Best decision and worst decision.

anonmoose

Best: buying a house in our early 20s

Worst: buying our second house under pressure because the market was rising. I knew it wasn't right in my heart but ignored those feelings. Fast forward a couple of years later and we sold the house in the last crash and lost tens of thousands. 

I should have rode the crash out but was suffering postnatal depression and couldn't bear to live on a new build estate with a tiny garden a second longer.

I should have sat tight and rode the crash out but most importantly I should have listened to my gut and not bought the house in the first place.

Thankfully because of our best decision it wasn't as disastrous as it might have been. We were just back to square one.

Cus

Excluding decisions that with hindsight worked out well, my worst decision was believing that I knew better than most of the other people in investing, and the best decision was learning that the above was wrong.

noclaf

Worst decision was starting my investment journey with AIM oil and mining stocks....I lost a fair bit but on the flip side I benefitted from the learning experience as painful as it was.

Joint worst decision(s) was fritting my money away on booze, fags, cars, holidays and London nightlife during my 20's and early 30's....yes some great memories but I could of done it in more 'moderation' whilst getting a deposit together for a property. I will ensure I teach my son the value of money as it's something I missed out on and it had a huge impact on my lifestyle and decision-making.

Best decision was to stop burying my head in the sand and confront my pension situation....in 2014 at age 33 I had £17.5k total across my pensions and didn't have a clue about pensions, investments etc As a result of this forum, I was able to get to a point where I felt comfortable changing investments and consolidating a few pots. The total pensions value is now more than 7x the value in 2014 but more importantly I have a plan to maintain contributions as high as I can afford to end up hopefully with a reasonable pot to support retirement. As a rule of thumb, if your employer offers sal sac make sure you contribute enough to receive the max employer contributions.

adindas

Retireby40 said:

Hello everyone,

This is just a thread that may help the newer or younger investors/savers starting out as there's a lot of experienced investors on the forum that we could learn from.

What was your best decision in terms of savings/finance/investing?

What was your biggest mistake? 

Best decision :

Start learning active investing, Learning Investing Journey from the Investing / Trading Legends/Gurus, Investing in Individual stock learning by doing, Learning Fundamental Analysis, how to value the business, Learning Technical Analysis (TA) learn when to strike.

Biggest Mistake:

Not doing that earlier, listen to too many headlines, listen to too many people who do not have a track record of making money in investing themselves.

c'est_moi

Best - living to our means and saving throughout my working life when colleagues were throwing money on expensive cars on credit and adding extensions to their homes that they didn't need.

Paying off the mortgage 6 years early.

Paying back voluntary NI to allow me to get a full SP in a few years time.

Being bloody lucky and being the right age to go to uni for free and work in a job with an excellent final salary pension - both sadly no longer available.

Worst - believing the mortgage broker when he said an endowment mortgage would leave me with a paid off mortgage in 25 years time plus a nice cash sum. Continuing to believe him when moving to our second home and ignoring all of the warning messages on this site. Eventually I took my head out of the sand and got out of the mortgage, but was only able to get compensation for the second mortgage as we were out of time to claim for the first.

Putting my savings in icelandic banks - lucky to get our money back, but lost all of the interest for that year.

Yankee24

I moved here from the USA 30 years ago..  my husband is not and never has been interested in money.  So I partnered and planned with an IFA. She kept me honest.  I had money taken and invested before it was frittered away.  We planned for big investments-   Uni fees, house moves, big holidays, retirement.  We had our share of redundancies etc and stayed the course.  Had to move to specialist uk usa firm eventually due to complexities.   The new firm now does us (financially independent by 50) and our 20 somethings, who we have passed grandparents inheritance to now. 

They have seen us partner with an IFA and are completely cool with talking about money with them.  I don’t have to get involved.  So yes, I have paid my share of fees, but v our peers we are in such a better place.  I don’t think I would have had the discipline to stick to my big plans without the accountability to someone else.   Best decision. 

Worst decision.  Should have held on to our London flat and rented it out.  

mark_cycling00

One good decision (you'll never ever hear it recommended on here) was to pick the most expensive estate agent for last house move.

He confidently predicted £50k higher sale price than other agents even though the market had stalled. A few weeks later there was a bidding war and we reached this £50k

Then he charmed our sellers estate agent and discovered the background to the sellers decision to sell (inherited a bigger house) he guided us on our offer negotiation. Saved another £35k

So for a few extra thousand in commission we gained £85,000 something like a 1500% ROI 

Worst decision (again an unpopular one on here) is probably to have not handed control of my cash to a financial advisor many years ago to be invested for the long-term.

Retireby40

In terms of investing. For someone who doesn't have time to study the markets etc etc and wants a low risk steady increase over time 10-20 years would setting up a recurring payment to a trading platform to buy the S&P. 500 be a good move.

Something like putting in £50-100 a month and just letting it build up over time? Or do I need to be fully switched on and studying things more often?

masonic

Retireby40 said:

In terms of investing. For someone who doesn't have time to study the markets etc etc and wants a low risk steady increase over time 10-20 years would setting up a recurring payment to a trading platform to buy the S&P. 500 be a good move.

Something like putting in £50-100 a month and just letting it build up over time? Or do I need to be fully switched on and studying things more often?

I think you've misunderstood the purpose of this thread. If you have your own questions, they'd be better off in a new one. But in answer to your questions, yes, but why S&P 500, why not a global index? You won't get a "low risk steady increase" doing this, however. It will be quite a wild ride.

Retireby40

masonic said:

Retireby40 said:

In terms of investing. For someone who doesn't have time to study the markets etc etc and wants a low risk steady increase over time 10-20 years would setting up a recurring payment to a trading platform to buy the S&P. 500 be a good move.

Something like putting in £50-100 a month and just letting it build up over time? Or do I need to be fully switched on and studying things more often?

I think you've misunderstood the purpose of this thread. If you have your own questions, they'd be better off in a new one. But in answer to your questions, yes, but why S&P 500, why not a global index? You won't get a "low risk steady increase" doing this, however. It will be quite a wild ride.

I am the author of the original post. After reading a lot of people saying their best decision was getting into investing etc I followed up with a question regarding it.