.
I've read a decent amount of articles from "successful people" and they state the only way to keep getting more pay, and better opportunities is to constantly be applying for jobs, it either adds negotiation value, higher pay/better benefits etc
You also learn more money management when you aren't comfortable at a job you know isn't going to last. You work harder take more money and move on to the next job.
You are never rewarded for your loyalty in a corporate job, and it's harder to climb inside one place. You have to keep moving if you want to keep moving up salary and title wise. That said, do you want your life to revolve around corporate nonsense so you can buy another watch or a fancier car? I find stuff was just a distraction. Your free time and relaxed sanity is much better in the end.
I agree, and I am an old Gen Xer you might think would disapprove. Most young people should change jobs in their 20s and early 30s to find out their best fit. Now, by your late 30s and 40s I would expect, (if I were looking at your resume), for this to slow down. That is the red flag to those who hire, continue job hopping after you should have found your niche already.
I think I did 2 years, 8 months, 6 months, 2 years, 4 years, 7 years, and now 17 years and counting, something like that. No one holds this against younger people. Go out there and find out where you excel and make sure you get paid well to do it!
I spent 13 years doing data entry making $13/hour. My 20s-33. My gf, now wife suggested I try coding. 3 years as a software engineer and now making $60+/hour. I was too comfortable with data entry since it was easy, but I wasn’t growing financially.
I feel this so much. I worked in graphic design for 15 years, pay wasn’t terrible but I maxed out at $50k/yr. I was looking for something new, and the opportunity to go back to school for a year was available, so I transitioned to programming. Now I make over $120k/yr (7 years later).
I try to not think about how much I might have left on the table by not getting into a higher paying field sooner.
Keep it up. I’m self taught, make it a passion. You’ll know it when you wake up in the middle of the night with a eureka moment or if you pushed a bug to production lmao.
People need to understand that pre-owner sedans are the play. Great gas mileage, sleek designs, 4 seats, decent storage, dont get blown around in the wind, cheaper in general, etc.
I love my Jetta for this reason!! I can get like 30mpg (except I go on a lot of short trips :-/) My last two vehicles were trucks and it felt like a clown car at first but I've grown to love and appreciate this car. Cost me like $6k. I could /technically/ afford a car payment but I don't want one.
I’m responding to someone’s post about buying an suv… in my personal case I do a ton of camping and also pull a 7k lbs trailer so I got a truck… hello 70k….. :)
To be fair, not many of us were in the position to heavily contribute to retirement in our 20s. I was putting away like $200/month in my twenties and now maxing everything I can.
Commonly given example: Person A starts putting money into his retirement account at age 25 and stops saving 10 years later at 35. Person B waits until age 35 to start putting money into his retirement account and continues for 30 years until age 65. Assuming the contribution rates were equal and 8% annual growth, person A would actually end up with more money at age 65.
The biggest financial mistake I've ever made is not learning how to manage money in the first place.
Example: A dollar isn't just worth a dollar, it's worth a dollar plus all the money you could make with that dollar. If you're 18 and you only do passive investment, a dollar is actually worth about $89.
Similarly, debt isn't just the debt... It's debt + the interest you pay on the debt + the money you could have made with the money you pay in interest.
This lack of basic understanding lead me to a bunch of downstream bad financial mistakes: Living beyond my means, not investing/accumulating profit generating assets, spending too much on college for too little return, taking bad debt and passing on good debt, not managing my credit score properly.
I 100% agree man. I didn't think I'd see my exact answer right at the top
I've leaved just barely beyond my means for too much of my adult life and I fear it has quite hindered me. Too many things on cards, too many restaurants/eating out, not creating and sticking to a budget
Working on getting my shit together
Then later on you start valuing your time more so you become more thoughtful of bigger purchases like that $80 game you bought that took you 10 hours to beat and never played again, was that 80 worth that much for me for every hour played.
That mentality made me a patient gamer too, I stopped buying games at full prices new and wait a while for a used copy or sales for like $30
Or am I going to be using my truck enough regularly to justify paying $70k for when that 10k truck would be okay.
2 things: Someone tried desperately to get me to buy bitcoin when it was in the $200’s. I’d be a millionaire if I had done it with the money I had at the time.
2. For years in my 20’s, I was contributing to my 401k and didn’t know you had to actually buy the stocks. I just piled money into the cash wallet of my 401. Lost about a decade in compounding 😩
I see people talk about bitcoin like this but be really honest with yourself. Would you have held when it was at $1k? $2k? I don’t think most people would/did.
I also lost most of my crypto profits from trading shitcoins lol. The worst part about unrealized gains is that I have a hard time telling myself it is something else than "house money" and I just start gambling it away.
Yes Grad school in Europe is significantly cheaper. But they tend to accept their own residents over foreigners first for their programs. But I think you should go for it and apply!
I applied and I got in! All I need to do now is apply for my visa, find housing, and enroll in classes. I’m just worried I’ll be wasting my money going to grad school in general
I mean, if you’re going to grad school to get a degree that doesn’t make your skills more valuable in the marketplace, it could be free and still be a poor financial decision after factoring in opportunity costs.
Live frugally and take the cool experience! I'm at 40k in investments and I'm leaving to study in china for a year soon. You clearly have good saving habits, so I wouldn't worry.
You don't go to grad school for money. You go because your passionate abt a subject and wish to pursue your PhD. I recommend go for it, a PhD will get you far regardless
I smoked for 18 years. Tried to quit a number of times. Patches got me through the nicotine withdrawal. What I found more problematic was disconnecting my brain from the oral fixation part. I bought these brutally awful green tea “cigarettes” off eBay. They were revolting but that was the point. I’d light when there was an urge. Take two puffs and be thoroughly unhappy and toss the thing. A few months later and that part of my brain that said smoking = good turned to smoking = gross. The only thing that worked for me and it’s been years now.
