Author Topic: What's your dumbest mistake?  (Read 41220 times)

Brad_H

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #50 on: May 08, 2014, 10:21:26 AM »
Whenever I have to send an email to my colleagues or boss it always start it out full bore; glorious and profane, then I edit it down until it is work appropriate... sometimes tho, I don't.

Also, I signed up for one of those door-to-door magazine subscription services for about $50 dollars but after a few months of not receiving my magazines I called the number on the receipt to complain. I ended up getting talked into renewing subscriptions, that I hadn't been getting, so that I could continue not getting them for another 12 months.

TreeTired

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #51 on: May 08, 2014, 10:30:13 AM »
Hands down,  biggest dumbest most expensive mistake I ever made was to buy a freaking Timeshare.  So worthless I can't give it away.  It's a perpetual negative annuity of maintenance fees that will never go away.  (I stopped paying them 10 years ago and "abandoned" the property, but still get bills)

Please don't make the same mistake!

Workinghard

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #52 on: May 08, 2014, 10:32:43 AM »
Our dumbest mistake was moving our young adult son across country. We rented a Uhaul truck, which was way bigger than we needed, but was cheaper than smaller ones, plus we could tow his car. He had his bedroom furniture and personal belongings and we picked up some used miscellaneous stuff locally.  By the time we got through paying for the rental and the gas, we could have easily bought all new furniture for his apartment.😡

Workinghard

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #53 on: May 08, 2014, 10:34:36 AM »
Hands down,  biggest dumbest most expensive mistake I ever made was to buy a freaking Timeshare.  So worthless I can't give it away.  It's a perpetual negative annuity of maintenance fees that will never go away.  (I stopped paying them 10 years ago and "abandoned" the property, but still get bills)

Please don't make the same mistake!

I've heard Dave Ramsey tell people to donate the time share to charity. At least that way they would get a tax write off. He has also mentioned advertising them on eBay.

Elaine

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #54 on: May 08, 2014, 10:42:58 AM »
I majored in Writing. So...

Clover

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #55 on: May 08, 2014, 11:12:25 AM »
About two weeks ago I was wondering why I hadn't received my tax refund.  It should have been in my account much sooner unless the IRS was running really behind.  When I started looking into it I found that I completed the return, paid the software providers fee, but then never actually made it to "submit return" section. 

Oops, at least I didn't have to pay penalties and fees.

Wolf_Stache

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #56 on: May 08, 2014, 11:14:46 AM »
I majored in Writing. So...

I guess I did it the right way round, majored in accounting, and write at night. Although I sometimes wish I'd take the college opportunity to take a bunch of writing classes.

Stupid mistakes? hmm... I put my name in a 'drawing' at a fair I attened when I was 22. Got a call, "Oh, you won! But you have to pay $200 to collect your prize!" Stupid me, I PAID IT! Gaa! And ended up with NOTHING, since, surprise! It was a scam!

Other mistakes I've made are mistakenly having things shipped to an old address because I didn't double check the shipping information on a online order. Of course, whoever got my package made off with it, and since the company hadn't made a mistake I was out the money.

Cpa Cat

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #57 on: May 08, 2014, 11:24:15 AM »
I bought a mandolin to slice my vegetables thinly. Then I forgot about the safety precautions and sliced the tips of my fingers off. I tried to stop the bleeding at home, but ended up needing to go to the ER.

The doctor there looked at my wounds and grinned, saying, "If I were a betting man, I'd say that -someone- didn't follow the directions while using a mandolin."

Thank you, that will be $1000.

Clover

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #58 on: May 08, 2014, 11:28:30 AM »
Stupid mistakes? hmm... I put my name in a 'drawing' at a fair I attened when I was 22. Got a call, "Oh, you won! But you have to pay $200 to collect your prize!" Stupid me, I PAID IT! Gaa! And ended up with NOTHING, since, surprise! It was a scam!


Oh, I've done that one too!  Only it was my fiance (now husband) who won a free trip for two to the Bahamas.  Except, those port fees can’t be waived!  He had to pay about $200 for port fees.  But, he didn’t have a credit card back then.  So, against my better judgment,  I gave my cc info out over the phone so we could get a “free” trip to the Bahamas.  That was about 20 years ago and I’ve still never seen the Bahamas.

Wolf_Stache

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #59 on: May 08, 2014, 11:57:57 AM »
Stupid mistakes? hmm... I put my name in a 'drawing' at a fair I attened when I was 22. Got a call, "Oh, you won! But you have to pay $200 to collect your prize!" Stupid me, I PAID IT! Gaa! And ended up with NOTHING, since, surprise! It was a scam!


