Whats been your biggest financial blunder

brasso

A lot of these are more bad luck than bad mistakes, I guess.

In the 'bad luck' category I would put the decision to change to a high yield portfolio in mid-2007. Trouble was that a lot of the classic HY picks were banks. I had relatively big holdings in LLOY and Bradford and Bingley for instance. The former bombed, the latter disappeared altogether, though I did at least salvage 5% of the investment!

In the bad judgment category, I'd say it was not to negotiate a better redundancy package when I lost my job about 7 years ago. I was offered 3 months salary in addition to the statutary, plus a few other little bonuses. I thought this seemed reasonable at the time but I later learnt that other colleagues had contested the same deal and been offered extra. I could have had about another 20K I believe.

And what would I have done with the 20K windfall? Well, I was switching everything to a high yield portfolio at around that time....

ctdctd

ERICS_MUM wrote: »

Not selling my RBS shares when their troubles first came to light.

+1

Still got them - value < £100 now :eek:

latecomer

Being convinced by OH to fix mortgage rates 5 years ago on our £200k mortgage instead of the tracker I wanted

Not buying ARM shares when they were at 49p while buying my first flat and refusing to risk my OHs money unless I was buying.

Reaper

Buying risky shares. For my own portfolio I can't resist throwing in a few gambles such as HMV and junior gold miners.

I invest money for my wife and kid much more sensibly and as a result their investments have left mine for dust!

Stroppypops

Buying a car which costs 43k and is costing me 850 per month. Bloody good fun though.

gadgetmind

Not going DIY with my investments *much* earlier. I shudder to think how much I've lost in fees over the years just to get worse performance albeit with less effort required by myself.

Lokolo

Buying a property too early. Only to then have 2 large pay rises 8 months later, meaning I could have bought something a little nicer!

Not a massive mistake and I don't regret it that much. But I haven't made many financial mistakes so far!

droopsnoot

Taking advice from a building society to move into Unit Trusts and funds in 2001, and watching the value drop by half almost immediately. Unfortunately it put me off to the point where, other than those initial ones, I just have cash now and it's doing nothing for me. Oh, and not doing much with cash when the rates were better, having a stack sitting in a current account until the bank suggested I have a savings account.

sabretoothtigger

Reaper wrote: »

Buying risky shares. For my own portfolio I can't resist throwing in a few gambles such as HMV and junior gold miners.

I invest money for my wife and kid much more sensibly and as a result their investments have left mine for dust!

Haha ironic but overall you done good there. Just continue to reward what works over what doesn't, you keep the risky stuff in a box contained and at arms length.

Multiple strategy split accounts is an advanced technique I think, most arent that disciplined.
RBS rolled everything together! Santander does employ this, every country and company section is segmented form the others

Robie

Selling Jupiter High Income last year which would have made a bundle for me had I held on to it.