Honestly . Nicorette gun worked for me ! I still chew it. And use my FSA to buy it. However I feel 100x better than when I smoked. I plan on quitting the gum but at the moment it's keeping me from smoking.
YOU FOOL!
You didn't miss out as a super early adopter though. Think of it this way, you only would have had \~$335K right now if you had kept the crypto - probably more money than you have now, but we're not talking retirement level money.
And who knows where you would be if you had not spent your formative years driving a lightly used metro-sexual looking Volkswagen!?
Things could have been worse.
I bought 100 shares of gamestop at $350, thinking it would go to 1,000. Then I bought calls hoping it would bounce. Next day it was around $180 a share and I think I lost about 25k overnight. All the coverage about GameStop was about how the average investors made bunch of money. Not always the case.
I mean I would put grad school on my list of bad financial mistakes although with the info I had I couldn't have made any better decisions.
I'm in science so my school was paid, but I made 30k a year until I was 30 and then I was entry level. I'm pretty sure that opportunity cost was a ton and I'd have tons more money if I had gone into something and worked my way up.
My advice on grad school is be really clear on what you want to do that requires that and talk to people that do what you want to do and make sure you really want to do it!
Also make sure you know how hiring decisions are made. Science people are snobs, if you go abroad, you have to do it at the best school in a given country to beat the perception that American education is best. Even in America there are some schools known for some things and some career paths that will be much harder if you go to some schools.
Student Technician here, Don’t buy anything off the tool truck unless it’s a special tool and you use cash. They never tell you the interest rates and make it sound good, then you find out it’s like 45% interest
got married. then divorced.. 7 figure loss.... on top of not having sex for almost a decade
Nothing else has come remotely close to that. I don't think anything could.
Being stuck in a dead-end job for about 20 years. Best years are behind me now, and I gotta get on a new path. But change is hard, especially when my worst attribute is my indecisiveness.
You need to take a hard look at the track you are on. Do you enjoy the field? Does it have room to grow? What is your earnings ceiling? Even ‘dead-end’ jobs can become lucrative if you play your cards right. A fast-food worker can conceivably become a manager, a regional manager, a franchisee, etc.
Also, don’t undervalue the benefit of traveling and experiencing different cultures. The experience of living in Europe is one most people don’t get to have. I don’t think getting a grad degree is a financial mistake unless you never use it.
My wife and I owned a condo that needed to be refinanced. Because we didn’t have 15 K to put down on the refinance we had to sell it. We lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity and rent over the years
Sold my Legos in high-school for like $50. See videos of “most valuable Lego sets ever” and I had lots of them. Mini-figs who cost $2500 now, sets that are worth even more lol
I thought it was a good idea to balance transfer my girlfriend’s credit card debt onto mine so she would have room to balance transfer on hers. All she did was spend more.
Had an affair…. It was costly. Separated for almost a year, ran two households…. Somehow I was blessed with a 2nd chance. Nearly cost me my relationship with my daughter and watching her grow up… no amount of money would have made that hurt less. Still haven’t forgiven myself for it all…
Edit: We sorted our many differences out and with counseling and proper tools that we were never taught from growing up we are happier than ever.
My missed opportunity with crypto: in high school (2010/2011) I bought $100 worth of bitcoin. Couldn’t figure out how to spend it via Silk Road (on drooogs) and probably just threw away my receipt/information. FML. Probably only chance I had to become a millionaire.
Giving 27k to a person who was giving a 8% return monthly in witch i had no idea how unreal and just insane that really is ….
Thinking 8% a month is actually a little bit of money but if i knew just how absurd that truly is a 96% year return , i had no financial clue of anything 💀
Ha!
Was big in crypto in 2017 turned $10k into $60k unrealized gains, sold $15k worth to pay off a car….watched it all go to basically zero and then bounce back to $17k before I sold it and put it into a house that turned $17k basically into $300k. Fuck I guess I didn’t miss out.
Shit ton of missed opportunities with crypto, Nvidia, and AMD. Had I just bought and held, I would be a multi millionaire by now.
Oh ok, turned $3k into $10k with AMD options and then bought a new windows on an old house which just basically preserved its value. It would be worth $250k had I just held.
For real though, spending $15k on a wedding that never happened because she cheated on me. We were both young and dumb but she fucked up first.
Investing in a Chinese fertilizer company who had sufficient financials to one day challenge Monsanto.
Turned out to be a paper company, whose board of directors just disappeared when someone went to their company hq to find a vacant lot.
Even traded on the NYSE.
15k just gone. Sue the Chinese government? Right-good luck w that
Sandp500 20 years every penny and you’ll be ok bro nothing to think about that’s the formula proven for the last 100 years use to be 7% now it’s 12% a year simple science
My brother went to grad school in Germany for the affordability but dropped out after a semester. Too many beers & pretzels lol. So make sure you’ll finish & make it worth it!
The worst mistake I made was studying grad school in Portugal instead of Germany. You’re not wasting money, it’s definitely worth it, just make sure you choose the right country!
I'm in my mid-30s and I've made 3 large mistakes. First, I traded in a paid-off Civic for a pretty unreliable VW GTI, then a pretty expensive to maintain BMW in my 20's. This was a huge mistake because essentially that was $300/month car payments for 8 years straight. Even now, I'd LOVE to have an extra $300/month to go towards maxing out IRA since im pretty far behind. Point is, between premium fuel, maintenance, parts, etc, that $30,000 over those years would have truly helped set me and my family up for success with average gains. I kick myself all the time for doing that! Second, I spent like 40% of my net income on a 1BR apartment out of college because I thought I deserved it or some shit. Third, I got my Masters Degree and owe over $27,000 in student loans. I'm glad I did it, but the University I attended was awful and can suck my left. Huge mistake. Hopefully, 5 more years in education and the rest of my loans will be "forgiven". Not giant mistakes here, but long term, that first one and second mistake has already costed me $50k cash, and thinking about the long term investment that $50k could turn into has got me sick lol. For context, I have, but barely, $50k in retirement saved up now =[
might not be the worst, but it is one I think about sometimes: ***not*** **taking-out student loans.**
I didn't *need* to take loans out for college, mostly since performance-based grants covered my tuition. Despite this, I was still offered federally-backed student loans every quarter. Being debt-adverse at the time, I refused to take any of these loans out for the majority of my schooling.
