Worst Financial Blunders

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Hmm, biggest? Turned out okay, BUT if my kid ever did this I'd smack them upside the head so fast.

So I bought a house with my DH, when we were married. Receipe for disaster if ever. Now when I look back, I shudder, WTF were we thinking?

It worked out, but trust me it could have ENDED up UGLY!!! Imagine trying to sell a house while breaking up and not married so the legalities are crazy. Ugh.

And the mistake? Only my name on the mortgage, not his, but both names on the deed. Please don't reprimand me, trust me I'll tell my kid the whole story and point out the DUMBNESS.

My DH, laughs about it now, but also says boy were we lucky. For one point in our favor, we already knew we were getting married but hadn't gotten around to it.

[maat55]

I'll tell you a disaster, I have to brothers who bought 3 acres and put two mobiles within 10 feet of each other. They share a garage building. Both have got married to women they knew about two months and now they are pissed at each other. They are building a wall down the middle of the building. I'm afraid to know what is going to happen next.

[neguy11]

I "invested" $500 into a "HYIP" called 12 Daily Pro and got scammed...will never see that money. Luckily it folded right before I almost put in $4000..... I like to think that was a moment of temporary insanity.

I also went to private school my first year of college, not really a blunder, but that year of disovery cost me a pretty penny.

I did not save enough money while working in high school. I am 22 and have no car and it is my own fault.

[Skooby]

My worst mistake was simply not having started to take interest in finances earlier. It's simple to say, but if you consider the opportunity cost... it's quite profound.

But that one confession is plenty of damage already. I have pretty much wasted my entire 20's, and nearly scuttled any chances of even a financially sound life....

Sounds like me. Except I have one more mistake. I leased a car in september...and now I realized it's a mistake and want to get out of the lease.

[Caoineag]

Biggest? Easy, didn't discuss finances with my DH until a year after we had moved to our new home. He had no previous experience with handling money and didn't know how to tell me that he was racking up the credit cards trying to keep up with our expenses. It cost us about 20k. We would have been debtfree by now if we had talked sooner. But you live and you learn and we will have been delayed by only a year when all is said and done. There is something to be said for shock being a good motivator to get your finances in order...

[Scanner]

I bought $1000 worth of Atari in the early 90's - they were going to come out with a 64 bit gaming system and I thought it's stock would make a comeback. It's now essentially worthless.

I have made a few with my business too -

About $5000 in consulting fees, which were essentially worthless. Consultants sell you that they'll help you expand your business/solve problems when really all they are is a telephone "question and answer" service. Consultants tend to be all "sale" and no meat.

I also spent $2500 on some proprietary software that I am sure I didn't get money out of.

You have to be careful of the IT world - it's full of financial landmines for a business owner.

When my Rodeo blew a headgasket, I also sold it for $200. . .I saw it listed the next morning for $1300 but at that point, I was just happy to get rid of it. DW still chastizes me for that but sometimes, you are happy to dump a problem - it was going to be about $3000 to fix, or least that what was quoted to me.

[zetta]

In 2000, during the dotcom boom, the company I worked for landed a big deal with AT&T. It looked like my company was going to be able to go public. I exercised my incentive stock options because I thought I'd be better off AMT wise if I did so before the stock took off. I thought I would pay about $15k in AMT taxes but had the cash on hand. I was so busy with the project I didn't check the current value of the stock (set by the board) -- I thought it was $5, but it was actually $15.

Two months later, AT&T split into several companies and also cancelled our project. The company I worked for never went public. My tax bill that year? $40k.

Luckily I had about $30k in my emergency fund, and my fiance (now DH) was willing to chip in the other $10k, so I didn't have to cash in any mutual funds or take out a loan against my home. We're slowly recapturing the AMT, and get a tax credit of about $2500 per year. Currently we have about $19k in AMT credits outstanding...

[Ima saver]

I didn't learn anything about mutual fund investing til I was in my mid 40's!

[FrugalFish]

I'm probably still making my biggest mistake to some extent- being too cautious and conservative.

We waited longer than we probably should have to buy our house, throwing lots of money away on rent. I was fearful about many things and DH is relatively uninterested in such things, so it kept getting put off until we literally did not have a place to live.

I also do not invest as aggressively as I probably should. As time goes on and I feel more confident with our financial footing, I am willing to tolerate more and more risk.

[FrugalTexan75]

My biggest financial blunder started with my one and only fault (yeah right) of stubbornness. I spent 7 months, and $12K attempting to make a go of a business opportunity which turned out to be a scam. During that time I wasn't making any money, other than about $500, and ended up maxing out all my credit cards and using up a LOC completely.

It wasn't till I was completely out of money that I finally had to relent and call it quits. Thankfully my parents helped me out with $100 for gas and food to get me to my new teaching job. I'm also thankful that that teaching job came when it did.

Between that financial blunder, and having virtually no income for 8 months a number of years later, I am very much financially backwards from where I should be at my age. All I can do though is move on from where I am and do the best I can with what I know now.

[m3racer]

I let my wife pay the bills back then. It was my fault too, but now I pay the bills.

I'm sure I would be in a similar situation if I let my wife handle the finances. She believes in "buy now, pay later."