What was your biggest financial mistake?

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Was watching an interesting video on YouTube of people talking about their biggest financial mistake and thought I'd be nosy and ask 😁

Mine (aside from having kids 😂) was either:

Taking a credit card out ",for emergencies". It's just amazing what I justified to myself as an emergency when I had that card!

And also taking out a student bank account with a £1.5k overdraft and thinking it was basically free money. Cue the next 4 years of constantly living in my overdraft, my wage not even half clearing it before I spent it to the limit again before the next payday. Sometimes I wish I could go back and give my idiot self a bloody shake.

Tempting to say "marrying my ex-wife" but that would be silly really as, whilst it cost a lot of money, it wasn't a "financial mistake" in the truest sense as marriage wasn't a financial decision.

So I will say - buying NatWest shares in 2007, only to watch them fall 90% in value in the credit crunch. Finally sold them in about 2023 when they were still down about 60%. The lesson for me is don't try and pick and choose individual shares - just invest in overall index trackers.

Using my inheritance to pay off mortgdge before getting divorced.

Not continuing to pay into the child trust fund. Instead I’m paying uni accommodation costs from my salary now. Credit card debts at different times left us always trying to manage.

Deciding in my early 20s that there was no point buying a flat in the city I was training in, because I wasn't planning on staying there/might want to go travelling etc and it would be better to wait until I had settled down and was ready to buy a 'proper' house.
A friend in a similar position got a 100% mortgage on a small flat in a reasonable location for around £30k (not in London!). It was worth nearly 3 x that by the time he was ready to buy somewhere bigger with his partner so with the equity etc they were able to buy a really nice house in a great area. Whereas by the time I bought my first place I had to save for ages for a deposit (no 100% mortgages) and paid more than friend's mortgage for a small house in a not-great area. Other friends who bought small flats in that area at a similar time kept them as rentals, got an income from them and have a nice asset.

Lending two ex boyfriends money, of course I never saw it again.

Getting separated and then divorced in Ireland from a prick who gave up work to sue his solicitors and barrister, my solicitors and barrister, the Legal Aid Board and anyone else he could think of. He’s still bringing his court cases 10 years after we got divorced! Cost me €1,000s and €1,000s.

Not hanging onto our first flat, renting it out and borrowing against it. We paid £20k for it, it’s worth £200k now.

Not picking up on subtle signs dsis was planning to diddle me out of my share of inheritance. Not reacting quick enough when she started financially abusing and coercing dm. Dm is still alive as far as I am aware so don’t know for sure but I am 99% sure her will has been changed in the last few years. Hard lesson to learn we clearly weren’t the close loving family i thought so I am better off out of it but £300k would of made a huge difference to me and my family especially my young adult dc dm only gc as we could of gifted then house deposits

Getting married, I would be substantially better off if I’ve never got married

Staying in the same job for too long in my 30s and missing out on the salary bumps that go with changing jobs. Studying for too long while not making an income although I did manage to work part time throughout and still contribute to my pension.

Not buying Nvidia back in 2020 (recently found a notebook from back then that said “buy Nvidia?” in my handwriting 🤣. Not buying Tesla in 2014 after talking to someone about it (they bought many many shares with an inheritance).

Being born 20 years too late

Same

No big regrets but if I was to give my 20 year old self financial advice, with the benefit of hindsight, I would say stretch more, mortgage wise (I played it safe) and start saving into a s&s ISA with just, say £20pm for the long term.

Double!

Getting married. Ex turned out to be a complete spend thrift. Never had a penny married.
Then he managed never to pay maintenance 🙄.

My parents offered to buy me a 2 bed flat in London in 1997 in my 2nd year of uni. But I wanted to live with 2 friends, so would have needed a 3 bed which they couldn't stretch to. Has they gone ahead with the 2 bed purchase, goodness knows what it would be worth now.

1st was listening to my (lovely but financially illiterate, and council-housed) parents when they told me not to buy a house back in the 90s as it would be a financial millstone and I would be better off renting. If I had bought the house I wanted I would have a much bigger house than my present one, have paid a fraction of the price, and saved all of the costs of multiple moves over the years, plus all of the wasted rental money. In fact I would almost certainly now be mortgage-free!
2nd was not trusting myself to manage getting a mortgage on my own, and using the advisor recommended by the estate agency. He fucked up massively by making some big mistakes, that cost me a minimum of £25k.
3rd was not taking that advisor to court for the money, but in fairness he was in hospital with Covid in the early days of 2020 and it would have felt tremendously unkind!

Not putting enough money into a pension. I now have a crappy little pension pot and will have to work until I’m 70+

Having children 😆

Paying interest only on my tracker mortgage for years when the rates were low - however I had several holidays to America each year instead.

Buying a car and paying £37k, the car is now non ULEZ compliant so almost useless. I’d never buy/pay for a car outright again.

Didn’t add to my sons child trust fund and left it sitting in rubbish shares so this year he only received £1k from that.

Giving up work and becoming a stay at home mum - husbands private pension has soared mine hasn’t, my salary has suffered, and now that my kids are teens they haven’t a clue the sacrifices I made, so I really wished I’d returned to work sooner.

So many!

1. Deciding to work in exh's business for the flexibility for our potential kids. Which on that score did help, but led to continuous money struggles which I'm still feeling now. His total lack of business acumen and insistence on continually wanting more and more meant that we did up and moved umpteen times. Huge projects, utterly draining in every senses. Overall did OK on them and am lucky to have a small house now that's mine with only a small mortgage, but wish I'd left him and plugged that hole in the bucket many years sooner.

2. Trying to be sensible after my much loved and reliable but old car was totalled by a twat in a lorry last year. Bought a 12 year old Kia from a dealer up north bc local mechanic, engineer dad and everyone I spoke to said reliable and sensible, mot history good etc (household income is shit so being sensible was essential). Had to borrow ££ to afford it (insurance £ for old one didn't go anywhere near what was needed), dealer never sent the promised service history or warranty info, then it fucking died under a year in, leaving us with 3 years left on the personal loan. Cue scraping together what we could for another shitheap which is still going for now, but waiting nervously for it all to hit the fan as we have (and need - rural Devon) 2 cars and both are v old.

3. becoming self employed - flexibility for kids was good but pension was fuck all as earnings were never high (still aren't) so I'm in a far more precarious position than I'd like despite always trying to be the world's most sensible decision maker. Hugely annoying.

Not marrying a millionaire

Getting married.

Not getting solar panels when the export tariff was 28p per unit.. newly separated I was so scared of taking on £6000 of debt. Colleagues who did, get money every month and haven't had a bill to pay yet..

Having a child, I can’t even imagine how much money my dd cost to raise especially if you include the financial hit of working part time for many years.

Having pets, I love my animals but they cost loads.

Otherwise I think I’m pretty good money wise, no debt and some savings.