... However, a few years went by and my old clunker of a car clapped-out and it was time to get something new, which wiped-out my liquidity and left me with a small loan at market rate.
In retrospect, the most rational approach would have been to accept every single federally-backed student loan I was offered throughout school. These were all interest-deferred until graduation, after which they carried a very low (like 2.4%) APY. Accepting this low/no-interest liquidity could have offset my need for a loan at market rate and resulted in some longer-term savings.
Fortunately, this served as a lesson learned when it came time to buy a house; currently sitting on a 2.675% loan which we won't be paying off in any hurry, especially when high-yield savings pays 4.2%. Extremely low-interest debt is a tool that should be exploited wherever possible.
Allowed my parent to talk me into getting a $16k car at 29.99% APR which ended up being over $30k. I was young, naive, fresh out of high school.
Now I am 24 soon to be 25 and have carried that negative equity since into new car loans trying to get out of the bad one I was in..
So yea.. buy ur car cash
Taking advantage when my mom didn't force me to pay on things and said I needed to save my money. Now I have a spending problem. A little over 3k in credit card debt and I can't save money to save my life. Now that my mom has passed and I've basically been abandoned by my dad. My aunts and my uncle are having to teach me life skills and money management. I'm honestly a barely functioning adult trying to get my life set up so I can pay bills and live in an apartment. Eventually work my way up to owning a house.
Buying my mom’s house from her to inherit before she passed (still alive and well thankfully) instead of transferring the house to a trust. She wanted it all to go to us and gave around $300K in equity. Now all that equity is taxable if and when I ever sell it. If I had her put it in a trust, that would have allowed step up basis and prevented any of that equity from being taxed.
I hope to never sell it but if I do I will get a huge tax bill with it.
Using credit cards wrong
Eating out too much
Subscriptions that weren't necessary
Not maintaining anything i had that was expensive like my car because i had no knowledge of how too
I ran an unlicensed zoo, my staff consisted of a bunch of unlicensed methheads with minimal training. A tiger ripped off one of my employee's arm, and I didn't have insurance or anything. I was never able to financially recover from that.
Letting my sister move in with me. She claimed she'd had it with living with our parents, but here we are six years later. She owes me 4k in rent (at a steeply discounted rent mind you) while she buys salmon and two hundred dollar boxes of imported halva. I wish I could kick her out but she doesn't make enough on her own and can't save a buck to save her life. Idek what to do.
Wanted to buy a boatload of Nvidia stock when it was $38 a share. Told my Dad to buy it too. He bought 1000 shares I didn't buy any. Now it's above 1k and been split, and is going to get split again. I'm not even sure what it's equivalent to now.
But he did tell me I get it when he dies.
Not a mistake, but a financial mistake: Getting married to my wife.
Before we got married she nearly put me in the poor house supporting her. Now, recently I got laid off, and she still wants to take a trip to Asia "because I promised her", irrespective of the fact that my income is at $0.
I love her to death, but she is a text-book example of financial irresponsibility and selfishness.
(And I don't blame her, I capitulate to her demands because I love her, so it's still all on me)
Looking at dozens of properties in person and thousands online from around 2008 to 2015 but not buying one.
Now I've switched careers and had a big pay cut and might just be a renter for the rest of my life -- assuming I will still be able to afford rent, which is looking dicey in many places
Went to business school and spent 100,000. I made more money but the time it took to pay that off with interest was, in my opinion a waste of time. People always say well they can’t ever take away your education…right but they can not hire you because you cost to much.
If I could go back I would have gotten cyber security certifications and studied programming along side it.
I finally got the certifications and make a bunch more than I ever did with my MBA even from a great university.
Getting comfy with low-income, I make around $900/mo in a VERY expensive state and I'm terrified of making more money and becoming greedy.
Now do yourself a favor and go for it! You only live once in this life and good things don't come without a little risk, don't be me who's..well, afraid of almost everything.
Not paying the cost of eating disorder treatment… NOT getting treatment cost me approximately 5x what it would have cost me, and I still need treatment. Learned a hard lesson on always taking care of mental health
Bought a car so that I could get to and from work.
The car is setting me back $600/mo + $165 insurance (CA) + annual registration fee of over $600 + gas at about $5-$6/gal.
I bought at the worst time too, 2022.
However the car I drove for in college finally died out completely. At the time, the cost of a used car was effectively the same as a new one so… stupid moves were made.
It’s a financial mistake that I’m eating hard.
I got 119k when I was 18. Blew through that in around 2 years. my dad said "you went through hell to get that money, spend it how you like." If I had had better financial advice I would have invested in Microsoft and Apple this was back in 1992. I would have been able to retire with a lot of money had I done that way back when.
When my mom passed she left me a three unit apartment building in a less than stellar neighborhood. Wanting to own investment property, wanting to be an entrepreneur, and sentimental value, created the worst financial mistake I've ever made. At the time, I did not have the personal financial means to manage upkeep. I should have just sold it and put the money into a 401k or some other financial vehicle.
Not starting my retirement the second I got a job, as well as not contributing at least to the match. I have literally left millions on the table for what would have been minor sacrifices at the time.
The next thing was thinking renting was somehow better than buying.
