What's been your most expensive mistake?

124

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  • p00
    p00 Forumite Posts: 824
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
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    Buying things without thinking. Starting a hobby and buying everything for that hobby then going off the idea.
    Changing furniture to find out I preferred the stuff prior.
    Buying lots of little things without realising how much you are actually spending.
    Not appreciating how lucky I am and how much I've got and always looking for that little bit more.
    My life and I still do some of these things even now as pensioner.
  • Wolvesinwales_2
    Wolvesinwales_2 Forumite Posts: 4
    Fifth Anniversary First Post
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    p00 said:
    Buying things without thinking. Starting a hobby and buying everything for that hobby then going off the idea.
    Changing furniture to find out I preferred the stuff prior.
    Buying lots of little things without realising how much you are actually spending.
    Not appreciating how lucky I am and how much I've got and always looking for that little bit more.
    My life and I still do some of these things even now as pensioner.
    I also have that problem anything from a set of drums to a boat but i mostly come to my senses and sell them on when i realise im never going to use them enough.
    Potentially the most expensive mistake was the £475 drone which on its third flight hit the side of the boat and fell in the river and promptly sunk. 


    Happy ending i managed to retrieve it after a week and got it replaced under insurance. 
  • tuffet1
    tuffet1 Forumite Posts: 15
    Part of the Furniture 10 Posts Combo Breaker
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    Deciding to sell, rather than rent, my house after moving out of the area to live with my girlfriend.

    I was only left with a couple of thousand from the sale after paying back the mortgage etc. Less than 18 months later the new owners sold the house for a £100K profit!

    The girlfriend is now the wife so you can probably double the £100K loss  ;)  :D
  • skirunfood
    skirunfood Forumite Posts: 2
    First Post
    Newbie
    Accepting a wedding proposal  :D

    Had everything for the wedding and I called it off as I realised he wasn't the man I wanted to spend my life with  :s

    So ultimately... not a mistake :wink: But expensive it's true.  Bravery nearly always costs something.
  • skirunfood
    skirunfood Forumite Posts: 2
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    Taking up the Gov's QROPS scheme.  An FCA registered advisor recommended the scheme to me and helped me to move my 11 years of workplace pension.  Against my instructions he put the majority of the money into EEA (the advisor knew, but I didn't, that EEA is one of many options that are not suitable for pension investments - I thought since it was a Gov scheme it was regulated and so wouldn't be possible to put pension money in high risk investments) and not only did he lose the lot, his lazy, incompetent and/or motivated by kick-back (you chose) actions turned my 50k pension into 50k of debt!  Gov ombudsman... not interested.  FCA... not interested.  It's a Gov scheme - of course they're never going to admit running an unregulated scheme :bawling:
  • merixmas
    merixmas Forumite Posts: 3
    Third Anniversary First Post
    Newbie
    Lending my car to my daughter when I visited her!  She parked it blocking a neighbouring driveway, the car was towed away and I got the train home, thinking the car had been stolen.  On arrival home I got a message (this was the days before mobile phones) that the car had been towed, so I had to take a day off work, pay another train fare and pay to retrieve the car from the pound!
  • Justdontwasteit
    Justdontwasteit Forumite Posts: 12
    10 Posts Second Anniversary
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    Not buying Bitcoin many years ago. I read and thought about it, but spending it seemed difficult, and I thought I would probably be ripped off when buying or selling it, as I didn’t really understand it. If only I’d bought a random £100 or so back then!
  • AgeingHippytoo
    AgeingHippytoo Forumite Posts: 3
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    Selling my fathers flat after he died. It was about 1991 and the bottom had fallen out of the property market and we got a fraction of what it was bought for and what it subsequently would have sold for. The person who bought it rented it out but it never occurred to us that we could have done that.
  • Watford_05
    Watford_05 Forumite Posts: 2
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    Newbie
    About 30years ago I remortgaged my flat and lent my brother the money to start a business. I was away working. He didn't pay and I lost my flat which now would have been worth about £250.00!

    Went to visit my mother in a nursing home in Florida, booked ticket and entered date but when I pressed ENTER date changed, could not contact Delta, lost $800.00 dollars cos I had to rebook flight. Didn't follow up! I could still slap myself after 5 years!
  • Tula100
    Tula100 Forumite Posts: 13
    Third Anniversary 10 Posts
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    Having arrived back from Germany, I was due to go on holiday to Rhodes 4 days later.  But the next day I could not find my passport - thought I must have lost it at the airport or had it stolen.  Could not get it replaced in time so lost a holiday costing £650.  BUT 10 months later I found it stuck to the back of a calendar I was given in Germany for the following year and had hung on the wall behind the current year's!  I had peeled some airline's sticky label off the passport and it had stuck to the calendar when on the desk.
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