Your biggest financial blunder?

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Davydd)

Tue, 26 May 2009 13:36:57 GMT

SassyGritsAL

When I first got married in the early 70's we bought a house in what is called the "Old Town District" for $10,000! It was a brick 2 bedroom with a large kitchen, dining room, LR with fireplace, finished attic (extra bedroom) and one bath with a unfinished basement. Our payments were $100 a month with a 10 year loan. Well after a few years there nothing would do that I wanted a new house. So started building a house, sold the old house for $24,000.

This area is now very expensive and the "in" place to live. If I could I would kick my self everyday for selling this house. It would have been paid off over 23 years ago. Now I have another 15 years of paying a mortgate.

Dumb, dumb, dumb me!

I bought our first house using my GI Bill of Rights for zero down payment for a $24,000 mortgage and sold it 11 years later with 300% plus appreciation (hot 70s) and then took that profit and designed and self-built my second home starting in 1982. Our house topped $500,000 in value before the recent downturn. That was one of my stellar investments of 0 to $500,000 plus with pure leverage. Not included in that is my secret financial weapon. My property is legally subdividable with another potential $200,000 half acre lot. Only I won't do that while still living there.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (mbrookes)

Tue, 26 May 2009 13:14:00 GMT

I, too, am a retired schoolteacher. The pension is good, and I was able to retire early enough to start a second career in the financial business.
I have a year and 6 weeks until I retire again, and this time I mean it!

Teaching was for me great.. in the beginning. I would have paid them to let me do it. The last five years were a nightmare (7th grade inner city)

I am awfully glad I stuck with it.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (ScreamingChicken)

Mon, 25 May 2009 11:49:18 GMT

Having kids. I could've just burned my paychecks and come out better.

Brad

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Baah Ben)

Mon, 25 May 2009 11:33:48 GMT

tfrilin - Yup! When you were young, you did have a tougher time than those who chose other vocations. Today, you're the envy of many. Congrats..Enjoy your senior years!

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (tfrielin)

Mon, 25 May 2009 09:45:01 GMT

Baah Ben

One of the most underrated jobs is that of a teacher. In most large cities, their pay is what other parts of the country would consider terrific. But, living in these cities quickly eats up those $60,000 plus salaries. Many have to supplement their incomes with work during the summers, etc.

However, if you can stick with it, after twenty years or so, you get a really good pension. If you've started teaching early enough in life, you can retire in your early 50's.

Many a person from my generation initally looked the other way but today, those who chose teaching as a profession are retired and doing ok. Especially in this financial climate.

I have to second this observation

My wife and I have completed thirty years of service to the University System of Georgia and, thus, have qualified for our Teachers' Retirement pensions. It's one of the last of the old-time good pensions--a defined benefit plan that has cost of living adustments.

My wife retired a couple of years ago and is now working part-time, making more than when she worked full-time.

I will retire next month and hope to do the same.

We may not have gotten rich on teachers/librarian salaries, but we in our mid-50s have our pensions that will provide a stable standard of living. If we ever get Social Security we'll be in great shape.

So, it really may not be easy--we had share of poor years early on and te job had its challemges, but it does pay to stick it out and if you do it's a good reward.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (AndreaB)

Mon, 25 May 2009 09:27:52 GMT

I've been buying and selling domains for a few years and certainly regret some of the ones I've bought and the prices I got for some of the ones I sold. I'm getting better at it but I still have more to learn.

Andrea

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Baah Ben)

Mon, 25 May 2009 03:39:46 GMT

One of the most underrated jobs is that of a teacher. In most large cities, their pay is what other parts of the country would consider terrific. But, living in these cities quickly eats up those $60,000 plus salaries. Many have to supplement their incomes with work during the summers, etc.

However, if you can stick with it, after twenty years or so, you get a really good pension. If you've started teaching early enough in life, you can retire in your early 50's.