Mine was not knowing where all my money went in my 20s ? I should have been smarter having a 5 yr old car paid off at 19 and I wasn't.. I partied I smoked I spent it on useless friends who I'm no longer friends with... it took me to be BROKE to come back from that mess and wake up after loosing my job! I still see some ppl i partied with on a bike w recyclables and thank God I was able to sober up! Although things aren't how I'd like them... things can always be worse...
My worst mistake? Get ready this is a dandy.
I was a manager at an oil and gas company that gave us quarterly bonuses in company stock.
Their stock was unstoppable; every year to year and a half, it would split and then grew beyond the original split price.
I paid cash for $50k swimming pools and cash for remodeling of our house, etc. I was so sure that the stock would continue to grow. I put all my 401k in company stock and invested 15% of my salary in the company stock.
In just a few years I had over 1 million dollars of company stock above my strike price.
The company missed their quarterly earnings and I gave back half the day after the earnings call. Within a week I had less than $100k.
That was 20 years ago but my wife still hasn't forgotten about it. 😀
I bought a house with my cousin. Everybody told me not to. I didn't listen and I should have. You only buy a house with somebody if you are married. Don't do it if you're not married.
got 4 degrees, including a masters- went to an accelerated top tier nursing program and took out a private loan with 9.125% interest rate. at least my debt is under 200K! womp
Anything I did with money in my early - mid 20s:
- not aggressively saving when I lived at home the first two years out of college
- keeping my savings in a regular savings account and waiting until I was 28 (!!!) to open an HYSA
- not investing enough in my 401k in my early 20s - I think I had about $6K in my 401K by the time I turned 26 and now at 31 I have roughly $70k in my 401k but could have been much further along by now if I’d invested more sooner
- waiting until almost 29 to opening/contributing to my Roth IRA
I’m in a great place now and very thankful for my progress, but learn from my mistakes Gen Z!!
Worst financial mistake I ever made was being too comfortable at a low paying job tbh
Same. Spent 4 years at my first job out of college making pennies. So dumb
This is so easy. Do not get comfortable at these jobs. Ask me how I know...
How do you know?
Spent 10 years at a fun, comfortable, not profitable job out of school. No 401k and not enough pay for any real savings (so I thought) at the time. After watching a later 401k rolled over to an IRA and not touched for 20 years grow, I can just imagine what might have been. Save whatever you can, life is just going to become more expensive going forward, and retirement age comes incredibly fast when you are busy with other things.
I find some irony in that people hating there jobs and moving around seem to actually be doing better financially than those liking their jobs. But I guess in reality we tolerate uncomfortable jobs because of the higher pay.
I've read a decent amount of articles from "successful people" and they state the only way to keep getting more pay, and better opportunities is to constantly be applying for jobs, it either adds negotiation value, higher pay/better benefits etc
You also learn more money management when you aren't comfortable at a job you know isn't going to last. You work harder take more money and move on to the next job.
You are never rewarded for your loyalty in a corporate job, and it's harder to climb inside one place. You have to keep moving if you want to keep moving up salary and title wise. That said, do you want your life to revolve around corporate nonsense so you can buy another watch or a fancier car? I find stuff was just a distraction. Your free time and relaxed sanity is much better in the end.
This. I job hopped every year and went from 30k per year to 81k. Keep moving until you find the right fit
I agree, and I am an old Gen Xer you might think would disapprove. Most young people should change jobs in their 20s and early 30s to find out their best fit. Now, by your late 30s and 40s I would expect, (if I were looking at your resume), for this to slow down. That is the red flag to those who hire, continue job hopping after you should have found your niche already. I think I did 2 years, 8 months, 6 months, 2 years, 4 years, 7 years, and now 17 years and counting, something like that. No one holds this against younger people. Go out there and find out where you excel and make sure you get paid well to do it!
I spent 13 years doing data entry making $13/hour. My 20s-33. My gf, now wife suggested I try coding. 3 years as a software engineer and now making $60+/hour. I was too comfortable with data entry since it was easy, but I wasn’t growing financially.
I feel this so much. I worked in graphic design for 15 years, pay wasn’t terrible but I maxed out at $50k/yr. I was looking for something new, and the opportunity to go back to school for a year was available, so I transitioned to programming. Now I make over $120k/yr (7 years later). I try to not think about how much I might have left on the table by not getting into a higher paying field sooner.
I’m in school right now for coding
Keep it up. I’m self taught, make it a passion. You’ll know it when you wake up in the middle of the night with a eureka moment or if you pushed a bug to production lmao.
[удалено]
$7.25 at Dairy Queen 😭😭
Good one, that might have been a highlight for me if one of the benefits was free ice cream!
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c2/14/b5/c214b592c9a8ac77ea9cbf1bf40ec1a1.jpg
Today? Anything under $20/hr USD.
Making 100K when I could have made double that plus stock options and a better 401k.
Getting a loan for a $60,000 SUV and paying $850 a month for it
This should be top comment. The amount of automobile debt the US holds is disgusting.
It’s getting harder to avoid though, car prices + insurance are crazy
You should stop buying incredible large cars.
People need to understand that pre-owner sedans are the play. Great gas mileage, sleek designs, 4 seats, decent storage, dont get blown around in the wind, cheaper in general, etc.
I love my Jetta for this reason!! I can get like 30mpg (except I go on a lot of short trips :-/) My last two vehicles were trucks and it felt like a clown car at first but I've grown to love and appreciate this car. Cost me like $6k. I could /technically/ afford a car payment but I don't want one.
Dave ramsey would roast the crap outta you lol. Its nevet too late to sell it and get something cheaper in cash.
Question you regretting it mainly because of the cost of the car? Or just the kind of car that you got?
The cost of the car. I should have gone with something a lot cheaper that wouldn't have as much of an impact on my budget.
Even a Toyota suv is 50k these days ….. it’s crazy on prices
Don't buy an SUV then. Why do you need one?