Oh, I've done that one too!  Only it was my fiance (now husband) who won a free trip for two to the Bahamas.  Except, those port fees can’t be waived!  He had to pay about $200 for port fees.  But, he didn’t have a credit card back then.  So, against my better judgment,  I gave my cc info out over the phone so we could get a “free” trip to the Bahamas.  That was about 20 years ago and I’ve still never seen the Bahamas.

Aha, yep! Same scam. Its been too long, but yeah, mine was for a free trip for 2 to somewhere or other (maybe the Bahamas). Yeah, I wasn't savy enough yet, it was my first job, etc.

Cinder

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #60 on: May 08, 2014, 01:01:26 PM »
Our dumbest mistake was moving our young adult son across country. We rented a Uhaul truck, which was way bigger than we needed, but was cheaper than smaller ones, plus we could tow his car. He had his bedroom furniture and personal belongings and we picked up some used miscellaneous stuff locally.  By the time we got through paying for the rental and the gas, we could have easily bought all new furniture for his apartment.😡

When my brother moved cross country, from PA to WA, my dad bought a truck that was large enough he could put his car and his project boat in the back, replaced the breaks on it, drove cross country and then sold the truck when he got over there.  He actually sold the truck for more then he got it for.  Basically enough to cover the cost of the breaks, and only effectively paid for gas.

When he got over there, he bought an RV, lived on someone else's land with just a hose and an extension cord hookup. 

He basically lives the 'ERE' lifestyle, but he doesn't live off a nest egg, just works a little bit for his money. 

Franklin

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #61 on: May 08, 2014, 01:23:35 PM »
I once locked myself out of my office.  So I went around to the opposite office and climbed over the wall.  I accidentally cut my hand on the drop ceiling frame, and then realized I had hopped over the wrong wall.

Workinghard

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #62 on: May 08, 2014, 02:00:38 PM »
[quote author=Cinder link=topic=11242.msg287332#msg287332 date=1399575686

He basically lives the 'ERE' lifestyle, but he doesn't live off a nest egg, just works a little bit for his money.
[/quote]

Sounds like my first husband. I was amazed that he worked for the highway department and never spent a paycheck. He made enough money on the side to pay for living expenses.  He would've been a great MMM.

Quark

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #63 on: May 09, 2014, 08:46:26 AM »
Our dumbest mistake was moving our young adult son across country. We rented a Uhaul truck, which was way bigger than we needed, but was cheaper than smaller ones, plus we could tow his car. He had his bedroom furniture and personal belongings and we picked up some used miscellaneous stuff locally.  By the time we got through paying for the rental and the gas, we could have easily bought all new furniture for his apartment.😡

Did you turn in the Uhaul in the son's new city? Major mistake. Always turn it in where you rented it. Then its 20/day vs hundreds.

BlueHouse

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #64 on: May 09, 2014, 12:10:11 PM »
Our dumbest mistake was moving our young adult son across country. We rented a Uhaul truck, which was way bigger than we needed, but was cheaper than smaller ones, plus we could tow his car. He had his bedroom furniture and personal belongings and we picked up some used miscellaneous stuff locally.  By the time we got through paying for the rental and the gas, we could have easily bought all new furniture for his apartment.😡

Did you turn in the Uhaul in the son's new city? Major mistake. Always turn it in where you rented it. Then its 20/day vs hundreds.
Trucks you pay by the mile which adds up quickly, especially on top of gas. Trailers however it's a great idea to bring them back
If you move somewhere everyone else is escaping from, it's a great deal. I moved from Atlanta to Chicago some years ago and U-Haul practically paid me to drive the truck up there.  It was dirt cheap and I had my pick of over 30 trucks in all shapes and sizes to use. 

Chris@TTL

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #65 on: June 17, 2020, 11:08:21 AM »
There's some good insight in here, old as this thread is. Lots of personal mistakes that have turned into financial ones. I wonder if anyone has any updates?

My worst mistake involved picking individual stocks instead of index funds, hands down, at least in the financial realm and selling during the 08-09 Great Recession.

Weak hands and all that. It's had quite the knock-on effect in the order of many tens of thousands of dollars in compounding growth lost. Perhaps owning individual stocks wasn't the play.

Did anybody go to cash during the recent 2020 "trench" dive in the market and regret it?
« Last Edit: September 18, 2020, 10:47:15 PM by Chris@TTL »

Just Joe

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #66 on: June 17, 2020, 02:12:28 PM »
A carbureted engine throwing a CEL due to use of regular gas?

A carbureted engine even having a CEL in the first place?  Maybe, but they have to be pretty rare.