Many a person from my generation initally looked the other way but today, those who chose teaching as a profession are retired and doing ok. Especially in this financial climate.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Foodbme)

Mon, 25 May 2009 02:03:22 GMT

SassyGritsAL

When I first got married in the early 70's we bought a house in what is called the "Old Town District" for $10,000! It was a brick 2 bedroom with a large kitchen, dining room, IR with fireplace, finished attic (extra bedroom) and one bath with a unfinished basement. Our payments were $100 a month with a 10 year loan. Well after a few years there nothing would do that I wanted a new house. So started building a house, sold the old house for $24,000.

This area is now very expensive and the "in" place to live. If I could I would kick my self everyday for selling this house. It would have been paid off over 23 years ago. Now I have another 15 years of paying a mortgage.

Dumb, dumb, dumb me!

I'm going to write a book, "Stay Where You Are And Become Rich!" Most Middle Class Americans, Incomes between $30 and $90K, are always chasing that next promotion, climbing the Corporate Ladders, etc. Some make it-----most don't. I moved 17 times in 40+ years doing just that. I was successful climbing the ladder----to a point!. However, now that I reflect back on it from a financial standpoint, it was not that smart to buy and sell houses and move that often. Your post triggered me to think about it and I've not had time to crunch the numbers, but I'm certain that if I had stopped along the way and settled into a job and home, I would have been further ahead in the financial game. Granted, in today's world there are no job guarantees. But by staying stationary, the home would have been paid for, the monthly mortgage payment would have been invested in other areas and I'd be in a much better financial situation. The moral of the story is to find a comfort level in a place you like to live and settle down there and prosper, even if you need to work for a lower salary! Think about it, most of our parents didn't move all that often, they paid off their mortgages and put us thru College. Granted, a different time, but some of the basic principles still apply.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (SassyGritsAL)

Mon, 25 May 2009 00:05:51 GMT

When I first got married in the early 70's we bought a house in what is called the "Old Town District" for $10,000! It was a brick 2 bedroom with a large kitchen, dining room, LR with fireplace, finished attic (extra bedroom) and one bath with a unfinished basement. Our payments were $100 a month with a 10 year loan. Well after a few years there nothing would do that I wanted a new house. So started building a house, sold the old house for $24,000.

This area is now very expensive and the "in" place to live. If I could I would kick my self everyday for selling this house. It would have been paid off over 23 years ago. Now I have another 15 years of paying a mortgate.

Dumb, dumb, dumb me!

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (mjambro)

Sun, 24 May 2009 10:53:37 GMT

Financially, it was not a blunder, but rather one of my best investments, when I bought some Pizza Hut stock many years ago at $16/ share. I had never been to a Pizza Hut (at the time, there were only two in NJ where I was living at that time). The stock doubled in about six months when I finally ate in one while vacationing in FL.

It was by far the worst pizza I'd ever eaten. I promptly sold my holdings after which it sank back to about $16 over the next 6 months when Pepsi bought it up.

I've only been back to a Pizza Hut twice since - both being as bad an event as the first. Eating there more than one was one of my worst blunders.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Foodbme)

Sat, 23 May 2009 00:45:13 GMT

Baah Ben

Food - Perfectly put....

Thank You!
With age comes wisdom---And the ability to live with who you are. I didn't understand that 10-20 years ago.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Baah Ben)

Sat, 23 May 2009 00:32:57 GMT

Food - Perfectly put....

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Foodbme)

Sat, 23 May 2009 00:13:49 GMT

drpep

Quitting my last job because I did not want to move. I'll never see that kind of pay again.

Life is all about choices. We make choices every day based on what we know, how we think, what's important at the time etc. I've made choices, some were great choices for me and my family and some were disasters for me and my family The important thing I've learned is to live with those decision's and move on to the next great decision or disaster. If you wallow in the bad decisions, you're dead. Don't stop making decisions based on what you think is best at that time. To second guess and linger in the past will more that likely result in a bad decision. Be positive, forget the past and move on to the next good or bad decision!