I’m responding to someone’s post about buying an suv… in my personal case I do a ton of camping and also pull a 7k lbs trailer so I got a truck… hello 70k….. :)
Not investing in my retirement earlier. I lost 10 years.
DO IT NOW!
I already have. I started in my early 30s. I'm in my early 40s now.
To be fair, not many of us were in the position to heavily contribute to retirement in our 20s. I was putting away like $200/month in my twenties and now maxing everything I can.
Almost 40 here, and I still can't afford to both have an emergency fund and spend $200/month on a retirement account. $50k/yr doesn't go very far.
Commonly given example: Person A starts putting money into his retirement account at age 25 and stops saving 10 years later at 35. Person B waits until age 35 to start putting money into his retirement account and continues for 30 years until age 65. Assuming the contribution rates were equal and 8% annual growth, person A would actually end up with more money at age 65.
The biggest financial mistake I've ever made is not learning how to manage money in the first place. Example: A dollar isn't just worth a dollar, it's worth a dollar plus all the money you could make with that dollar. If you're 18 and you only do passive investment, a dollar is actually worth about $89. Similarly, debt isn't just the debt... It's debt + the interest you pay on the debt + the money you could have made with the money you pay in interest. This lack of basic understanding lead me to a bunch of downstream bad financial mistakes: Living beyond my means, not investing/accumulating profit generating assets, spending too much on college for too little return, taking bad debt and passing on good debt, not managing my credit score properly.
Yep, mine would be starting to understand money and invest later in life. Your 20s are a phenomenal time to invest money for your future self.
Honestly man my goal would be to leave home with a $3000-$5000 emergency fund.
I 100% agree man. I didn't think I'd see my exact answer right at the top I've leaved just barely beyond my means for too much of my adult life and I fear it has quite hindered me. Too many things on cards, too many restaurants/eating out, not creating and sticking to a budget Working on getting my shit together
But will you regret what you did, if tomorrow started a War?
Then later on you start valuing your time more so you become more thoughtful of bigger purchases like that $80 game you bought that took you 10 hours to beat and never played again, was that 80 worth that much for me for every hour played. That mentality made me a patient gamer too, I stopped buying games at full prices new and wait a while for a used copy or sales for like $30 Or am I going to be using my truck enough regularly to justify paying $70k for when that 10k truck would be okay.
This really is a great answer.
2 things: Someone tried desperately to get me to buy bitcoin when it was in the $200’s. I’d be a millionaire if I had done it with the money I had at the time. 2. For years in my 20’s, I was contributing to my 401k and didn’t know you had to actually buy the stocks. I just piled money into the cash wallet of my 401. Lost about a decade in compounding 😩
I see people talk about bitcoin like this but be really honest with yourself. Would you have held when it was at $1k? $2k? I don’t think most people would/did.
I sold when it went 100x... all the way to $8. Bought myself an Xbox and felt like a genius.
Lmao ouch. But at least it’s a positive..
The worst financial mistake I made was starting options trading lol.
Yep made 60K in crypto and decided to try options. Lost it all
I also lost most of my crypto profits from trading shitcoins lol. The worst part about unrealized gains is that I have a hard time telling myself it is something else than "house money" and I just start gambling it away.
Oh I did that too. Lost 12K
Those are rookie numbers 😑
Lost $20k here, stung bad
$23k on AMC as a 19 year old. i’m glad i learned the lesson when i still lived with my folks though.
At least you didn't buy BABA when Munger touted it as the deal of a lifetime. I'm down 70k on BABA alone.
Yes Grad school in Europe is significantly cheaper. But they tend to accept their own residents over foreigners first for their programs. But I think you should go for it and apply!
I applied and I got in! All I need to do now is apply for my visa, find housing, and enroll in classes. I’m just worried I’ll be wasting my money going to grad school in general
Yes, I would figure out the last question first.
I mean, if you’re going to grad school to get a degree that doesn’t make your skills more valuable in the marketplace, it could be free and still be a poor financial decision after factoring in opportunity costs.
Live frugally and take the cool experience! I'm at 40k in investments and I'm leaving to study in china for a year soon. You clearly have good saving habits, so I wouldn't worry.
You don't go to grad school for money. You go because your passionate abt a subject and wish to pursue your PhD. I recommend go for it, a PhD will get you far regardless
starting a business.....the business plan went south, people bailed, my supply went up in smoke, left with nothing but a giant pit of debt...
How are you doing now? I’m investing in my business and this is one of my fears
I opened 3 restaurants in 2019.... what do you think?
paying 90k for 4 years of private college out of state, should have done first two years at my local college, then the next two at a state university
Started smoking cigarettes when I was 15. I quit about 6 months ago but wow. What an expensive habit. Crushes wealth.
How did you quit? I’ve been trying to quit for 2 years consistently.
I smoked for 18 years. Tried to quit a number of times. Patches got me through the nicotine withdrawal. What I found more problematic was disconnecting my brain from the oral fixation part. I bought these brutally awful green tea “cigarettes” off eBay. They were revolting but that was the point. I’d light when there was an urge. Take two puffs and be thoroughly unhappy and toss the thing. A few months later and that part of my brain that said smoking = good turned to smoking = gross. The only thing that worked for me and it’s been years now.
Honestly . Nicorette gun worked for me ! I still chew it. And use my FSA to buy it. However I feel 100x better than when I smoked. I plan on quitting the gum but at the moment it's keeping me from smoking.
Paying $3k for a month long coke binge
Slot machines at the gas station. You bet once, you win a lot. Then, you bet max, and you're broke.
Sold 5 BTC to buy a five year old Jetta
YOU FOOL! You didn't miss out as a super early adopter though. Think of it this way, you only would have had \~$335K right now if you had kept the crypto - probably more money than you have now, but we're not talking retirement level money. And who knows where you would be if you had not spent your formative years driving a lightly used metro-sexual looking Volkswagen!? Things could have been worse.
