What's the worst financial decision you've ever made?

[CamasM3e93]

Originally Posted by Germanauto

Yeah exactly. I'm about 8 years out of undergrad but would've probably been a Bay Area millionaire and homeowner by now. But at that ripe age of 20 I was naive and thought being a Doctor = wealth. Did not realize the concept of opportunity cost at that time. Medicine is 7+ yrs of little to no income before the money arrives.

During the 2010s I was in school working for free, meanwhile big tech was a golden ticket.

I could have made a similar comparison - Left a successful engineering career to go to med school. I was aware of opportunity cost and it crushed my spirit early on, probably soured what could have been a positive experience in med school, spent the first two years wondering what the hell did I do this for. 20 years later though I’m likely at least doing double what I could be earning had I stuck around. I’m probably in the money at this point. I was with kimberly Clark though, no high flying stock options there to walk away from at least.

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by Germanauto

Yeah exactly. I'm about 8 years out of undergrad but would've probably been a Bay Area millionaire and homeowner by now. But at that ripe age of 20 I was naive and thought being a Doctor = wealth. Did not realize the concept of opportunity cost at that time. Medicine is 7+ yrs of little to no income before the money arrives.
During the 2010s I was in school working for free, meanwhile big tech was a golden ticket.

But you'll never know whether, from hindsight, entering the 'sliding door of opportunity' back then, would have brought you - in the long run - the presumably satisfactory life you enjoy right now. Maybe you would have ended up feeling unlucky or, who knows, already perished ? The grass ain't always greener on the other side - sometimes it's even fake.

A nice summer day back in the 80s. I was a teenager and a neighborhood friend came along with his car, inviting me to join him and his girlfriend to visit an event in a town nearby. It was tempting. I hesitated but declined as I had other plans for that summer afternoon. I remember how he tried to convince me to join + subsequently seeing him driving off into the distance. What I heard afterwards: he never made it to the other town. A few minutes after he left, while waiting in front of a traffic light, a car violently slammed into his car without braking (the other driver declared to be "fiddling with the radio, not noticing the car"). My friend recalled that he noticed in his rear view mirror that the other car was approaching without slowing down, and that, in a reflex, he quickly pushed down the head of his girlfriend who was sitting in the passenger seat, followed by a violent impact. The rear end of the car of my friend was badly crumpled. Troubling was particuliarly the sturdy panel (homemade wooden or metal plate) behind the back seats where my friend had fitted rear audio speakers: upon impact that plate/panel was brutally smashed forward against the rear side of the front seats, hurting the backs of both himself and his girlfriend (requiring medical help). Now, if I had been sitting on the backseat of my friend's car, my chances of survivaI would have been virtually zero (either I would have lost my head or the plate/panel would have at least broken my neck or my back). The reason that I can live to tell this sobering true story: life can move in mysterious ways - I was simply lucky that day not to have entered that tempting 'sliding door of opportunity'.

[DocOfTheDead]

Originally Posted by Germanauto

Yeah exactly. I'm about 8 years out of undergrad but would've probably been a Bay Area millionaire and homeowner by now. But at that ripe age of 20 I was naive and thought being a Doctor = wealth. Did not realize the concept of opportunity cost at that time. Medicine is 7+ yrs of little to no income before the money arrives.

During the 2010s I was in school working for free, meanwhile big tech was a golden ticket.

HAHAHA. I feel that for reals. If you want to make real money, don’t go into medicine.

However, I have a near zero chance of being laid off, and literally have dozens of jobs I could take tomorrow.

[ASAP]

The one thing that I can definitively state is that I didn't invest enough in the real estate boom of the 2010s in FL... i would have been a guaranteed multi millionaire by now had I just pulled the trigger on a few things... oh well.

[Germanauto]

Originally Posted by DocOfTheDead

HAHAHA. I feel that for reals. If you want to make real money, don’t go into medicine.

However, I have a near zero chance of being laid off, and literally have dozens of jobs I could take tomorrow.

I do think it's financially worth it if your parents pay their loans, you specialize, and/or you don't live in a high COL state like California or New York. But I get the impression the days of most Docs making serious $$ ended in the early 2010s. Insurance companies, corporate groups, politicians etc all wanted their cut and got it.

But yeah the job security and location flexibility are great. I'm taking a per diem on the side to boost my income 50%. It all just depends how hard you want to hustle.

[Soul_Glo]

I ain’t hurt about my divorce. Happy like never before. My feet don’t touch the ground. She was a mahoosive energy drain. We have a prenup and she cheated so doesn’t get much. Worst decision otherwise was buying a brand new Audi (Always Under Diagnostic Inspection) outright. Turned out to be a money pit. Lemon. Thousands of dollars. Each time I thought I know the car so no point replacing it. Should be like new I thought with all the replacement parts. How wrong was I?! Since then I have leased. Swap it in every 3 years or whatever. Recently my G20 has been a PITA. I have been using my Mercedes. Although, I was curious the other day and asked a P.I. patient of mine.. the Audi is still on the road with 150+k miles on it!!!

