My worst money mistake

homelessskilledworker

Can you guess what it is yet......


http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/my-worst-money-mistake.html

Wookster

I guess someone needs to tell them that it is actually possible to cancel car insurance midway through the term.

purch

My worse mistake was not letting HID's Car Insurance auto renew this year.

The renewal quote from LV was £137..........being a "semi paid up MSE !!!!" I did the compare stuff, and renewed with Budget Car Insurance for £119 :j

Of course, after they had "fined" me £30 for not signing and returning a piece of paper, which I had signed and returned but they claimed not to have received.........I have ended up paying more :eek:

......and if I factor in the time I have wasted arguing with the !!!!ers on the phone, plus the time spent doing the MSE compare !!!!!!!! I am even more out of pocket :mad:

chewmylegoff

Yahoo's biggest financial mistake was employing this clueless individual as a money journalist!

My biggest financial mistakes are:

i) as a result of the collapse of lehmans in september 2008, i pulled out of buying a house as i thought the market would go down the toilet. that house is worth quite a lot more now, possibly as much as £40k more.

ii) after not doing that, i kept all of my money in cash. i thought extensively about pushing it into trackers but decided it was too risky. the market was below 4,000 for quite a while IIRC, so i missed out on 40-50% gains on anything that i would have invested then.

iii) buying shares using random selection - i decided i needed more risk so i just randomly chose a small cap share and ended up with CAD, bought at 42p, it's now 20p. this wasn't a massive mistake as i only put £1k in.

obviously no-one else on this board will ever have made a financial mistake as everyone here always makes amazing financial decisions. i do find this interesting, as professional traders rarely make money on more than ~55% of their trades, whereas everyone here who buys a house always gets it for 98% below peak price, and brit1234 is a financial markets sage.

Graham_Devon

I've made loads of financial mistakes.

But then I've also learnt from every single one, which I believe makes any money I do have now, go a little further. No doubt in 20 years time I'll know loads more and have made loads more mistakes.

Thing with mistakes is, life is a gamble, and all you can do is what you think is best at the time. We often don't look back at some of our better achievements with money as they are taken for granted.

I do hate being "conned" though. I remember taking "free" 7 day car insurance when buying a car. It turned out is wasn't free at all. It was only free if you then extended that insurance cover for a further year. Of course, their insurance was £300 more than anywhere else.

So you end up paying their cancellation fee along with an admin fee for providing the product and your "free insurance" ends up costing you £76. That really got to me, as I couldn't believe I could be so stupid.

wotsthat

I'll be publishing my own investment book soon - "falling knives I have attempted to catch". I keep the Lloyds & Premier Foods shares for sentimental reasons to remind myself that I'm not as clever as I think I am and that company boards don't always operate in the best interests of the owners. The two big red numbers in my portfolio, I suspect, will be reminding me of this for a good few years yet. Cost to date - >£10k.

Biggest mistake though was being over cautious and borrowing too little money to buy homes. I reckon my net worth would be £100k or so higher if I'd made a few different housing decisions.

ess0two

Worst....ploughing 2k in red emperor resources @ 36p,currently suspended @ 8p.

Potential changer falkland oil and gas,currently drilling,gonna be !!!! or bust with what i've invested.

geoffky

Mine was i invested 10k in some shares on a recommendation from someone i know in a jersey based company ...The company disappeared off the face of the earth..
I still have the certificate framed on my wall in my office to remind me of me being a idiot for not doing my homework..

ILW

The return on my Lotto tickets has been rubbish.

homelessskilledworker

Mine was a couple of grand on Marconi, and I once renovated three ford capri's, all 2 litre sports(early 80's) to near mint condition, was convinced they would be a massive collectors item in the future.:), stll loved driving them though.

My biggest financial mistake(and I swear I am not trying to point score) was my third house and main house I owned.
Although we never lost any money on it and after 1997 it actually stated to gain some decent value. I regret the hard work, long hours and the amount of money/wages and more importantly TIME that was ploughed into it, time that I should have spent with my daughter and the rest of my family and doing stuff that was far more important. I never went behind with payments, we were never down in equity(actually did well out of it), and the house looked great when I actually found time to be in it.

It is probably what happened with that house that colours my views today, the posters you think I probably do not like on this board(and I don't dislike/hate anyone), it is more a case of disliking their views a lot:), views that I know I once I had.

My one bit of advice(and I am sure most won't take it), is to work out what is the best and most expensive house you could possibly afford, then come down a peg or two and get a HOME, a home that allows you to get a decent work life balance where you can get time to cherish what is more important, your family and your own well being, well thats my crappy financial advice for what it is worth.


p.s sitting on a cash pile as I have no idea of a safe place to invest it, and it scares the **** out of me as the months pass.

geoffky

Have a look at corporate bonds...