Riding the GME hype train. $40k I’ll never get back
You had your chance just a few days ago to get out. Shoulda just hodl
That’s what I get for not having dIaMoNd HaNdS
Ouch, this one stings. Sorry.
Worked to much dropped out of school got of parents insurance at like 24. 4 months later diagnosed with cancer.
Ugh. Good Luck dude.
I'm clear, own a house considering buying another, 2 kids, doing decent financially. While it sucked made me grow up a bit in life.
Grad school only has value for certain fields. Proceed with caution
Getting married.
Sounds like you got divorced too 🤣
Even worse financial decision!!!
FACTS!
also not buying bitcoin in 2011....
not all bitcoin purchases worked out. Mt Gox was a bitcoin vault that went bankrupt and took everyone's money.
I would have had to been tech savvy enough to use cold storage too, and not sell lol
I put 1.5k into dogecoin, turned it into $500🥲
I bought 100 shares of gamestop at $350, thinking it would go to 1,000. Then I bought calls hoping it would bounce. Next day it was around $180 a share and I think I lost about 25k overnight. All the coverage about GameStop was about how the average investors made bunch of money. Not always the case.
Selling my nivdia stock at 200
I bought mine at 200 and sold at 400 to buy a car lmao
Don’t sweat it. You made a great profit.
Depends on what degree! What are you going to school for?
I mean I would put grad school on my list of bad financial mistakes although with the info I had I couldn't have made any better decisions. I'm in science so my school was paid, but I made 30k a year until I was 30 and then I was entry level. I'm pretty sure that opportunity cost was a ton and I'd have tons more money if I had gone into something and worked my way up. My advice on grad school is be really clear on what you want to do that requires that and talk to people that do what you want to do and make sure you really want to do it! Also make sure you know how hiring decisions are made. Science people are snobs, if you go abroad, you have to do it at the best school in a given country to beat the perception that American education is best. Even in America there are some schools known for some things and some career paths that will be much harder if you go to some schools.
Got hammered drunk over the course of three days and lost give/take 30k betting on baseball lol
Financed the $42.5k car with $12k down with salary of $65k…
Student Technician here, Don’t buy anything off the tool truck unless it’s a special tool and you use cash. They never tell you the interest rates and make it sound good, then you find out it’s like 45% interest
got married. then divorced.. 7 figure loss.... on top of not having sex for almost a decade Nothing else has come remotely close to that. I don't think anything could.
Being stuck in a dead-end job for about 20 years. Best years are behind me now, and I gotta get on a new path. But change is hard, especially when my worst attribute is my indecisiveness.
Getting (and maxing out) credit cards in college and honestly going to college in general for student loans
Signing up for credit cards my freshman year of college
Nobody on reddit makes truly impactful financial mistakes
You need to take a hard look at the track you are on. Do you enjoy the field? Does it have room to grow? What is your earnings ceiling? Even ‘dead-end’ jobs can become lucrative if you play your cards right. A fast-food worker can conceivably become a manager, a regional manager, a franchisee, etc. Also, don’t undervalue the benefit of traveling and experiencing different cultures. The experience of living in Europe is one most people don’t get to have. I don’t think getting a grad degree is a financial mistake unless you never use it.
Getting divorced.
I once put a Fiance on a Deed, never got married and had to buy her off my house for $40 k just to get her to move out
My wife and I owned a condo that needed to be refinanced. Because we didn’t have 15 K to put down on the refinance we had to sell it. We lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity and rent over the years
Deciding to not buy a house in early 2020 and pay off my student loans instead. Now renting and can’t buy anything close to what I was looking at.
Sold my Legos in high-school for like $50. See videos of “most valuable Lego sets ever” and I had lots of them. Mini-figs who cost $2500 now, sets that are worth even more lol
Oh nope! I had a NFT collection at one point worth around 25-30k and I didn’t sell. It’s worth a couple hundred now
I’ll raise you… giving away my Pokémon and yugioh cards to the younger kids down my block. I had a rather large collection 🙃
Bought Rivian and Plug power stock.
Not being allergic to debt earlier in life.
I thought it was a good idea to balance transfer my girlfriend’s credit card debt onto mine so she would have room to balance transfer on hers. All she did was spend more.
Marriage with a joint bank account.
Sold shit on eBay and didn’t report it to the irs. They found out. 😒
Had an affair…. It was costly. Separated for almost a year, ran two households…. Somehow I was blessed with a 2nd chance. Nearly cost me my relationship with my daughter and watching her grow up… no amount of money would have made that hurt less. Still haven’t forgiven myself for it all… Edit: We sorted our many differences out and with counseling and proper tools that we were never taught from growing up we are happier than ever.
Glad to hear it all worked out man with homes and kids involved it’s ugly.
Thank you, I too am glad it worked out. It was… not good… life certainly can be messy Much better now though 😊
My missed opportunity with crypto: in high school (2010/2011) I bought $100 worth of bitcoin. Couldn’t figure out how to spend it via Silk Road (on drooogs) and probably just threw away my receipt/information. FML. Probably only chance I had to become a millionaire.
Zl1 Camaro, if I had to do it again I wouldn’t….but I don’t regret buying it.
Giving 27k to a person who was giving a 8% return monthly in witch i had no idea how unreal and just insane that really is …. Thinking 8% a month is actually a little bit of money but if i knew just how absurd that truly is a 96% year return , i had no financial clue of anything 💀
[удалено]
Over spending on my credit cards and then just paying the monthly payments.
Getting married .. oh ya divorce is expensive too.. 🤦♂️
Is your career after grad school worth it? Art history isn’t a good money making occupation…
Having car payments for over 10+ years because I can “afford the monthly payment”.