[3.0L]

Not saving sooner. I didn't seriously begin saving until age 43. At least when I did get with the program, I saved seriously and still made it to the finish line in pretty good shape.

[dradernh]

Originally Posted by Sara

Buying multiple horses. Turned a large fortune into a small fortune lol, though they bring so much joy

Yeah, same reason people buy race cars and boats. Despite the (sometimes) financial pain, most of us feel we get more out of it than we put in to it.

Our spouses/partners/others, however. do not always feel the same way!

Originally Posted by Germanauto

And not investing in mutual funds/ETFs at an earlier age (outside of 401k). Was stupidly playing around with individual securities.

Agreed. If you've got a long-term plan, individual securities are for the play money.

-------------------------

Mine: failed to buy Xerox (remember them? no? of course not), Walmart, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, et al. during the right time frames.

More to the point: failed to be all-in in an index fund in the market from 1982 onwards. I stayed in cash from 1981-2000. Sounds stupid, right? Yet, I still retired in 1994 (interest rates on cash were cray-zee from the early 80s until the mid-90s - for entertainment, look it up) and have been par-tayin' like it's 1985 ever since (my version of same, of course! ). Go figure.

--------------------------

OP, give it up – what's yours?

[heitzke]

Getting married to someone I should have never married to begin with. She naturally ended up with one of the houses that I purchased while the market was booming here in Nashville.

I mean, that's kind of the nature of divorce, but she just sold the house about 6mo back and ended up making 250k off the sale. I supported her and her kids while she went to nursing school, got her BSN and then things fell apart soon after.

Still pisses me off when I really think about it, but so it goes. I'm about +325k in the house that I ended up wanting, so it comes out in the wash I guess.

[Our03z4]

Originally Posted by Sara

Buying multiple horses. Turned a large fortune into a small fortune lol, though they bring so much joy

Do horses really bring joy to you though. I think my wife tries to convince herself that they do. But I feel like I see as many tears and frustration as happiness from them. It's a rough and very expensive hobby with much heartbreak.

Her new dressage / hunter horse (warm blood) is not working out the way she thought and now she's so financially deep with board and training her she doesn't know what to do. I just tell her to sell both horses and buy a Ferrari, I know I'd be happy lol.

She always tries to get me into the hobby but watching her having "fun" makes me have no interest. Heck, I even tried to do my 1st dressage show with her old dressage mare last summer, her horse decided she didn't like that idea once in the ring. The horse and I have an unspoken agreement now, I don't bother her and she doesn't bother me.

P.S. gentleman, learn to ride a horse if you're single and you'll have endless women wanting you...they won't EVER complain about what you spend on cars or parts and that's a fact!

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by Our03z4

Her new dressage / hunter horse (warm blood) is not working out the way she thought and now she's so financially deep with board and training her she doesn't know what to do. I just tell her to sell both horses and buy a Ferrari, I know I'd be happy lol.

Both the Ferrari logo and Porsche logo feature a prancing horse.

So in a way those could be your 'horses'.

[Our03z4]

Originally Posted by Artemis

Both the Ferrari logo and Porsche logo feature a prancing horse.

So in a way those could be your 'horses'.

I always tell her that we could buy a Ferrari with the money she spends and she always threatens to buy me a horse named Ferrari lol. All in all I'm glad she has a hobby she likes so much, it just saddens me that it's rollercoaster of one. Truly she never complains about my hobby and I try to support hers as much as I can. Even if that means just holding her horse at shows.

[Llarry]

My method to turn a small fortune into a smaller one is turning over BMWs too frequently; buy new and sell after too few years. Buy high and sell low.

[Sara]

Originally Posted by Our03z4

Do horses really bring joy to you though. I think my wife tries to convince herself that they do. But I feel like I see as many tears and frustration as happiness from them. It's a rough and very expensive hobby with much heartbreak.

Her new dressage / hunter horse (warm blood) is not working out the way she thought and now she's so financially deep with board and training her she doesn't know what to do. I just tell her to sell both horses and buy a Ferrari, I know I'd be happy lol.

She always tries to get me into the hobby but watching her having "fun" makes me have no interest. Heck, I even tried to do my 1st dressage show with her old dressage mare last summer, her horse decided she didn't like that idea once in the ring. The horse and I have an unspoken agreement now, I don't bother her and she doesn't bother me.

P.S. gentleman, learn to ride a horse if you're single and you'll have endless women wanting you...they won't EVER complain about what you spend on cars or parts and that's a fact!

