Whats been your biggest financial blunder

sabretoothtigger

Did people lose money on equitable life, I thought it was paid in the end.
Looks complicated

grey_gym_sock

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

Did people lose money on equitable life, I thought it was paid in the end.
Looks complicated

i think some compensation has been paid now, but the government scaled it back to some % of the calculated losses. and the losses were calculated as how much less ppl came out with compared to similar "with profits" schemes - in a period in which such schemes generally did badly.

ppl who went into equitable life at exactly the wrong time will have done quite poorly. ppl who went in earlier, and had (say) a decade of the good times, before it started going wrong, may have done alright overall.

it's more about poor returns - and the incompetence that contributed to them - than about losses.

robatwork

As soon as it all went south at EL I transferred out, but yes, at a loss on what I would have got with another "blue chip" company.

Given my experience I am not sure what diligence the average investor can do on a company more than what I did before going with EL - they really were the gold standard of companies that turned out to have been built on cover ups and actuarial disasters. I will certainly never trust S&P ratings.

grey_gym_sock

what the EL case suggest to me is that it's best to avoid opaque products (like "with profits"). though that doesn't cover everything that went wrong.

robatwork

Agree completely....now that more (ie not enough) is known about them.

At the time I invested, "with profits" were paying out great sums, clearing people's mortgages with tens of thousands left over. That gravy train turned into a gravy boat. With no gravy.

blizeH

For me personally (in order) it'd go:

1) Getting involved in silver/gold spread betting right before the crash. I was in big style and lost far, far far more than I'm comfortable with!

2) When my parents were trying to decide whether to get a perfect BTL property ~10 years ago and then deciding they didn't want to risk so much on it, not offering to go halves with them

3) Stupidly overpaying my 2.5% mortgage like a mad man, just wanting to try to get out of debt

There are probably more. I've just bought loads of Tesla shares which I'll no doubt regret too.

agent69

Buying a timber framed house from Barratts in 1985.

I moved in a couple of weeks before a TV expose that showed that builders generally were leaving the timber frames lying in the mud and they would all probably rot and collapse within 10 years.

Fortunately it didn't rot or collapse and it did eventually recover it's value.

agent69

agent69 wrote: »

Buying a timber framed house from Barratts in 1985.

I moved in a couple of weeks before a TV expose that showed that builders generally were leaving the timber frames lying in the mud and they would all probably rot and collapse within 10 years.

Fortunately it didn't rot or collapse and it did eventually recover it's value.

Then there was the time my IFA suggested letting Sterling manage my ISA money.

Giant4

blizeH wrote: »

For me personally (in order) it'd go:

1) Getting involved in silver/gold spread betting right before the crash. I was in big style and lost far, far far more than I'm comfortable with!

2) When my parents were trying to decide whether to get a perfect BTL property ~10 years ago and then deciding they didn't want to risk so much on it, not offering to go halves with them

3) Stupidly overpaying my 2.5% mortgage like a mad man, just wanting to try to get out of debt

There are probably more. I've just bought loads of Tesla shares which I'll no doubt regret too.

Is spread betting a good way of investing? I was considering it?

gadgetmind

Giant4 wrote: »

Is spread betting a good way of investing? I was considering it?

It's a good way of betting, and like pretty much all betting, the house wins in the end.

This is why my wife owns shares in IG Group, who are a large spread betting and CFD company. If you do decide to gamble in this way, please use IG because we like the stream of dividends.