I could have been rich! Biggest financial mistakes

[rememberitalltoowell]

And how you come to terms with them?

I turned down a really well paid role for something else that didn't turn out as planned, and could only find much lower paying roles afterwards. When I work out what that decision cost me over the course of my career, we're talking hundreds of thousands!

The only thing I regret is having a lot of debt in my 30s. Much of it was because my partner didn't work and I wanted us to have holidays etc. that we couldn't really afford. It was stupid and should have gone into a pension. It was a massive struggle to pay it all back after we split up but I did and am in a very lucky position now, but it's not about the money so much as the stress of having so much debt. Even though I'm comfortable now thinking of those years gives me a shiver!

But you don't regret the kids so doesn't really fit the scenario. I thought heavily about abusing bitcoin when it came out and then got distracted and forgot all about it. I hugely regret this now (obviously).

The life insurance situation is tough, I would be pretty annoyed about that if it left me in dire straights but sounds like you were okay (financially speaking). I am very sorry to hear of your loss though.

I agree so strongly with this. Had coffee with a friend today who was fretting about not earning much, her DH earns a fortune. I pointed out it is a sickness in our society to judge success according to earnings. Who would you rather be shipwrecked on a desert island with - a multimillionaire or a nurse?

I'm more annoyed about slacking off the gym in my mid 20s tbh. At 30ish and a few years back in the gym I've got a 170kg deadlift which is pretty damn good for a woman. I reckon I could've set some serious numbers had I kept at it consistently. Possibly gone professional.

Obv having more money is always good but for me there's a point at which I don't want to sacrifice any more of my life. A lot of my friends don't have this mentality and have this weird 'my work is my validation' mindset that a lot of women have nowadays. I couldn't be unhealthy because of my job or be sat in a chair for the majority of my waking existence until I'm a pensioner, no matter how much money I had.

Well the devil is in the details

maybe the multi millionaire was brilliant at construction and could get us off the island!

Taking out extra finance to cover furniture, a cooker and carpets when moving into my house 5 years ago.
I’m still probably paying interest on the interest. At the time it was essential though.

I have a really awful one that I regularly try not to think about…

In 2013 I had an analyst working for me who recommended I buy bitcoin. The price had just fallen to around $50. We had all just had our bonuses paid out and he said he was going to use all of his £30k bonus to buy bitcoin and he strongly recommended I did too. Easy, guaranteed money he said.

I said that I never invest in anything I don’t understand. He proceeded to try and explain the concept of bitcoin to me but I still didn’t get it. He then almost begged me to at least buy £1,000 worth and see how it goes and he’ll be proven right. I ummed are aahed but ultimately decided to stick to my rule of never investing in something I don’t understand.

OP, if I had invested that £1,000 I would now be sitting on over £77million today.

When we were young, just married/parents DH was offered a job abroad. The salary wasn’t all that, there was no relocation package and we had a newborn. We’d already moved twice in 2 years and I just couldn’t face doing it again with a baby for a job that looked stressful without a big salary.

What neither of us took into consideration was the share options that came with the job. How often does that pay off??

The company floated about 3 years later, cost us £7.6m.

It’s fiiiiiineeeee we never ever think about it or think we could have retired at 33.

In my very early 20’s I was offered an entry level A&R role at a music company via a friend. I so badly wanted to do it but just couldn’t fathom how I’d survive in London on the pittance salary being offered so turned it down.
That friend and his group of colleagues / friends all did very very well in the 00’s and 10’s and are now very high up in the music industry, very well paid, frequently holiday with the rich and famous. I look on longingly via Instagram stories and wonder what might have been if I’d taken the other ‘sliding door’.

In the late 1990s we were a young family struggling to keep afloat. I worked for an American company developing technology and we were given a share option to buy 500 at 5 dollars each. The shares then were worth about 3, so basically a bit of a joke.

I left the company and the agreement was that the option lasted three months from the leaving date.

The shares started shooting up and at the three month mark were 11 dollars each so we thought great, and cashed them in. I was advised to buy them at the 5 dollars as they would go up further but didn't have funds to buy 500 of them. It was Christmas and we were so chuffed to get it paid for.