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (drpep)

Fri, 22 May 2009 19:00:08 GMT

Quitting my last job because I did not want to move. I'll never see that kind of pay again.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Baah Ben)

Thu, 21 May 2009 20:56:33 GMT

Yeah..Who knows if buy and hold was ever the right formula. Obviously it is not today.

The one thing that does seem to always work is saving as much as you can each year.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (tfrielin)

Wed, 20 May 2009 08:42:40 GMT

Baah Ben

For years, individual investors were told to buy and hold...

Yeah--that was supposed to be sound advice.

But it just doesn't make sense these days; not sure it ever did.

Take my Dad for example: He has his pension, his Social Security, a paid off house in a good neighborhood. And at the height of the stock mrket rally by the late '90s held a portfolio of stocks that had a value of something like $400,000. Obviously, he did not need those stocks for income, but held on to them because that's what everyone in the family always did.

Now, of course thay are worth a fraction of their peak and at his age, he will never recoup the losses. If he had switched even half ot CDs, he'd be a lot better off.

But, he's one of the lucky ones--he enjoys a simple life in retirement, but for others who bought and held andneeded hat income, the situation is not so good for thier standard of living.

I used to invest a little in an on-line brokerage firm called BuyandHold.com but dropped them when they started charging a montthly fee. I think they're still around.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Baah Ben)

Wed, 20 May 2009 01:40:52 GMT

For years, individual investors were told to buy and hold...

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (starfire62)

Wed, 20 May 2009 01:01:35 GMT

my brother told me to come up with $8000.oo in the early 80's for to buy some stock in m&t bank .i just said no thanks .as its split and gone up in value over the years he sold that stock in 2005 for over a million dollars.me on the other hand bought stock in empire bank after i saw how he did and lost around $1,ooo after it merged in the mid eighties.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (TJ Jackson)

Tue, 19 May 2009 10:26:20 GMT

November 2007

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (tfrielin)

Tue, 19 May 2009 09:26:10 GMT

Slavishly holding onto Coca Cola stock too long, just because my great aunt did (I inherited it from her).

If I had sold even half of my shares when it hit $88 and change back in 1998, I'd have a nice little nest egg now.

We'll never see it that high again, I'm sure.

Live and learn...

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Baah Ben)

Mon, 18 May 2009 23:56:49 GMT

Mosca - Yeah..Bell Labs was once a wonderful company. I had all the Telcos for so many years..Sold them all in 2001.....Should have sold them in 1999!

Pac Tel, Bell South, SW Bell, US West, Ameritech, Bell Atlantic and the one they kicked around AT&T. Today, they are all reunited as AT&T!! Absolutely crazy!

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Mosca)

Mon, 18 May 2009 22:18:46 GMT

Baah Ben

Ahh Davydd - Ever hear of a company called Lucent? Back in the day, I had almost 1000 shares and was proudly in their Dividend Reinvestment Program!!

I rode my dividends and continued to add to my position eventually ending up with 1000 shares. I was so proud of myself! Up from the 30's to the 50's to the 60's and even into the 70's. When it started to dip, I always felt it was coming back. So, when I ran into a woman I never met before in Pembroke Pines.. I'm coming out of the pool store and see this attractive blond with a Lucent sweatshirt on. I said to her, "Hey are we going to be ok?" She said "Yes! My husband works for them and he said it's going to be fine." OK! Thank you!

I sold most around $2 and used it as a tax write off for 5 years.

I have to say out loud what I'm sure you know; that Lucent used to be Bell Labs, one of the finest engineering brain trusts that the planet has ever known, and Western Electric, one of the greatest manufacturers this country has ever seen. You had no way to see that AT&T would suck from them of their assets and talent and toss away the husks.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Tedbear)

Mon, 18 May 2009 20:45:40 GMT

Many years ago, I bought stock in the Rochester Telephone Company, a small regional phone company in upstate NY that produced steady--albeit somewhat anemic--returns. A few years later, they reinvented themselves as Frontier Communications, went nationwide with long-distance service, and began producing really great returns.

