What was your biggest financial mistake?

[QuickNameChange22]

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.

Moving abroad at the start of the biggest property boom in the history of the world, and moving back home when the average house price in my city is $2million for a run down 2-bed.

No travel experience or career win I’ve had overseas is worth never being able to own our own home.

It’s not a Land Rover is it? Worst decision ever, cost us an absolute fortune, total money pit.

Interesting that mumsnet always says get married for financial protection, yet only one of the posters here said not getting married as the regret. Seems many more have lost out by getting married.

For me, it was buying into the Neil Woodford fund. Bastard halved my money for me and I amstill stuck with a dud fund where they can't sell the last bits, so can't close the account.

I suspect it is going to be buying a new build house ...

Not investing or understanding investing sooner

Mine’s not buying a property (however small) in my early 20s. I don’t dwell on it though. (Or in it!)

@LeTourEiFFEL how did you get started learning more about investing? Books? Financial advisor? It's on my long-term plan (after I've paid off my debt!) but I genuinely wouldn't even know where to start researching.

Not buying shares in Apple or Costa coffee 20 years ago 😂

@QuickNameChange22

I was left a very small inheritance ie under 20 grand and I have no pension nor saving.

I didn't want to fuck it up or loose it there was so much we needed and holidays to go on but I wanted to secure my capital. Then use that to fund stuff

I read one of the biggest difference between rich and poor people was understanding investing and growing capital .

I felt an enormous amount of pressure this is all I will get and I'm on low paying wage.

It took at least a year of research googling funds reading morning star which grades funds and reading books.

Rich dad poor dad , the psychology of money ,the simple path to wealth among others.
I read blogs and looked into the fire movment.
I can't achieve nor want fire but the advice was good
I also have Mr money moustache blog /website.

I use hargreves and landsdowne for ease because I like the app.

Start off small and I buy baskets of funds so if one company fails another naturally replaces it so you can't go wrong.

Diversification is the key ie invest in etf which are baskets of many companies ,access many sectors.

Daily mail money is very good and the podcast

My money doubled in 6 years.

I'm at a stage where I am happy to skim small amounts off the top.

My buying a new build a year ago was the best thing we have ever done. It’s already risen 100K in a year. Other new builds of same size barely 200 m up the road are going for £200 K is it made here an prices are going up and up and up - 4 bed detached has risen from £500K to £975K in less than 2 years madness!

Biggest financial fail was leaving a city with very good salaries and moving back to where I grew up 🤢 low salaries, high house prices etc

Biggest win (for balance!) was shared ownership. I live in an area with rental shortages and high rent. The equity from my shared ownership got me on the open market and a fantastic leg up within five years.

my shared ownership was a new build and good quality and cheap to run.

Whilst I’m not suggesting that you don’t pay your debt, you might find that actually invest investments increase at a higher rate than the interest is accrued
I have my credit cards on interest free credit and then have the money that some people might suggest paying towards the debt in a chip account and one is confidently outgrowing the other at the moment if that changed I would just withdraw the money and clear the debt off with it

That's great, thank you! I'm actually listening to The Psychology of Money at the moment.

I'm a Dave Ramsey fan and find his principles fit with the way I'd like to handle our money however he talks a lot about investing and learning about it but I don't think they have his Smart Investors in the UK to teach me 😁

@kittywittyandpretty I think for me it's knowing that we have those fixed payments that need to be made every month that I hate. Most of it is 0% but god I hate seeing those payments coming out of my account. I definitely want to become more financially literate before delving into investing and stocks. The most we have ever done with savings is our Help to Save accounts and the yearly Regular savers we used to have (before we had debt and could reliably pay the max into them each month!)

Almost identical to me ( although not the car thing) I’m still married though -

Biggest one: An overseas pension savings plan that I was sold by a high pressure, commission based salesman, while working overseas. High charges, inflexible and with poor UK tax treatment.

More prosaically: Not investing in an ISA as early as I could have done. Focussed too much on paying off a relatively inexpensive mortgage, and not enough on investing to grow our savings.

bought a house for myself and my children for the money I Got from divorce. Fled 2 years later because of psycopat upstairs, scaring my kids, ruining my stuff, did everything he could to make our life hell. Now i finally sold, with a loss of 45.000 english pounds. I have to accept offer as i cant keep payments up when I also rent elsewhere. Im 55, on disability pay and Will be poor the rest of my life and have No Way of helping my children with money. If I didnt buy that hell house I would have been Rich today.. i am so bitter and angry at myself for buying this house

Same here . I didn’t really understand the implications of the benefit of buying the freehold when it was offered at £16k between the 3 flats . Now we have fallen into marriage value territory which we’d never heard of . Will cost us circa £50k
to get out of . Am hoping the government holds firm to its commitment to abolish MV but not holding my breathe .

Not having a plan for life after university that included how to make at least the national average wage and climb from there. It turned out ok eventually, but it crippled me out of the gate and kept me poor for at least a decade. It was a great waste of a wholly subsidised education, as it was then, and I really wish I had had some good guidance!

Similar to others, dead to think how much I could have gained by investing an inheritance 20 years ago rather than leaving it in N&SI bonds (admittedly not absolute worst).
Civil Service pension: in 2002 it all changed and everyone was given choice to stay in Classic or move to Premium, or bit of both. I chose to move as new accrual was 1/60 not 1/80 but I ignored the lump-sum and lower contributions of Classic. Also didn't buy extra years when relatively cheap to do so.
More recently managed to transfer out of cash ISA into fixed rate savings, thought I was transferring to another ISA, thereby losing wrapper and will end up paying tax on interest. Would have been better leaving it be.

I suppose not being employed for well over a decade.
However if I had either, my mental health would have really suffered or DH wouldn’t have taken the promotions that have ultimately been life changing for us.

Can you speak to the ISA provider and beg and say it was a mistake?

I work for a Building Society and this happens a lot, if it was closed in the current tax year we end up reopening the ISA, asking the customer to pay the funds back and then amend the ISA history so it doesn't count as current subscriptions.

Worth a shot maybe!

Credit cards in my 20's, you can buy a dress for £50 and you only have to pay back £5, until you don't... yeah, that.

@blanketbluesdo you mean a flat? How was someone living upstairs if it was a house? Either way, I'm really sorry this happened to you 💐

Taking credit out in my name for my now ex bastard boyfriend, as he couldn't get credit. Still fucking paying it off 3 years later. Apologies for the gutter language but I'm still fucking bitter.

Getting into catalogue debt in my 20's
Not paying money into pensions throughout my working life