Biggest financial mistake you ever made

[ESMonitor]

I have made numerous financial mistakes over the years.

The biggest one I can think of is when I consolidated my student loans. I was young, just out of college in the 90's and interest rates were through the roof, at over 9%. I had two different student loans. I don't remember the specifics, but I consolidated them to get a better interest rate. I was able to lower the rate down to 7%. I thought I was getting a good deal. Then I later found out that the rate was irrevocable. I was infuriated. I bled money in interest for a long time. I tried to get the rate changed/lowered, but was denied again and again. I even considered taking out a bank loan to get a lower rate. Once I started making more money I paid the loans off furiously until they were done. That's a big pile of money I lost out on over the years with student loans because of bad decision I made.

With that said I was hoping to hear from you. Maybe you received a bad deal on a house or car you purchased, or you invested in something that didn't work out. Maybe you were somehow ripped off or you ran up a credit card(s). Maybe you bought something that you couldn't afford. We can all learn from each other here from our own mistakes.

[TexasHusker]

I've had a boatload. The one that sticks out the most is when my wife retired from teaching, she had about $30,000 in her teacher retirement account. I opted to roll it into an IRA and invested the entirety into China Northeast Petroleum. Today it's worth zero.

Good call.

I lost $50K in a car dealership gone bad. I lost tens of thousands day trading. Ive lost $50K or more on poor stock picks.

But you win some, you lose some. A big winner covers a lot of sins.

[corn18]

The list is so long it's hard to pick just one. But I would say the doozy of them all was when I moved 1 mile down the road from a house I couldn't afford to a newer one I really couldn't afford. I got an interest only, variable rate 30 year mortgage where the payment represented just under 45% of my gross salary. The mortgage broker was more than happy to make it work with underwriting. Yikes.

[97guns]

ive never lost big money, only small amounts in penny stocks that went to zero, maybe $500 here and $1000 there. i did get suckered into a MLM company for $500 from a buddy of mine that i hadnt seen for over 20 years pitched it to me, i shoulda smelled it out but he painted a nice picture

[Singuy]

Should of rented another year or two in 2007 but instead bought a house. 370k house dropped down to 240k and eventually sold it for 300k.

[disneysteve]

When I was fresh out of school, I fell for the whole life sales pitch and bought policies for my wife and I. When I learned how horrible whole life is, we bought term and cancelled the whole life but lost thousands in the process - or so we thought.

A few years later, there was that huge class action suit against whole life insurance companies for misrepresenting the policies as being good investments. The industry lost the case, of course, and we received a nice settlement that pretty much reimbursed the premiums we had paid in.

The worst part, to me, of that whole ordeal is that today, absolutely nothing has changed and the industry still aggressively markets whole life as a good investment and people continue to get ripped off by those sales pitches.

[TexasHusker]

When I was fresh out of school, I fell for the whole life sales pitch and bought policies for my wife and I. When I learned how horrible whole life is, we bought term and cancelled the whole life but lost thousands in the process - or so we thought.

A few years later, there was that huge class action suit against whole life insurance companies for misrepresenting the policies as being good investments. The industry lost the case, of course, and we received a nice settlement that pretty much reimbursed the premiums we had paid in.

The worst part, to me, of that whole ordeal is that today, absolutely nothing has changed and the industry still aggressively markets whole life as a good investment and people continue to get ripped off by those sales pitches.

Add annuities to the sales pitch. They are wrong for 99 percent of the population, but 99 percent of the brokers are pushing them above all else. Sickening.

[Nika]

I lost some money on bad options calls here and there. Probably 11K this year. But I was up 10-15K each of previous 2 years. So even though it sucks, comes with the territory.

Probably the biggest financial mistake was to not to buy in Manhattan when we looked and bought our place 6 years ago. Yes, we only could have bought a tiny 1 br, but by now we would have had additional 400K in equity from appreciation, and with addition of our original downpayment could have just bought apartment we have now free and clear.

[bjl584]

My ex girlfriend.....

[41Fin]

Not taking advantage of graduating college with no student loans.

I save 45% of my income now but I wish I would have done that in the first couple of years after college(graduated in 2008). Could have had over 100k easily.

Got plenty of receipts from random happy hours & nights of campaigning and campaigning though!

[GoodSteward]

When I was fresh out of school, I fell for the whole life sales pitch and bought policies for my wife and I. When I learned how horrible whole life is, we bought term and cancelled the whole life but lost thousands in the process - or so we thought.

A few years later, there was that huge class action suit against whole life insurance companies for misrepresenting the policies as being good investments. The industry lost the case, of course, and we received a nice settlement that pretty much reimbursed the premiums we had paid in.

The worst part, to me, of that whole ordeal is that today, absolutely nothing has changed and the industry still aggressively markets whole life as a good investment and people continue to get ripped off by those sales pitches.

Do you have a source for news on this? I am not questioning you, I would like to look it up. I fully believe in buy Term, invest the rest. Just would like a little more ammo for my conversation with people as to why.

[disneysteve]

Do you have a source for news on this? I am not questioning you, I would like to look it up. I fully believe in buy Term, invest the rest. Just would like a little more ammo for my conversation with people as to why.

There have been numerous threads warning people about whole life. Just do a search and you'll find plenty.

Here's one:

http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/personal-finance/64417-indexed-universal-life-insurance.html

[Nutria]

Getting deep into CC debt from excess spending.

[GoodSteward]

There have been numerous threads warning people about whole life. Just do a search and you'll find plenty.

Thanks. I am actually licensed to sell life insurance, but I haven't done much with it. It was something I got on the side with another company, but I already work two jobs. I have a lot more I want to learn, but I know enough to warn people.

I second with Nutria. Getting into credit card debt was the dumbest thing I have done. To be more specific I got my hands on a credit card to consolidate everything, and ended up using the other cards again over the next year or two until they were loaded up doubling my debt. You can't borrow your way out of bad money habits. Ever.

[Nutria]

I second with Nutria. Getting into credit card debt was the dumbest thing I have done. To be more specific I got my hands on a credit card to consolidate everything, and ended up using the other cards again over the next year or two until they were loaded up doubling my debt. You can't borrow your way out of bad money habits. Ever.

I (probably) beg to differ. 0% -- technically 3%, but who's counting -- CC transfers were a serious and darned effective weapon in us digging out of $15K on a 24% card.

The key, of course, is to put that 24% card in the back of the sock drawer. (I'd say "never to be used again", but my wife has had that card for 20+ years and doesn't want them to close it from inactivity. So every few months we make an on-line charge with it instead of the regular card.)