Love that on this non-gearhead website so many people know that a car with a CEL doesn't have a carburetor!

ixtap

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #67 on: June 17, 2020, 02:22:01 PM »
I misread the per mile cost for transferring Delta miles. They are ridiculously high, but in my haste, I thought they were telling me the value of the transferred miles and I was just giving them my cc information to pay the more reasonable transfer fee. I usually read very, very carefully, but in this case, I managed to skip over the most important (or at least the most expensive) details. You cannot get this reversed, even if you call within seconds of the click. The cc gave me the money back and Delta just charged it again.

As if that wasn't enough, while making the transfer, the ticket price actually dropped, so DH already had enough miles without the transfer. We just paid a couple hundred dollars to move miles from my account to his for no apparent reason.

And then, the trip itself, which was supposed to happen last month, was cancelled.


Michael in ABQ

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #68 on: June 17, 2020, 02:39:28 PM »
My first car was passed down from my brother and it had gone through a starter with him and then another one while I had it. I drove over to a friend's house and when I went to leave the car wouldn't start. Damn I thought, have to replace the starter again. My dad came over to help me and brought some tools. It took about 45 minutes to get it out and we took it to the auto parts store to get it tested and buy a new one. It tested fine so we went back to reinstall it and call a tow-truck. The tow-truck driver shows up, gets inside to stick it in neutral and says "did you try putting it in park?".

It was an automatic and I had left it in drive so the engine wouldn't start - there was nothing wrong with it. I felt very dumb at that moment having just wasted a few hours and almost wasting hundreds of dollars on a tow and mechanic.

Eventually I replaced the corroded battery cable and never had another issue with the starter going out.

HPstache

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #69 on: June 17, 2020, 03:17:36 PM »
Bought a vehicle previously owned by a smoker.  Did not notice the smell on the test drive, but noticed every day for the next 2 years until I finally just had to sell it.

mm1970

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #70 on: June 17, 2020, 06:29:44 PM »
I misread the per mile cost for transferring Delta miles. They are ridiculously high, but in my haste, I thought they were telling me the value of the transferred miles and I was just giving them my cc information to pay the more reasonable transfer fee. I usually read very, very carefully, but in this case, I managed to skip over the most important (or at least the most expensive) details. You cannot get this reversed, even if you call within seconds of the click. The cc gave me the money back and Delta just charged it again.

As if that wasn't enough, while making the transfer, the ticket price actually dropped, so DH already had enough miles without the transfer. We just paid a couple hundred dollars to move miles from my account to his for no apparent reason.

And then, the trip itself, which was supposed to happen last month, was cancelled.
Ouch

mm1970

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #71 on: June 17, 2020, 06:32:06 PM »
One day I was getting to work, and my boss pulled up to ask me a question.  I had a system, where I'd turn off the car with my right hand, click the seatbelt, open the door with my left hand and lock it with my left hand.  Get out, close the car.

He interrupted me in the middle of this.

I got out of the car and locked it, but left the car running.
My husband had literally just taken off on an airplane with the spare key.

Boss called AAA.  Boy they broke in pretty quickly.

mm1970

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #72 on: June 17, 2020, 06:34:15 PM »
Another one.  I didn't know how to cook for a long time.

The night before my Professional engineer's exam (I'd taken 2 days off to brush up), I was "cooking" dinner.  My dinner was frozen veggie burgers, but they were stuck together.  I used a knife to slice them apart, and sliced open my palm.  Oops.

Had to wrap the hand in a towel, drive myself (rush hour) to the Army base, and get stitches in my left hand AND a tetanus shot in my right arm.  The day before an 8 hour exam.

I passed.

ixtap

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #73 on: June 17, 2020, 06:44:43 PM »
One day I was getting to work, and my boss pulled up to ask me a question.  I had a system, where I'd turn off the car with my right hand, click the seatbelt, open the door with my left hand and lock it with my left hand.  Get out, close the car.

He interrupted me in the middle of this.

I got out of the car and locked it, but left the car running.
My husband had literally just taken off on an airplane with the spare key.

Boss called AAA.  Boy they broke in pretty quickly.

I had a stretch where I was either always working two jobs or working and going to school. Sometimes, I was working two jobs and going to school. While I had a place to lay my head, I practically lived in my car. So much so, that when we had a creative writing assignment to describe our favorite room, I wrote about my car.

I can not tell you how many times I left the lights or the radio on because I had been sitting there before my next thing, sometimes with the keys locked inside. Luckily, this was long enough ago that it was easy to break in with a coat hanger and it was a manual transmission, so as long as I could convince someone to give me a push, I didn't need to pay for this mistake. Still fits the "dumb" label, though!

Another one.  I didn't know how to cook for a long time.

The night before my Professional engineer's exam (I'd taken 2 days off to brush up), I was "cooking" dinner.  My dinner was frozen veggie burgers, but they were stuck together.  I used a knife to slice them apart, and sliced open my palm.  Oops.