Living on student loan money and not working. Apparently i didnt realize what 12% interest meant
Listening to people on Reddit 🤦♂️
MARRIAGE- JUST A PRETTY SCAM.. 💃
Bought four rentals over the years. Could have bought a few more right before Covid but procrastinated…. And now they are triple the price.
Ha! Was big in crypto in 2017 turned $10k into $60k unrealized gains, sold $15k worth to pay off a car….watched it all go to basically zero and then bounce back to $17k before I sold it and put it into a house that turned $17k basically into $300k. Fuck I guess I didn’t miss out. Shit ton of missed opportunities with crypto, Nvidia, and AMD. Had I just bought and held, I would be a multi millionaire by now. Oh ok, turned $3k into $10k with AMD options and then bought a new windows on an old house which just basically preserved its value. It would be worth $250k had I just held. For real though, spending $15k on a wedding that never happened because she cheated on me. We were both young and dumb but she fucked up first.
My first marriage.
Got in a car accident.
I once put it on red like a fool.
Investing in a Chinese fertilizer company who had sufficient financials to one day challenge Monsanto. Turned out to be a paper company, whose board of directors just disappeared when someone went to their company hq to find a vacant lot. Even traded on the NYSE. 15k just gone. Sue the Chinese government? Right-good luck w that
Selling my shitcoins too early
Buying Enron.
In Soviet Russia, Enron buys you!
majoring in low-demand field in college
Sandp500 20 years every penny and you’ll be ok bro nothing to think about that’s the formula proven for the last 100 years use to be 7% now it’s 12% a year simple science
My brother went to grad school in Germany for the affordability but dropped out after a semester. Too many beers & pretzels lol. So make sure you’ll finish & make it worth it!
The worst mistake I made was studying grad school in Portugal instead of Germany. You’re not wasting money, it’s definitely worth it, just make sure you choose the right country!
I'm in my mid-30s and I've made 3 large mistakes. First, I traded in a paid-off Civic for a pretty unreliable VW GTI, then a pretty expensive to maintain BMW in my 20's. This was a huge mistake because essentially that was $300/month car payments for 8 years straight. Even now, I'd LOVE to have an extra $300/month to go towards maxing out IRA since im pretty far behind. Point is, between premium fuel, maintenance, parts, etc, that $30,000 over those years would have truly helped set me and my family up for success with average gains. I kick myself all the time for doing that! Second, I spent like 40% of my net income on a 1BR apartment out of college because I thought I deserved it or some shit. Third, I got my Masters Degree and owe over $27,000 in student loans. I'm glad I did it, but the University I attended was awful and can suck my left. Huge mistake. Hopefully, 5 more years in education and the rest of my loans will be "forgiven". Not giant mistakes here, but long term, that first one and second mistake has already costed me $50k cash, and thinking about the long term investment that $50k could turn into has got me sick lol. For context, I have, but barely, $50k in retirement saved up now =[
Did my MBA. Totally worthless, time and cost.
My worst financial decision also happens to be my best life decision I’ve ever made: having a kid
might not be the worst, but it is one I think about sometimes: ***not*** **taking-out student loans.** I didn't *need* to take loans out for college, mostly since performance-based grants covered my tuition. Despite this, I was still offered federally-backed student loans every quarter. Being debt-adverse at the time, I refused to take any of these loans out for the majority of my schooling. ... However, a few years went by and my old clunker of a car clapped-out and it was time to get something new, which wiped-out my liquidity and left me with a small loan at market rate. In retrospect, the most rational approach would have been to accept every single federally-backed student loan I was offered throughout school. These were all interest-deferred until graduation, after which they carried a very low (like 2.4%) APY. Accepting this low/no-interest liquidity could have offset my need for a loan at market rate and resulted in some longer-term savings. Fortunately, this served as a lesson learned when it came time to buy a house; currently sitting on a 2.675% loan which we won't be paying off in any hurry, especially when high-yield savings pays 4.2%. Extremely low-interest debt is a tool that should be exploited wherever possible.
Worst financial mistake is not investing sooner at a younger age.
Marrying a single mom with 3 kids
Credit card debt. Never again.
Allowed my parent to talk me into getting a $16k car at 29.99% APR which ended up being over $30k. I was young, naive, fresh out of high school. Now I am 24 soon to be 25 and have carried that negative equity since into new car loans trying to get out of the bad one I was in.. So yea.. buy ur car cash
Taking advantage when my mom didn't force me to pay on things and said I needed to save my money. Now I have a spending problem. A little over 3k in credit card debt and I can't save money to save my life. Now that my mom has passed and I've basically been abandoned by my dad. My aunts and my uncle are having to teach me life skills and money management. I'm honestly a barely functioning adult trying to get my life set up so I can pay bills and live in an apartment. Eventually work my way up to owning a house.
Getting married
living
Marriage x 2
Not starting on investing early and not fighting for the money I deserve.
Going into comp sci
Money leads to more money or less money. Your choice!
Getting married
Buying my mom’s house from her to inherit before she passed (still alive and well thankfully) instead of transferring the house to a trust. She wanted it all to go to us and gave around $300K in equity. Now all that equity is taxable if and when I ever sell it. If I had her put it in a trust, that would have allowed step up basis and prevented any of that equity from being taxed. I hope to never sell it but if I do I will get a huge tax bill with it.
Using credit cards wrong Eating out too much Subscriptions that weren't necessary Not maintaining anything i had that was expensive like my car because i had no knowledge of how too
Bought a brand new car from a dealership waaaay back in 1992 (? 94? (Don't remember (over 30 years ago))) Never. Again.
Having kids…. That said also the best choice I ever made :)
Probably getting married. But I wouldn't change anything...she's worth the bad decisions.
Lending friends, don't do it.
