Whats been your biggest financial blunder

IronWolf

Not really made any huge mistakes. I suppose biggest is a couple of shares I wish I hadn't bought, but I sold out of those to break even (eventually) so didn't lose me any money.

twigpig

I should have joined my company's sharesave scheme the first year it launched, instead of only getting in on it on year 3. The first 2 years delivered a 400% return on the savings made!

Hoping that in 10 years, I'll have made better investments decisions after reading more about share portfolio's and hope to start investing money a little more (even though I'm clueless) :rotfl:

AlwaysLearnin

Not buying our first house as big as we could have, as ended up with all the expense of moving again a year later. That, and spending so much going out in my earlier 20's! :beer:

I'm a fairly recent joiner to the investment fraternity, so hopefully I won't have anything more to add than that as I find my way...

PeteW

I've bought some shares that have performed pretty abysmally, but I'm sure I'm not alone there. The main thing I regret it not starting a pension earlier - I only started when I was 28.

If I could go back in time and give myself some financial advice on my first day of work, it would be this:

1) - Blow your first paycheque. You've been waiting a long time for this, and you'll soon have expensive responsibilities and commitments. You could buy a 20 year old Porsche or go to the Paris for the weekend and check out some Michelin-starred restaurants or book tickets to the World Cup Final, whatever… just do something daft that you'll never have the freedom to do again.

2) - From paycheck no 2, start saving, start investing. 10% of salary into a pension and 10% into medium-term savings, on the day after pay day. Always. Do it from the start and you'll never miss it.

Anyone else have any advice they'd like to have given themselves?

alanq

Cashing in some matured NS&I index-linked savings certificates when inflation was low intending to put the money back into new ILSCs the following financial year. Inflation is now relatively high and ILSCs have not been on offer since so I never got the chance.

evenasus

Although not huge - still annoying.

A Marks & Spencer 5 year PEP which earned - nothing - but at least the capital was protected.

Not selling the free Bradford & Bingley shares before they went bust.

martinbuckley

Buying £15K of Woolworths shares, and believing their Board when they said they were not going bust and didnt need a take-over.

B*st**ds!

mulronie

My biggest financial blunders all come from the same stupid practice - basing my "sell" decision on whether or not I'd be booking a loss, rather than the fundamentals. Too proud to "lose" £1000 selling HBOS the day it hit the fan, I instead rode that loss all the way down to my current miserable holding in Lloyds.

But I like to read this story when my investment ghosts come to haunt me:

On April 1, 1976, three men founded a technology business in sunny Southern California. Ronald Wayne was the oldest of the three, and while he was not a "techie", he was the bean-counter, and he wrote the partnership agreement and operating manual for the first computer.

Ronald sold his share in the partnership for US$800 less than two weeks later, on April 13, 1976. Ronald Wayne's initial stake in the company was 10%; and that company was Apple Computer.

The lesson for all us investors, however, is what Ronald says about his decision: "I have never had the slightest pangs of regret, because I made the best decision with the information available to me at the time."

cfw1994

PeteW wrote: »

If I could go back in time and give myself some financial advice on my first day of work, it would be this:

1) - Blow your first paycheque. You've been waiting a long time for this, and you'll soon have expensive responsibilities and commitments. You could buy a 20 year old Porsche or go to the Paris for the weekend and check out some Michelin-starred restaurants or book tickets to the World Cup Final, whatever… just do something daft that you'll never have the freedom to do again.

Dunno about paycheck, but my first days wages working at Warners Holiday camp was £3.....hey, it was over 32 years ago.....and the Space Invader machine ate the lot !
I do recall getting home & vowing never to spend it all again!
Haven't done so bad over the years....but kids are perhaps the greatest expense for sure !
(not that I have ever regretted it!)

Gobosly

I've my share of successes and failures as I quite often go for high risk volatile companies that can go either way. Some were really daft, but in hindsight I was massively optimistic in my assessments of the companies opportunities and I tended to not worry about their levels of debt! (In fairness people were less concerned about debt a few years ago)!

The failures were:

1. Advising my wife to buy Woolworth shares just before they went bust (She only lost £500 but you think she can move on....!)
2. Loosing almost 5K in Yell shares. Looked great value at the time.....Now worthless!
3. Loosing 5K in HBOS (although I made this up afterwards, I did realise the loss at time).
4. Gaining a paper profit of 5K in Angel Mining shares, then ending up losing 2.5K! That was a classic case of not knowing when to sell!