Had to wrap the hand in a towel, drive myself (rush hour) to the Army base, and get stitches in my left hand AND a tetanus shot in my right arm.  The day before an 8 hour exam.

I passed.

That puts my ouch to shame, since mine was only mental!

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #74 on: June 17, 2020, 06:52:02 PM »
I misread the per mile cost for transferring Delta miles. They are ridiculously high, but in my haste, I thought they were telling me the value of the transferred miles and I was just giving them my cc information to pay the more reasonable transfer fee. I usually read very, very carefully, but in this case, I managed to skip over the most important (or at least the most expensive) details. You cannot get this reversed, even if you call within seconds of the click. The cc gave me the money back and Delta just charged it again.

As if that wasn't enough, while making the transfer, the ticket price actually dropped, so DH already had enough miles without the transfer. We just paid a couple hundred dollars to move miles from my account to his for no apparent reason.

And then, the trip itself, which was supposed to happen last month, was cancelled.

Ouch. That one hurts.

RainyDay

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #75 on: June 18, 2020, 06:41:58 AM »
Listening to a bf advise me to buy a tech-oriented mutual fund in 1999.  I invested $1500, and the next year it was GONE. 

I consider it a relatively inexpensive way to learn an important lesson:  don't listen to financial advice from friends.


Njdealguy

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #76 on: June 18, 2020, 01:07:01 PM »
Selling all my investments on March 4 this year when S&P 500 was at 3170 and never buying back in after markets bottomed out March 23rd when S&P hit around 2250, for thinking it was a dead cat bounce all this time that would go back down and never did.  Finally bought in Thursday last week at S&P at 3002, so missed out on what could have been additional 33% worth of gains!

Attempted market timing failed!

Njdealguy

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #77 on: June 18, 2020, 01:10:32 PM »
Listening to a bf advise me to buy a tech-oriented mutual fund in 1999.  I invested $1500, and the next year it was GONE. 

I consider it a relatively inexpensive way to learn an important lesson:  don't listen to financial advice from friends.

For the case I mentioned above some friends were actually trying to advise me to buy back into my investments earlier, which wouldve actually been great if listened to them for my case!

solon

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #78 on: June 18, 2020, 01:42:43 PM »
Listening to a bf advise me to buy a tech-oriented mutual fund in 1999.  I invested $1500, and the next year it was GONE. 

I consider it a relatively inexpensive way to learn an important lesson:  don't listen to financial advice from friends.

I'm not sure that's the right lesson. Good advice can come from many sources, including friends.

You should listen to advice, but then carefully consider it in light of your unique situation, and decide for yourself which advice to follow.

MudPuppy

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #79 on: June 18, 2020, 01:50:20 PM »
My single biggest I think was that I needed a new car about 2 months after graduating college so I financed one. It was a modest, used car, but I was newly 20 and had almost no credit and unimpressive income history. I never thought to check the interest rate they gave me. About a year and half to maybe 2 years later is look on my statement. It was like 10%. Needless to say, I started paying it off double time, but still.

StachingforLife

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #80 on: June 18, 2020, 02:12:00 PM »
I've made tons of financial mistakes so far but have been pretty good the last 2 years so yay for that. But for sure my dumbest mistake was cosigning a 6 year auto loan for $20,000 @ 18% (yeah you read that right) for my mother. Last summer, she lied to me about paying it despite borrowing money from me many times up until then but conveniently decided not to ask me to pay the car payment the 2 months she couldn't. My credit was hit pretty bad from that. I knew not to cosign loans for people but let my emotions control my actions the day I signed that stupid loan. Lesson learned.

FlytilFIRE

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #81 on: June 18, 2020, 03:41:58 PM »
I think I win!!! Had 1000 stock options from my company at $5. The price of the stock went to $45. Did I spend the $5000 to get at the $45000? No way. Everyone said it was going to $60.

Three years later, the company went into bankruptcy. Stock options went bye-bye. Only a $40,000 mistake.

Sometimes you gotta laugh, or you'd cry. Still made it to retirement this year.

You can, too!

Chris@TTL

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #82 on: June 18, 2020, 08:14:04 PM »
@FlytilFIRE  - just try not to do the opportunity cost math on that 40k since you lost it with the market returns ;) That's pretty bad.

FlytilFIRE

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #83 on: June 18, 2020, 09:15:54 PM »
No, even I'M not dumb enough to waste sleep over it. Plus, it was about 10 years ago, so I've managed to make up for it.

The moral of my story is, first, don't be greedy. Second, don't try market timing. MMM stresses it, but too late for my mistake!