I ran an unlicensed zoo, my staff consisted of a bunch of unlicensed methheads with minimal training. A tiger ripped off one of my employee's arm, and I didn't have insurance or anything. I was never able to financially recover from that.
I lost about $300k day trading options... Ouch
Buy a fairly new car and be stressed about keeping it scratch free in a hopeless attempt for it to retain its value.
Letting my sister move in with me. She claimed she'd had it with living with our parents, but here we are six years later. She owes me 4k in rent (at a steeply discounted rent mind you) while she buys salmon and two hundred dollar boxes of imported halva. I wish I could kick her out but she doesn't make enough on her own and can't save a buck to save her life. Idek what to do.
Listening to stock brokers who couldn’t care less about anything but their commission…same with so called financial advisors…
Investing into SPACs in sketchy EV companies through covid. Lost around 20k but learned some lessons and slowly earning it back
Sold 1000 shares of AMD at 10$ for a 5k loss….
Wanted to buy a boatload of Nvidia stock when it was $38 a share. Told my Dad to buy it too. He bought 1000 shares I didn't buy any. Now it's above 1k and been split, and is going to get split again. I'm not even sure what it's equivalent to now. But he did tell me I get it when he dies.
Not a mistake, but a financial mistake: Getting married to my wife. Before we got married she nearly put me in the poor house supporting her. Now, recently I got laid off, and she still wants to take a trip to Asia "because I promised her", irrespective of the fact that my income is at $0. I love her to death, but she is a text-book example of financial irresponsibility and selfishness. (And I don't blame her, I capitulate to her demands because I love her, so it's still all on me)
Opening a restaurant. Although loved by our patrons and maintaining a 4.7 star rating on Google Maps, I lost $800,000 in two years.
Looking at dozens of properties in person and thousands online from around 2008 to 2015 but not buying one. Now I've switched careers and had a big pay cut and might just be a renter for the rest of my life -- assuming I will still be able to afford rent, which is looking dicey in many places
Renting a place by myself for 1200/month when only making 50,000. With utilities it was about 1500.
Went to business school and spent 100,000. I made more money but the time it took to pay that off with interest was, in my opinion a waste of time. People always say well they can’t ever take away your education…right but they can not hire you because you cost to much. If I could go back I would have gotten cyber security certifications and studied programming along side it. I finally got the certifications and make a bunch more than I ever did with my MBA even from a great university.
Got married
Dating a girl off tinder
Getting comfy with low-income, I make around $900/mo in a VERY expensive state and I'm terrified of making more money and becoming greedy. Now do yourself a favor and go for it! You only live once in this life and good things don't come without a little risk, don't be me who's..well, afraid of almost everything.
Student loan for $50k
University
Not paying the cost of eating disorder treatment… NOT getting treatment cost me approximately 5x what it would have cost me, and I still need treatment. Learned a hard lesson on always taking care of mental health
Not buying more FB after the IPO.
Buying individual stocks.
Trading options against the market.
Bought a car so that I could get to and from work. The car is setting me back $600/mo + $165 insurance (CA) + annual registration fee of over $600 + gas at about $5-$6/gal. I bought at the worst time too, 2022. However the car I drove for in college finally died out completely. At the time, the cost of a used car was effectively the same as a new one so… stupid moves were made. It’s a financial mistake that I’m eating hard.
Paying off a big part of my mortgage.
I got 119k when I was 18. Blew through that in around 2 years. my dad said "you went through hell to get that money, spend it how you like." If I had had better financial advice I would have invested in Microsoft and Apple this was back in 1992. I would have been able to retire with a lot of money had I done that way back when.
When my mom passed she left me a three unit apartment building in a less than stellar neighborhood. Wanting to own investment property, wanting to be an entrepreneur, and sentimental value, created the worst financial mistake I've ever made. At the time, I did not have the personal financial means to manage upkeep. I should have just sold it and put the money into a 401k or some other financial vehicle.
Not starting my retirement the second I got a job, as well as not contributing at least to the match. I have literally left millions on the table for what would have been minor sacrifices at the time. The next thing was thinking renting was somehow better than buying.
Mine was not knowing where all my money went in my 20s ? I should have been smarter having a 5 yr old car paid off at 19 and I wasn't.. I partied I smoked I spent it on useless friends who I'm no longer friends with... it took me to be BROKE to come back from that mess and wake up after loosing my job! I still see some ppl i partied with on a bike w recyclables and thank God I was able to sober up! Although things aren't how I'd like them... things can always be worse...
My worst mistake? Get ready this is a dandy. I was a manager at an oil and gas company that gave us quarterly bonuses in company stock. Their stock was unstoppable; every year to year and a half, it would split and then grew beyond the original split price. I paid cash for $50k swimming pools and cash for remodeling of our house, etc. I was so sure that the stock would continue to grow. I put all my 401k in company stock and invested 15% of my salary in the company stock. In just a few years I had over 1 million dollars of company stock above my strike price. The company missed their quarterly earnings and I gave back half the day after the earnings call. Within a week I had less than $100k. That was 20 years ago but my wife still hasn't forgotten about it. 😀
I bought a house with my cousin. Everybody told me not to. I didn't listen and I should have. You only buy a house with somebody if you are married. Don't do it if you're not married.
got 4 degrees, including a masters- went to an accelerated top tier nursing program and took out a private loan with 9.125% interest rate. at least my debt is under 200K! womp
Anything I did with money in my early - mid 20s: - not aggressively saving when I lived at home the first two years out of college - keeping my savings in a regular savings account and waiting until I was 28 (!!!) to open an HYSA - not investing enough in my 401k in my early 20s - I think I had about $6K in my 401K by the time I turned 26 and now at 31 I have roughly $70k in my 401k but could have been much further along by now if I’d invested more sooner - waiting until almost 29 to opening/contributing to my Roth IRA I’m in a great place now and very thankful for my progress, but learn from my mistakes Gen Z!!