Because of Frontier's success, they were bought out by/merged into Global Crossing Inc., and I received shares in the new company. The very grandiose plans for Global Crossing sounded really good on paper, and intially the returns were very good. In fact, the returns were so good that the CEO of GC began construction on the largest private home in the US.

Yup, you guessed it. I failed to get out before their financial house of cards collapsed, and I wound up losing something on the order of $8k on that investment. At least I was able to claim a capital loss over the period of a couple of years, in order to recoup my losses.

The moral of the story? Don't believe everything that is printed on the glossy paper of those annual reports. In the case of Global Crossing, it was mostly smoke and mirrors and outright lies.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Baah Ben)

Mon, 18 May 2009 15:04:31 GMT

Ahh Davydd - Ever hear of a company called Lucent? Back in the day, I had almost 1000 shares and was proudly in their Dividend Reinvestment Program!!

I rode my dividends and continued to add to my position eventually ending up with 1000 shares. I was so proud of myself! Up from the 30's to the 50's to the 60's and even into the 70's. When it started to dip, I always felt it was coming back. So, when I ran into a woman I never met before in Pembroke Pines.. I'm coming out of the pool store and see this attractive blond with a Lucent sweatshirt on. I said to her, "Hey are we going to be ok?" She said "Yes! My husband works for them and he said it's going to be fine." OK! Thank you!

I sold most around $2 and used it as a tax write off for 5 years.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (tiki)

Mon, 18 May 2009 14:55:36 GMT

Back when i was a totally gonzo hippie living in the Sierra Nevad Mtns i made a few bucks on a venture we wont go into--anyway--i had a few grand in my pocket and stopped by to visit my grandmother in Chico Ca---she saw the cash and made me an offer--she would sell me her house for 20 grand and take 3 of the 5ooo i had as a down payment and finance the rest AND she would rent the hopuse from me for the same as my payments woukd be. Me being the brilliant idiot that all 22 yr olds are said"what the heck do i want to buy a house in Chico for?--no thanks gram---well--20 yrs later i moved to chico---that house was selling for 72000---17 yrs later when i left Chco it had just sold again for 212000---smart move huh!!!

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Davydd)

Mon, 18 May 2009 14:08:28 GMT

chewingthefat

Mine was riding a whole bunch of AOL stock WAY down, sure my Golden Goose would once again give me golden eggs. I made some good money on it but if I had sold when they merged with Time Warner, man O man, the street outside would be named Easy!

Mine was just the opposite. Back in 1992 when AOL went public I had an opportunity to get in on the IPO since I was contracted with them to run the Mac Graphics Forum. I had $1,000 to spare at the time. My stock broker brother said to wait because IPOs always went down. So I took his advice. The $10 per share IPO went immediately to $28 the first day and did not drop for 8 years. That $1,000 would have topped $800,000 had I got in and then I would have had your opportunity to ride it back down.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Cosmos)

Mon, 18 May 2009 13:04:22 GMT

Letting my wife run the family books, ('we can afford that'...)...(oh and myself beniegnly ignoring potential problems...'it'll work out').

Making emotional fiscal decisions..

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (brittneal)

Sun, 17 May 2009 00:32:28 GMT

Woops!

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Foodbme)

Sun, 17 May 2009 00:18:54 GMT

Baah Ben

Food - A friend of mine owed the State of NY sales taxes on a company that he folded. He got a really good lawyer and worked out a real good settlement..Years ago.

"Can't get blood from a stone" They will negotiate.

I was able to negoiate a settlement- about 20 cents on the dollar.

Re:Your biggest financial blunder? (Baah Ben)

Sat, 16 May 2009 23:56:31 GMT

The only mistake is not learning from your mistakes.

Hey, the Wizzard of Omaha has made many, many mistakes these past two or three years. Berkshire Hathaway stock had taken a big hit and he is supposed to be one of the world's smartest guys.

Food - A friend of mine owed the State of NY sales taxes on a company that he folded. He got a really good lawyer and worked out a real good settlement..Years ago.

"Can't get blood from a stone" They will negotiate.