RainyDay

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #84 on: June 19, 2020, 07:00:25 AM »
Listening to a bf advise me to buy a tech-oriented mutual fund in 1999.  I invested $1500, and the next year it was GONE. 

I consider it a relatively inexpensive way to learn an important lesson:  don't listen to financial advice from friends.

I'm not sure that's the right lesson. Good advice can come from many sources, including friends.

You should listen to advice, but then carefully consider it in light of your unique situation, and decide for yourself which advice to follow.

True, but so far I've been unimpressed with the advice from friends and family.  Aside from the above example, I've heard these (all from different people):

In the 2nd week of March this year:  I'm selling everything and going to cash. You should, too.

In early May this year:  Get out now, while you still can!

I sold everything and went to all cash in 2008 and never changed it.  I'm so glad I did, because I still have the same amount!

I once made a $100,000 on a house so I'm never investing in the stock market. (note her current property hasn't appreciated AT ALL in the past 15 years)

Anyway, so far I've been much more impressed with the advice of Mustachian internet strangers!

thedigitalone

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #85 on: June 19, 2020, 12:08:15 PM »
I was heavily into mining bitcoins, starting back when CPU mining (!) was profitable and the bitcoin faucet was giving out 5 BTC to anyone who bothered to click.

Followed it through to GPU mining, selling the completed blocks as soon as possible to payoff the hardware and electricity expenses.  Built up the farm to be 12 computers each with 2 dual-GPU cards which heated the house nicely and ran up $1k/mo electric bill.

After a while I'd paid off all the hardware but then the first halving event took place and the whole thing became unprofitable.  I sold off the hardware, parked a couple of hundred bitcoins in a wallet on a USB stick and got on with life.

A few years later I looked up Bitcoin and was shocked what happened to the price!  Never did find that wallet, though I did later recover a couple of bitcoins from a different USB stick that was misplaced but not the big one.

Not really a mistake, made a profit and had some fun in the end, sure wish I kept track of that missing USB stick though, it has over $1m BTC on it.

joleran

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #86 on: June 19, 2020, 07:03:33 PM »
Didn't buy into my first 401k because I didn't understand it was tax deductible (though it worked like an non-deductible traditional IRA).  It was also a weak match, a vesting schedule, and higher expense ratio funds but I would have eventually been able to leave when I did with the full match and roll it over.  Also took me a while to figure out you repay 401k loans with after-tax dollars so it's not an amazing backdoor that lets you actually drop more cash into a 401k than would normally be allowed, but at least I never took one out.

I didn't sell anything in the recent crash, but bought ~$3000 worth of put options the first day of the giant bounce after the crash, predicting continued decline below March 23 by mid May.  I don't mind the loss overall because if I didn't do it, I would have been selling a significantly greater amount of stock (like probably 50k worth) low instead due to fears of job loss and general craziness.  Definitely focused my mind that I want to carry an emergency fund after all unless I can figure out something better.

Not so worried now because this crash came at a crazy time where I was just starting to go from basically 100% equities to 70% for a retirement bond tent.  Now I'm building that remaining 30% as at least half-cash though given the current bond environment - might just be by next mistake, we'll see!

Steeze

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #87 on: June 19, 2020, 07:37:38 PM »
Had a bag a weed in my coffee mug, fell out of my backpack in class, didn't notice, and another student turned it in. A classmate knew it was mine and ratted me out to the police! ended up on probation, almost got kicked out of school (at 90k in debt!). To make matters worse I was already going through court for a DUI earlier in the year in another state. Luckily the two states never found out about the other charges - I ended up on probation, classes, counseling, community service for two years straight - one of those years was the year after I graduated college. I lost a job offer of 100k+ / year which I already signed a contract for because of the DUI. The year after school I made whopping 20k,the following year made around 35k, next year I made 45k. Took me 7 years to get back to $100k. I figure I lost at least $500k if not more by now.

So ... don't be stupid ... on the other hand I was a sever alcoholic and am now pretty much sober. $500k well spent maybe, at least I am not dead.

JAYSLOL

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #88 on: June 19, 2020, 09:36:17 PM »
Me being dumb moment for today, was driving around town (work vehicle - hold those face punches) and was in the middle of a conversation with a colleague on Bluetooth through the vehicle system, got to where I was going and just got out of the vehicle mid-conversation and walked over to look around the site completely having forgot I was literally in the middle of listening to him talk.  Fortunately I left my phone in the car, remembered and then walked back over to it after 60 seconds and he was just finishing up saying something.  WTF is wrong with my brain.  Seriously. 

js82

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #89 on: June 22, 2020, 05:01:04 AM »
Some smaller ones:

-Gave some money to an ex(~$5000) to help her in her attempt to start a small business.  Neither the business nor that relationship made it in the long run.

