Reply to: Your most expensive mistake

[MobileCheese]

I lost £600 cash once, was a student had the cash in my pocket and set off on my bike home, got home cash had gone, must of fell of pocket, never found even after 5 hrs of searching. Was sooooo gutted

[Churchill]

Huh?? dunno what you talking about, most women count marriage followed by a divorce as the best way to get rich quick



Oh P.S. not me obviously cuz am a contractor and work hard for my money

You'd be the perfect bride. You don't eat much and you earn your own brass. What more could a man ask for?

[snaw]

Got a friend who had a beauty - she was in at yahoo near the very beginning, got shares regularily - when it was all looking up up and away. At one point she was a paper millionaire (And a bit extra). She kept hold of them cause no one thought they'd ever go down ...

She got made redundant, and ended up selling for just under 100K ... every now and again she gets morose about it.

Did I mention she was under 30 when this happened.

[wxman]

Emerald Energy - a penny share that was going well until their one and only oil rig blew up!

the share price collasped and I lost about 8K

[SandyDown]

Most on here are going to say marriage followed by divorce.

Huh?? dunno what you talking about, most women count marriage followed by a divorce as the best way to get rich quick



Oh P.S. not me obviously cuz am a contractor and work hard for my money

[backlight]

I was 16 living in Canada at my parent’s house.

Had bought a nice used car and put an auto starter in it (for those who do not know what it is it’s a devise that starts your car by pushing a button on your key fob – lets that car warm up while you are in the house). Anyhow I was lazy and put the automatic version in my manual car. One day I pulled up to close to the wall in the garage and had put the car in reverse to back off a bit. I then put the parking break on but accidentally left the car in reverse. Hit the button from inside the house, starter motor pushed the car through the garage door totally destroying it, and every body panel on the car. The car then proceeded to hit my farther two week old car in the driveway, the first new car he had ever owned.

I was then forced to run out in bare feet in -30 weather to try and stop the car from proceeding to run down the drive and across the street into the neighbours house.

Insurance company wanted deductibles from both cars and the house, rates would have gone up so much I was forced to pay out of pocket. And when you are 16 any damage to any car is allot of money.

Old man wished me dead on that day.

Neighbours got a good laugh though

[TheFaQQer]

Mistakes, I've only made a few...

I once bought a bottle of Dom Perignon in a restaurant. If I'd have spent the same on a red, I could have had something really special.

That's probably the most expensive mistake I made.

I had Dom Perignon when I was in India this year - the restaurant had it at a fairly reasonable price, plus it was available at half that during happy hour before 9 pm!

At £50 a bottle, it wasn't bad.

[NotAllThere]

Mistakes, I've only made a few...

I once bought a bottle of Dom Perignon in a restaurant. If I'd have spent the same on a red, I could have had something really special.

That's probably the most expensive mistake I made.

[lukemg]

I take a cautious approach now, but in my youth I recall a close friend turning up at my house as the first gulf war was about to kick-off. Said he had bought some options for oil, to be delivered a few months in the future and did I want a piece of the action ? Yeah says I and signed up for 25%. Price was at an elevated $28/barrel (yeah it was a while ago !). Basis was chaos in the middle east, impact on oil supply and corresponding price increase. During the night when we were asleep 2 things happened.
Price edged past $35 and the US announced they were releasing vast quantities of oil from there strategic reserves - the price bumped back down to $23.
Gulf war was all over in a few days and anticipated level of chaos never materialised. We hung on for a while but had to bail when requested to provide delivery details.
Lost £5k between us (doesn't seem much these days) but it was a fun ride for a while !

[TheFaQQer]

Not selling my Oracle shares to pay off my mortgage.

It's not really an expensive mistake though, since it's not actually cost me anything - I'm just not in as good a position as I could be.

I know people that lost £250k plus on the Oracle share price drops in 2002/3/4 kind of time.

[FiveTimes]

Lots a good stash on Marconi shares... bought at 98p and held all the way down.... but also topped up with cheaper ones during the drop to try and bring the average down

[DBA_bloke]

1: Buying Ionica Shares
2: Holding onto Level 3 shares as they plummeted
3: Not holding onto my second house and letting it

Conversely, an ex-manager of mine bought M&S shares for piddle all back when they were in bother (1999, I think), and bought tons of .com addresses (like plumber.com, taxi.com, etc.) just before the Interweb became big news - made a fortune. Git.

[ChimpMaster]

I've heard this (3) is a bloody good idea if you can afford to do it - a friend has some friends in finance who did exactly this over the last 10 years. They're now in their mid 30s wondering with 2-3 ex houses what to do with all their money!

I must try and do this if at all possible...

Duuudddeeee this WAS a good idea 10 years ago and yes there are still some (not so easy) ways to make money out of property - but the good ol' days of 30% annual rises are gone. It's too late to do what they did, but you can make a good long term (20 year) investment out of rental if you are patient and prepared to put in some work.

[beaker]

1: Buying Ionica Shares
2: Holding onto Level 3 shares as they plummeted
3: Not holding onto my second house and letting it

I've heard this (3) is a bloody good idea if you can afford to do it - a friend has some friends in finance who did exactly this over the last 10 years. They're now in their mid 30s wondering with 2-3 ex houses what to do with all their money!

I must try and do this if at all possible...

[Troll]

1: Buying Ionica Shares
2: Holding onto Level 3 shares as they plummeted
3: Not holding onto my second house and letting it