They went up to nearly 30 dollars each, and I would have had 500🙈

This is why we're likely to stay in our current (second) house. Bought in 2017 in the SE so slightly pricier😁but we're throwing everything at our mortgage to pay it off in seven years rather than the 17 left on it. Should hopefully be mortgage-free before 50🤞

As always, the Wisdom of Granny Weatherwax nails it.

“Do you ever wonder what life would have been like if you’d said yes?” said Ridcully.
“No.”
“I suppose we’d have settled down, had children, grandchildren, that sort of thing…”
Granny shrugged. It was the sort of thing romantic idiots said. But there was something in the air tonight…
“What about the fire?” she said.
“What fire?”
“Swept through our house just after we were married. Killed us both.”
“What fire? I don’t know anything about any fire?”
Granny turned around.
“Of course not! It didn’t happen. But the point is, it might have happened. You can’t say ‘if this didn’t happen then that would have happened’ because you don’t know everything that might have happened. You might think something’d be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can’t say ‘If only I’d…’ because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you’ll never know. You’ve gone past. So there’s no use thinking about it. So I don’t.”

Thank you. I’m so sick of the narrative that you can’t have a decent salary AND a work life balance. I earn £100k (of course no-one on MN ever believes Ripken who say that…!), I’m contracted for 35 hours a week and only very rarely do I do above that…plus I’m given loads of flexibility in the working day to do the school run etc

Way back in 1987 I left my job because I had just had DS1 and we were moving out of the area that company operated in. They bought back the share I had in their pension scheme for less than £10.
About a year later they were taken over by a very large corporation and colleagues with similar length of service got anything up to £100k for their shares.

Having said that, our lives have been good and I have never regretted it although the money would have been nice!

Nothing major but I should definitely have started saving into a private pension in my early 20s and I should’ve just got on the housing ladder, somewhere, anywhere, even if it was a studio flat, around the same time, rather than a decade of paying rent. It’s worked out in the long run but I’d be better off if I’d done both those things.

Early 2000s we moved out of London to the West Country. Sold our house for 300k. Now worth 1.2 million. A few years later, I got divorced. That screws your finances more than anything.

I thought of the idea of Uber about 15 years ago 🤣 but only in it's basically form so that doesnt really count!

Not keeping an eye on my pension. I’ve been in the same company for 17 years, paying into their pension the whole time. Never really looked at it, just assumed it was a good option. About 5 years ago my DH got very into finance and overhauled our financial situation. He made me log into my pension and checked the fund it was in, which turned out to be appalling - paying a lesser percentage than a savings account would. He switched it to a much better performing fund, which was incredibly easy to do, and it has been flying since then. But I’ve lost out on several hundred thousand pounds by ignoring it for a decade. Check your pension funds, folks!

Oh loads of us Londoners did 15 plus years ago

the idea is very very simple

the delivery… well that isn’t!

My DH wishes that he’d gone to work for the civil service or local government because he’d now have an amazing pension! Although he’d have earned a lower salary, he’s since realised that the pension is worth a LOT more overall.

But actually you would have cashed it in when it was £1,000. Or you might be still hanging on when the ‘bust’ comes and someone says bitcoin is valueless.

I regretted not keeping hold of my first house which after being almost in negative equity sky rocketted in value a couple of years after selling it. We're talking £100,000+ profit. This was a lot 25 years ago. However I came to terms with it over time by realising me and DH would have really struggled to finance 2 houses and wouldn't have been able to get the house we have now. Plus having that knowledge we then bought a house to rent out later when we could manage it.

Not sure how you're coming out with that figure. Purely using inflation only (Bank of England inflation calculator), £295k in 1999 was worth about £547,580 last year. Yet the flat sold last year for OVER £900k. THAT'S what the poster is pissed off about.

Nah. It was only 20 quid. Unless the poster was on the bones of their arse they probably would have just kept it to see what happened. And didn't.

Hargreaves’s landsown
Inflation and growth since 1999

i think you were right to say no. A few season tickets in 1999 would have been incomparable to a £295k flat in 1999