-The $3000+ speeding ticket.  When you're already going a bit over the speed limit and you miss the sign where it drops by 20 mph and there's a cop waiting right there, it's REALLY not good.  The cop was not amused, the speeding ticket was actually consider a greater offense than reckless driving, and while the ticket itself ended up being somewhere around $600, my insurance was... not amused.  I wasn't speeding quite badly enough to lose my license, but enough to cost myself a pretty substantial sum of cash.


But the biggest/most costly mistake in general for me is:
-Doing a poor job of investing early in my career.  This includes both not maximizing my tax-advantaged accounts(despite having more than enough money to do so), but more tragically, leaving significant sums of money (<50k) uninvested for extended periods of time.  When you consider that "early in my career" was the years right after the GFC where stocks were climbing out of the abyss pretty quickly, I'm certain that I cost myself tens of thousands of dollars simply by not putting that money in an index fund.

Just Joe

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #90 on: June 22, 2020, 11:03:07 AM »
One day I was getting to work, and my boss pulled up to ask me a question.  I had a system, where I'd turn off the car with my right hand, click the seatbelt, open the door with my left hand and lock it with my left hand.  Get out, close the car.

He interrupted me in the middle of this.

I got out of the car and locked it, but left the car running.
My husband had literally just taken off on an airplane with the spare key.

Boss called AAA.  Boy they broke in pretty quickly.

Did that on a cold night. Left the engine running while I purchased carry out food. Came out, realized my stupid mistake. Fortunately it was an older car and very easy to break into without breaking anything. Did a repeat performance on a weekend sightseeing tour. Easier to give a passenger a spare key for the day. My excuse is that I was very sleep deprived during that period (military).

We don't have enough time for all the stupid stuff I've done over the years. ;) Mostly minor but sometimes I had to repeat a mistake before getting wiser.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2020, 11:09:19 AM by Just Joe »

JAYSLOL

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #91 on: June 22, 2020, 09:05:44 PM »
One day I was getting to work, and my boss pulled up to ask me a question.  I had a system, where I'd turn off the car with my right hand, click the seatbelt, open the door with my left hand and lock it with my left hand.  Get out, close the car.

He interrupted me in the middle of this.

I got out of the car and locked it, but left the car running.
My husband had literally just taken off on an airplane with the spare key.

Boss called AAA.  Boy they broke in pretty quickly.

Did that on a cold night. Left the engine running while I purchased carry out food. Came out, realized my stupid mistake. Fortunately it was an older car and very easy to break into without breaking anything. Did a repeat performance on a weekend sightseeing tour. Easier to give a passenger a spare key for the day. My excuse is that I was very sleep deprived during that period (military).

We don't have enough time for all the stupid stuff I've done over the years. ;) Mostly minor but sometimes I had to repeat a mistake before getting wiser.

I’ve gotten pretty good at breaking into the vehicles I’ve owned, I can lock the keys in my car and be in within 10 seconds, if I’m outside my house and need to open the car for something but don’t have the keys I always break in rather than walk back in the house to get them, it’s faster, lol

tungu2

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #92 on: June 23, 2020, 01:34:29 AM »
I was convinced by a guy I dated to join him on an international trip. I initially refused, but his insistence that he would miss me too much was sweet. Last minute tickets were expensive, and I also ended up paying for a hotel room for two because he couldn’t change his reservation (he was traveling with friends and already paid for their room together), I also paid for several of his meals because he had troubles exchanging currency and I also paid his fine because he was irresponsible and wanted to just let it slide...
On the bright side, the city was amazing, and I really enjoyed alone time without him and his friends. After that I decided to only date people with similar views, including being responsible with money.

ducky19

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #93 on: June 23, 2020, 10:41:35 AM »
I was convinced by a guy I dated to join him on an international trip. I initially refused, but his insistence that he would miss me too much was sweet. Last minute tickets were expensive, and I also ended up paying for a hotel room for two because he couldn’t change his reservation (he was traveling with friends and already paid for their room together), I also paid for several of his meals because he had troubles exchanging currency and I also paid his fine because he was irresponsible and wanted to just let it slide...
On the bright side, the city was amazing, and I really enjoyed alone time without him and his friends. After that I decided to only date people with similar views, including being responsible with money.

I vote that doesn't qualify as a dumb mistake since you learned such a valuable lesson from it!

Gremlin

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #94 on: June 23, 2020, 08:55:25 PM »
One day I was getting to work, and my boss pulled up to ask me a question.  I had a system, where I'd turn off the car with my right hand, click the seatbelt, open the door with my left hand and lock it with my left hand.  Get out, close the car.

He interrupted me in the middle of this.

I got out of the car and locked it, but left the car running.
My husband had literally just taken off on an airplane with the spare key.

