Doesn’t have to be thousands of dollars. Just a thing you spent money on that turned out to be a complete waste.
Changed major from civil engineering to computer science
Marriage
Not being born rich.
I bought a 2-metre mini-USB cable, once. In 2021. For €10. It may not be the worst in terms of pure monetary amount, but definitely worst in terms of use to cost.
The most recent was waiting for the 32GB RAM sticks I needed to max out my hypervisor to go on sale below $120.
Buying shares in Superdry, J D Wetherspoon and Boohoo. All three lost me about £2k combined. I don’t know much about the fast fashion industry, and the purchase of Spoons’ shares was because I thought the hospitality industry was going to go through a post-COVID bounceback.
Second to that, investing in a few startups via Seedrs/Republic (crowd equity platform) that eventually folded. One was a dating app that only ever managed to get a few thousand users. One was a digital painting tagging company that seemed sus in the first place. Another was DeadHappy, a life insurance broker that lost all its business after running an offensive ad campaign referencing notorious British serial killer Harold Shipman.
AT the start of COVID, I bought shares in an airline because I figured that once lockdown was over, everyone would go crazy traveling everywhere and the airline stock would skyrocket (pun intended.)
It didn’t work lol
Heat pump water heater by A.O. Smith. Failed in its first year, and now its warranty replacement is failing in the exact same way 13 months later.
Remains to be seen how well the installer will resolve this but given they’ve been largely ghosting me I’m pessimistic enough to have already written up an entire BBB complaint.
The concept of a heat pump water heater is great. And when it works it’s great. But this is some awful, awful, awful reliability.
Options trading when I was younger. Luckily I didn’t put to much into it and had a bump just before I pulled out so I didn’t lose much. It turned me into a modified boglehead, which worked out great over the next 20+ years, so lesson learned.
1981 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce. Spent more on the transmission than I did on the car. Fucking cool though.
Waiting for the bubble to burst before buying a house.
Anytime now…
I was waiting too. Sorry buddy.
It will the day I buy.
I doubt it’s the worst financial decision but I paid a lot of money during the iTunes era where you paid a buck for a song.
I was conned into going into ITT Tech out of high school. I learned a lot but didn’t find out until later it was unaccredited so nothing would transfer to colleges and that they had lied heavily about their placement numbers. There were a few issues keeping from going after them: it was my parent’s money, the point in time I went wasn’t part of the lawsuit, and my parents were dead when the lawsuit came about. I cannot put ITT Tech on my resume because of everything related to it, it’s a literal black mark. So I have to stretch the truth of those two years because of it.
Biggest financial mistakes were mostly related to education, going into it without a clear goal/before I was ready, and paying for some courses that weren’t accredited by a university or association.
Same here. Went to school for music industry arts. Havent made a damn cent since.
I know an ~32 that is about 2 courses away from getting their BA in Fine Arts in music. They just stopped there. Haven’t used any of that study since.
Having kids.
I find that a terribly sad perspective - while children are certainly expensive from an economic standpoint, they often have tremendous payback in other ways (and sometimes economically too).
If you’re talking strictly financial, getting married. I wouldn’t trade that part of my life, or the kids if got out of it, but strictly financially, I lost more than most people make in a lifetime.
I went into it with a sizeable emergency fund and well on track for an early retirement
Then I got laid off at the wrong time and used my emergency fund in a fancy wedding ceremony. I figured I could make it back pretty quickly, especially with the second income
But I quickly realized I wasn’t saving anything. When a medical emergency hit, my only recourse was a loan and emergency withdrawal from 401k
Fast forward 20 years and still no savings. While I had paid off the 401k loan, I made no contributions. Now I was way behind being able to retire. Then divorce happened. Lost half my house, half my 401k, but no savings to lose.
Now I’m living alone in the same house. I have a huge car loan. I have huge child support payments. I have college expenses for two kids. Yet I’ve been able to rebuild my emergency savings and max out 401k contributions. I’m in much better shape financially, just running out of time to save
Dude…if it has tits or tires it’s going to cost a lot of money
Paying my ex wife the money she wanted just to be rid of her
No no, getting married was the poor financial decision. After that, paying for the divorce to be rid of her was an investment in your sanity and happiness.