I have three horses. One of them I have owned since 1999. That’s 24 years. I cannot imagine my life without her. She turns 31 this April and her black face has so much grey to it She has kicked me, bitten me, stepped on me, thrown me, bucked me off, more times than I can remember. She sent me to the ER with a concussion and split my head wide open. I’d take a bullet for her. She means more to me than anyone.

She has taught me trust, patience, empathy, discipline, self-confidence and control. In 25 years of riding at numerous stables, I’ve never come across another horse like her, and she’ll never be sold. Even though now in her thirties she’s too old to ride or do much of anything, she doesn’t have to worry about a thing for the rest of her life. She’s earned retirement as a pasture puff.

And you’re right about guys who have horse knowledge. It’s such a turn on. They can do no wrong.

[Patrick303]

In 2013 I decided I wanted to start investing the little bit of extra cash I had laying around, but didn't know where to put it. My buddy told me about Bitcoin and how the price was going up, but I decided to put my $6000 into Ameritrade instead and lost half in the first 6 months trying to pick individual stocks.

Bitcoin was around $80 at that time and my $6000 would have been worth almost $5 million when it peaked in 2021.

[heitzke]

Originally Posted by Patrick303

In 2013 I decided I wanted to start investing the little bit of extra cash I had laying around, but didn't know where to put it. My buddy told me about Bitcoin and how the price was going up, but I decided to put my $6000 into Ameritrade instead and lost half in the first 6 months trying to pick individual stocks.

Bitcoin was around $80 at that time and my $6000 would have been worth almost $5 million when it peaked in 2021.

lol i've got one of those too. In 2011 I worked with this super strange guy I only knew as "Kiba" at a small software dev shop. He was kind of a savant and was hyper intelligent but just couldn't put his knowledge and software practice towards anything that was really practical.

Anyway, during his short stint with us he tried for HOURS to convince a coworker and I that bitcoin was the future of currency and he'd show us how to set up a digital wallet and how to buy some BTC. Mind you, coins were just over $5 at this point. This was pre-Mt Gox and all that stuff, and I don't even think there was a darknet market at the time.

There was zero use for the currency so I just didn't get it. Still, a coworker and I toyed around with spending $100 and just buying some coins to sit on. We started down the process of setting up a wallet and partway through we got busy with work and just abandoned the idea since it just felt too strange. I figured I could just $100 for literally anything else and gave up what would have been just under 50 BTC.

I never would have held onto them long enough to see them at their current pricing, but it's fun to think about how I *could* have had over 3M by a stroke of luck. No such luck though, although I still dabbled in crypo after the market first crashed and made about 10k through it.

[chassis]

Originally Posted by Germanauto

I do think it's financially worth it if your parents pay their loans, you specialize, and/or you don't live in a high COL state like California or New York. But I get the impression the days of most Docs making serious $$ ended in the early 2010s. Insurance companies, corporate groups, politicians etc all wanted their cut and got it.

But yeah the job security and location flexibility are great. I'm taking a per diem on the side to boost my income 50%. It all just depends how hard you want to hustle.

Are you saying that paying one's own medical school loans means it's not financially worth it? How does PSLF affect the "worth it" assessment?

[Serf27]

Selling $1k worth of doge coin that I bought at $.003 for no gains because it wasn’t doing anything.

[M-technik-3]

Got remarried and in less than 4 years was getting in ugly divorce. Painful to the wallet. Single I could have just walked away.

[Tyga11]

Originally Posted by Patrick303

In 2013 I decided I wanted to start investing the little bit of extra cash I had laying around, but didn't know where to put it. My buddy told me about Bitcoin and how the price was going up, but I decided to put my $6000 into Ameritrade instead and lost half in the first 6 months trying to pick individual stocks.

Bitcoin was around $80 at that time and my $6000 would have been worth almost $5 million when it peaked in 2021.

Right but you would have cashed out well before then

[DocOfTheDead]

Originally Posted by Germanauto

I do think it's financially worth it if your parents pay their loans, you specialize, and/or you don't live in a high COL state like California or New York. But I get the impression the days of most Docs making serious $$ ended in the early 2010s. Insurance companies, corporate groups, politicians etc all wanted their cut and got it.

But yeah the job security and location flexibility are great. I'm taking a per diem on the side to boost my income 50%. It all just depends how hard you want to hustle.

I do locum tenens work at two other offices. No complex stuff, and I make bank. I use it to fund my car addiction.

[Germanauto]

Originally Posted by chassis

Are you saying that paying one's own medical school loans means it's not financially worth it? How does PSLF affect the "worth it" assessment?

Because $200-300k in loans, that being the principal alone, is another burden atop saving for a home and and other financial priorities.

PSLF I believe you have to work for a non-profit and govt hospital. Depending on one's region such jobs are harder to find an/or don't pay as well as working in a private group setting. But I'd have to look more into it.