Boss called AAA.  Boy they broke in pretty quickly.

Did that on a cold night. Left the engine running while I purchased carry out food. Came out, realized my stupid mistake. Fortunately it was an older car and very easy to break into without breaking anything. Did a repeat performance on a weekend sightseeing tour. Easier to give a passenger a spare key for the day. My excuse is that I was very sleep deprived during that period (military).

We don't have enough time for all the stupid stuff I've done over the years. ;) Mostly minor but sometimes I had to repeat a mistake before getting wiser.

I’ve gotten pretty good at breaking into the vehicles I’ve owned, I can lock the keys in my car and be in within 10 seconds, if I’m outside my house and need to open the car for something but don’t have the keys I always break in rather than walk back in the house to get them, it’s faster, lol
Not me, but someone I'm married to who will remain nameless ;-) once managed to lock the keys in the car three times in the space of an hour and a half.  Needed the assistance of our AAA equivalent on all three occasions.  The guy who helped told her that he'd never seen anything like it in over 40 years on the job!  I don't think I've ever seen my wife as embarrassed as she was that day.

JAYSLOL

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #95 on: June 26, 2020, 10:29:10 PM »
One day I was getting to work, and my boss pulled up to ask me a question.  I had a system, where I'd turn off the car with my right hand, click the seatbelt, open the door with my left hand and lock it with my left hand.  Get out, close the car.

He interrupted me in the middle of this.

I got out of the car and locked it, but left the car running.
My husband had literally just taken off on an airplane with the spare key.

Boss called AAA.  Boy they broke in pretty quickly.

Did that on a cold night. Left the engine running while I purchased carry out food. Came out, realized my stupid mistake. Fortunately it was an older car and very easy to break into without breaking anything. Did a repeat performance on a weekend sightseeing tour. Easier to give a passenger a spare key for the day. My excuse is that I was very sleep deprived during that period (military).

We don't have enough time for all the stupid stuff I've done over the years. ;) Mostly minor but sometimes I had to repeat a mistake before getting wiser.

I’ve gotten pretty good at breaking into the vehicles I’ve owned, I can lock the keys in my car and be in within 10 seconds, if I’m outside my house and need to open the car for something but don’t have the keys I always break in rather than walk back in the house to get them, it’s faster, lol
Not me, but someone I'm married to who will remain nameless ;-) once managed to lock the keys in the car three times in the space of an hour and a half.  Needed the assistance of our AAA equivalent on all three occasions.  The guy who helped told her that he'd never seen anything like it in over 40 years on the job!  I don't think I've ever seen my wife as embarrassed as she was that day.

Yep, that’s kind of how it started for me too.  I locked my keys in once, had the tow truck driver open it (saw how fucking easy he made it look), and vowed never to have to call them again, and the next time I locked them in I went inside a random business office nearby and asked if I could borrow a metal ruler, they said sure and two minutes later got the locks open.  With a bit of practice it takes only seconds. 

The_Big_H

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #96 on: June 28, 2020, 11:53:19 PM »
One day I was getting to work, and my boss pulled up to ask me a question.  I had a system, where I'd turn off the car with my right hand, click the seatbelt, open the door with my left hand and lock it with my left hand.  Get out, close the car.

He interrupted me in the middle of this.

I got out of the car and locked it, but left the car running.
My husband had literally just taken off on an airplane with the spare key.

Boss called AAA.  Boy they broke in pretty quickly.

Did that on a cold night. Left the engine running while I purchased carry out food. Came out, realized my stupid mistake. Fortunately it was an older car and very easy to break into without breaking anything. Did a repeat performance on a weekend sightseeing tour. Easier to give a passenger a spare key for the day. My excuse is that I was very sleep deprived during that period (military).

We don't have enough time for all the stupid stuff I've done over the years. ;) Mostly minor but sometimes I had to repeat a mistake before getting wiser.

I’ve gotten pretty good at breaking into the vehicles I’ve owned, I can lock the keys in my car and be in within 10 seconds, if I’m outside my house and need to open the car for something but don’t have the keys I always break in rather than walk back in the house to get them, it’s faster, lol
Not me, but someone I'm married to who will remain nameless ;-) once managed to lock the keys in the car three times in the space of an hour and a half.  Needed the assistance of our AAA equivalent on all three occasions.  The guy who helped told her that he'd never seen anything like it in over 40 years on the job!  I don't think I've ever seen my wife as embarrassed as she was that day.

Yep, that’s kind of how it started for me too.  I locked my keys in once, had the tow truck driver open it (saw how fucking easy he made it look), and vowed never to have to call them again, and the next time I locked them in I went inside a random business office nearby and asked if I could borrow a metal ruler, they said sure and two minutes later got the locks open.  With a bit of practice it takes only seconds.

