Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Worst financial decisions?

When younger tried to time the stock market a few times. Never worked out right. Now just stay fully invested in good funds and let it ride.

Oh and let Edward Jones make some money off me for 3 or 4 years. Bad idea.

Start off with Vanguard or Fidelity, dollar cost average, save 20% of your income and never look back. If struggling, read and learn from Dave Ramsey books.

Getting married to my ex was my worst financial decision. She'd spend us into debt, I'd work more to try and get out of it and she'd go out and spend even more since I was making more. She had so much garbage from shopping crammed into the house that the two back bedrooms were stacked floor to ceiling, you couldn't get to the beds. Catching her cheating was the best thing that ever happened to me, that's the straw broke the camel's back for me to kick her out and divorce her.

2nd marriage. I started completely over at age 50.

Haven't made any yet. It's simple. Don't pay interest. Earn interest.

Most of all, be careful who you get pregnant. Even in the best of circumstances, the financial burden is huge. My college GF and I had an "accident" .. I refuse to call my daughter a "mistake" .. as our relationship was getting rocky and seeming unfixable. We plowed forward "doing the right thing" according to our families, but it didn't work out. I can't exactly say I regret it, but $140K later, I can say life would have taken a different course if we'd gone 2-3 months more without that "oops." Reckon I'd have gone home for the summer to work, she'd have gone her way, and that would have been that. .. but I sure do love my kid. She's 33, turns 34 next week, and keeps me on my toes. Genius, full of piss and vinegar, about as warped as I am, and one of my favorite people to hang out with, even without considering that she's my kid. I won the kid lottery. Pretty much won the ex-wife lottery, too.

Actual purchases .. there have been a couple of guns I probably should not have bought or sold, and if I hadn't, it wouldn't have cascaded to other purchases and eventual sales. A few have been turning points. If I'd hung onto them a year longer, I might have gone back to them with a different perspective.

The 2 single biggest purchase mistakes were vehicles. First, I had a 3 year old Jeep Wrangler Unlimited I'd just finished building to do my weekend stuff. Kid graduated and said she would like to meet half way (Oregon to Colorado) to hike, etc on weekends. I sold the Jeep and bought a 2005 Nissan Frontier. Good trck, drove it for 8 years, but we never did make those trips, life got in the way, so I gave up the functionality of the jeep for nothing other than maybe a gamble on spending more time with my kid. Not exactly a wrong reason to make a bad choice. The worse one, though, was in 2014 when the Nissan was getting a bit ... worn. I sold it and replaced it with a brand new F250 which proved a mistake, it was too much truck for living in town in an apartment complex with limited parking. 2 months later I sold/traded it away and came out with an also new 2014 Tacoma. It did its job where I lived at the time but now I've moved and that F250 would do the jobs a whole lot better. So ... my timing sucks.

Anyway, the best advice I think I can give anyone is be careful who you stick your dick in, and if the relationship seems to be getting bumpy, if it looks on a path to failing, don't stick it in at all. Think that's true even if you're married. No matter how bad things are, if they come apart, adding a, or another, kid to the mix is not going to help.

Tom

Believing I was a bona fide day trader about 20 yrs ago!

About the same time I thought I had a knack for writing naked puts....


Turns out ...I didn't...

invested $100,000 with Woodbridge Group Of Companies who, turns out, had a huge ponzi scheme going. They had over a billion dollars of investor money that is now all tied up in the courts. Hoping some day to recoup some of it, fingers crossed.

Yikes Ingwe..... gives me the heeby jeeby's just thinkin about it.

I traded a few futures and did pretty good, the risk was to stressful though

My first job out of welding school, which paid great, and I believed the company was actually putting the money into my retirement that they took out of my paycheck. We had the option of taking the full amount in pay on the check or having a portion put in a retirement account for us. Hell, you're always told saving for retirement is smart move...

Turns out, with my blessing, they took about $4500 out of my paychecks that was supposed to go into my retirement fund. This was late-1980's money so no telling what that 4K would be worth today.... About a year into working there, the company laid everybody off and shortly after filed for bankruptcy, I checked my account and $450 was actually put in my retirement.

So my worst financial decision was not checking the account.

IMO, the biggest financial mistake anyone can make-- is getting in debt, and worse is staying in debt.

Not borrowing to buy real estate 25 years ago.

Two hard lessons I've learned and still need reminding of on occasion:


1. There is no such thing as a free lunch...

2. And most important, learning and appreciating the difference between wantsys' and needsy's (and following through by exercising that wisdom).

Kind of like not buying a place to bowhunt in Iowa back in 2001 when I was out there hunting?

Hate to hear this, I think you would have about 45K -55K in hand today except for their theft.

Owning airplanes was the worst financial decision I ever made but I would do it again. LOTS of pleasure but planes are made for people who can not get enough punishment owning a boat.

Hahaha!

What a funny question!

Three financial mistakes in order: Getting married, getting divorced and getting old.

Is it true the best way to make a million $ farming is to start with 2 million?

I bought an International truck once.