Your best and worst money decisions?

[foxdongle]

best
me; first house doubled in value in 6 years.
dh; £2 lottery ticket - won a load
together; paying down mortgage pre dcs.

worst
me; getting an endowment mortgage.
dh; selling a house at the wrong time- still made a decent profit, but had he waited it would have been more.
together; getting a stupid big car that we both hated 2 months in- part chopped it for a smaller one.

Best
Overpaying the mortgage, increasing our overpayment by half of DH's raise every year. Took years and thousands off the mortgage.

Worst
Me getting PG in final year of Uni, scuppered all my earning potential and rendered my degree fairly pointless.

I have made terrible financial decisions over the years:

Leaving a well paid forever job for career progression that didn't work out
Getting divorced - cost me about 100k
Not buying a house that I should have
Ditto Microsoft shares - would be a multi millionaire if I had

And recently reading an invoice from the builder wrong - this has cost me an extra 20k - which I didn't have and had to take out a stupidly expensive loan

I am a financial numpty.

Best : buying my first house in 1987
Worst : doing it with an endowment mortgage

Best-buying my first house at ripe old age of 45 (last year).

Worst-not budgeting properly in the past and wasting a whole whack of money on crap!

Best: buying my first house for £18k just before prices rocketed.

Worst: allowing all joint debts to be souly in my name (as I had better credit rating than ex partner) then being saddled with £40k worth of debt once he left, having to sell all property to try pay this off, losing my job then having to go bankrupt.

I will never be so naive again.

Worst: buying a new car on finance. I kept it for 8 years so it wasn't as bad as swapping it after 2, but with hindsight I should have bought a used model and paid cash instead.

Best: investing in equities through an ISA. Getting offset mortgages, and paying them down quickly; saved a mint on interest.

Worst: brought a house near a very busy road which hardly went up in value.
Best: brought 27k of Barclays shares just before the temporary shorting ban and made 4376 pounds in 18 hours.

Oh good thread

Best - doing a vocational degree that means I'm unlikely to be out of work.
Finally getting on a written budget
Actively learning about money and how to use it.

Worst... So many...
Married the wrong person who was stupid with money. On one of our first dates he actually held back at the blockbuster counter as he didn't have any money. This never really stopped. I always paid and sorted finances. He was the happy go lucky guy that was generous and everyone loved. With me being some Flo Capp figure reining him in.

He's still dreadful but tbf pays child maintenance reliably.

Best...

• not taking out a joint account with spendthrift DH, now exH!
• taking up the employee share option scheme right before the shares started to go up in leaps and bounds
• buying a knackered old house in a terrific location

Worst... going from SVR to a mortgage fixed at 6% just before the BoE dropped the base-rate to 0.5%
... buying shares in RBS

Best - buying a house in 2000 that doubled in value in 10 years and also over paying the mortgage by loads

Worst - not joining my company pension scheme for years. it cost me tens of thousands of pounds in pension contributions I would have had. what a numpty.

Best - buying a house for £100k and selling it for £180 18 months later.

• buying current house
• deciding on a tracker mortgage (.5 above base rate) rather than a 6% one - has saved me thousands

Worst - aargh, could have bought a flat in Camden for £90k, which would have meant buying my current house outright.
lending my 'best friend' £5k - had to take him to small claims court to get it back (and was very lucky to do so - even then it took 2 years)
Not starting a pension until the age of 40
Not selling my Bradford & Bingley shares for £1400 (ended up getting nothing)

Putting £50 a month into a Bradford and bingley account, carpet bagging. I did sell the shares in time
Not selling our last house, now worth large shed loads
Always over paying on mortgages

Not selling our last house, we could be living mortgage free now and be able to afford a really nice new kitchen :)
Not buying an investment flat in London with my inheritance, I squandered instead

They've pretty much all been crap

Best- buying a house for £140 000 and selling it for 330 000 5 years later.
- going back to work after 8 years as a SAHM.

Worst- setting up a business with my dh. It's been unprofitable, stressful and we can never seem to get HMRC off our back. We'll be winding it up ASAP and just sticking with our own jobs.

worst: selling a guitar for £50 when it was worth £1700

best: letting DH talk me into buying a house in 1998.

Best
Buying our first house
Getting an offset mortgage
Investing in ISAs pre DC

Worst
Another one not selling Bradford & bingley shares
Not buying 2 investment properties but letting dh buy a sports car instead In hindsight, bricks and mortar would have been a far more sensible choice although less fun but heyho. My cousin meanwhile has a portfolio of 10 properties and is about to give up his day job (management accountant)!

Is having 3 DC really your worst financial decision?

Interesting to read another point of view. I also have 3 DC, DS1 is grown up and left home and I have 2 teens at home. I'd never really thought of if from a financial angle before. I just noticed when DS1 left home the washing seemed to half in quantity, buts that's another thread!

Best: investing in my education in a field I enjoy and being ambitious at work, looking for the best opportunities to advance my career and going for them.

Made overpayments on the mortgage.

Worst: everything else. Bought a house we hated at the exact wrong time and remortgaged just before moving, so had hefty early repayment charges adding insult and injury to the sorry amount we sold it for.

DH before I met him signed over the family home to his evil ex just so his children wouldn't have to wave the only home they'd ever known. She promptly moved them all in with her new boyfriend, sold the home and made a packet .

Good thread.

Best - buying a house opposite a skanky pub which has now been knocked down and had increased massively on value.

Discovering moneysavingexpert

Worst - spunking a lit of money on booze and fags in my 20's. I reckon I'd be over £40k richer if I'd saved hard and budgeted for the 10 years after Uni. We're my good times worth 40k? I'm not sure!

Best

• taking the reins of our family finances a couple of years ago, when I realised I was better at it than dh. If only I'd done it sooner.
• Overpaying on the mortgage
• Starting a pension in my 20s

Worst

• moving to a place where it would be hard for me to find work post-SAHM. We'd planned to move, but...
• Buying this house which has turned out to be an unsellable money pit and has prevented us from either saving or moving (hence slashing my potential income forever). I went with heart rather than head (i.e. assumed a relative wouldn't fuck me over).
• Allowing dh to "manage" our finances for so long, because I thought he was better at it and I was frightened of financial issues. I was a bloody idiot. I should have informed myself and taken control sooner