Makes one wonder why even lock the car.   I started leaving it unlocked and it doesn’t bother me
1) unless you want a stained car seat and $0.38 in change ...  Not much of value inside.
2) hopefully if some thief does decide to have a look they’ll note the unlocked door versus smashing the window
3) $5000 car often parked next to $30,000+ cars... don’t have to be the fastest runner to not get eaten by the bear and all

FindingFI

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #97 on: June 29, 2020, 05:57:41 AM »
[SNIP] I just filled your tank, you were out of gas...

Did almost the same thing about 10 years ago except it was a motorcycle I was riding home around midnight, and I called my dad when it "broke down" on the side of the road. At least it was only a 15 minutes trip for him and we didn't have to lift a motorcycle into the bed of his truck.  In my defense it had no fuel gauge, but I still felt quite dumb.

Once I really messed up booking plane tickets.  I was going to have a layover no matter what and wanted to make it long enough to leave the airport, check out the city for the evening, and then go back for the next flight. So I tried to maneuver the airline's website to provide me what would normally be an undesirable set of flights. Well, I booked the first leg of the trip there and the return trip in June, which was displayed on screen as Jun, but the second leg got booked in January, which showed as Jan. I didn't catch the difference between the 'u' and 'a' until I was at the layover city airport trying to check in for the flight, for which I had no ticket. That mistake cost me the change fee, maybe $100, plus increase in fare, another $300, but at least there was still an available seat and I made it to my destination on time.

DadJokes

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #98 on: June 29, 2020, 03:33:42 PM »
One day I was getting to work, and my boss pulled up to ask me a question.  I had a system, where I'd turn off the car with my right hand, click the seatbelt, open the door with my left hand and lock it with my left hand.  Get out, close the car.

He interrupted me in the middle of this.

I got out of the car and locked it, but left the car running.
My husband had literally just taken off on an airplane with the spare key.

Boss called AAA.  Boy they broke in pretty quickly.

Did that on a cold night. Left the engine running while I purchased carry out food. Came out, realized my stupid mistake. Fortunately it was an older car and very easy to break into without breaking anything. Did a repeat performance on a weekend sightseeing tour. Easier to give a passenger a spare key for the day. My excuse is that I was very sleep deprived during that period (military).

We don't have enough time for all the stupid stuff I've done over the years. ;) Mostly minor but sometimes I had to repeat a mistake before getting wiser.

I’ve gotten pretty good at breaking into the vehicles I’ve owned, I can lock the keys in my car and be in within 10 seconds, if I’m outside my house and need to open the car for something but don’t have the keys I always break in rather than walk back in the house to get them, it’s faster, lol
Not me, but someone I'm married to who will remain nameless ;-) once managed to lock the keys in the car three times in the space of an hour and a half.  Needed the assistance of our AAA equivalent on all three occasions.  The guy who helped told her that he'd never seen anything like it in over 40 years on the job!  I don't think I've ever seen my wife as embarrassed as she was that day.

Yep, that’s kind of how it started for me too.  I locked my keys in once, had the tow truck driver open it (saw how fucking easy he made it look), and vowed never to have to call them again, and the next time I locked them in I went inside a random business office nearby and asked if I could borrow a metal ruler, they said sure and two minutes later got the locks open.  With a bit of practice it takes only seconds.

Makes one wonder why even lock the car.   I started leaving it unlocked and it doesn’t bother me
1) unless you want a stained car seat and $0.38 in change ...  Not much of value inside.
2) hopefully if some thief does decide to have a look they’ll note the unlocked door versus smashing the window
3) $5000 car often parked next to $30,000+ cars... don’t have to be the fastest runner to not get eaten by the bear and all

When I was a teenager, a couple druggies went through the whole neighborhood and pulled the stereos out of every car with unlocked doors, including mine. So I always lock my doors now.

Just Joe

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Re: What's your dumbest mistake?
« Reply #99 on: June 30, 2020, 09:01:57 AM »
Did almost the same thing about 10 years ago except it was a motorcycle I was riding home around midnight, and I called my dad when it "broke down" on the side of the road. At least it was only a 15 minutes trip for him and we didn't have to lift a motorcycle into the bed of his truck.  In my defense it had no fuel gauge, but I still felt quite dumb.
Do you know about a motorcycle fuel reserve knob? Even my vintage Vespas have them.

Re: stereos. Back in the 1990s we had that problem and you could buy stereos that would slide out of the dash and had a carrying handle. Some people had cases for their radios. We would take them into stores and restaurants with us. Then detachable stereo faces were invented.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2020, 09:05:11 AM by Just Joe »