Best decision and worst decision.

eastmidsaver

worst decision  -   probably the neil woodford investment !!      but i think that caught alot of people out.

but in general
worst decision was going a bit crazy and buying quite a few funds through instinct (although researched first),  which now are all down quite a bit.
best decision - probably overpaying my mortgage which has got the monthly cost down. this will help a little bit with the expected rise in my other bills.

Yankee24

bostonerimus said:

Yankee24 said:

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.  

I did the reverse ie moved from UK to USA 30ish years ago, but have things prepared to move back to the UK. May I ask the name of your specialist US/UK investment firm?

Tanager wealth management.  

fourmarks

Worst decision.

Putting it all on red.  

Retireby40

fourmarks said:

Worst decision.

Putting it all on red.  

How much? Lol

deltrotter

Best: learning I could not beat the market and investing 100% in passives (took 25 years to sink in)

Worst: thinking I could best the market by investing in individual stocks and active funds for 25 years

Bigwheels1111

Best, Divorce

Worst, Marriage

DannyCarey

Best:
Learning about compound interest. Learning all about index investing from books, discovering FIRE blogs & good YouTube content

Worst:

Fiddling with individual stocks for a few years when I could have just indexed it. 

Yet to be determined: 

I own half a bitcoin which I am planning to sit on for many years. 

Exodi

Best: moving my pension from NEST who charge 1.8% contribution charge and 0.3% AMC to a SIPP charging about a quarter of this. Also realising some of the vanguard funds have a big UK weighting.

Worst: starting at a 'bad time' (beginning of 2022) and not starting sooner. I only have about £24k in my SIPP + S&S which for 31 years old is quite sad - but this was only £15k 6 months before and the markets have been less than kind. Assuming the markets don't tank further, should have £100k in my SIPP by 2030 which puts me back on track.

Exodi

MisterMotivated said:

My second worst decision was buying more Carillion shares when it became obvious they were in trouble, thinking that the government would do something to help them out considering their size and all the government contracts they had

Oh god, this brings back memories. In my previous employment (working with engineers in the energy and defence service sector) I remember when Carillion (and CarillionAmey the defence arm) started to issue notice that they were extending their payment terms - our business, alongside many others, assumed that while this certainly looked bad but they were 'too big to fail'. Many companies we dealt with were pulled under the water when the titanic that was Carillion finally sank. CarillionAmey became 'Amey' (which I think annoyed a lot of people as Carillion held the debt obligations).

Sucks to have had shares in them. Yet again goes to show that no business is too big to fail!

masonic

Exodi said:

Worst: starting at a 'bad time' (beginning of 2022) and not starting sooner. I only have about £24k in my SIPP + S&S which for 31 years old is quite sad - but this was only £15k 6 months before and the markets have been less than kind. Assuming the markets don't tank further, should have £100k in my SIPP by 2030 which puts me back on track.

That's one of the best times to start in my view. I started 3 years before the global financial crisis. It's far better to get your first practical experience of your risk tolerance when you've only invested a small percentage of your lifetime wealth.