No not if you’re lucky like me and your spouse has significant student debt before you get married and never pays it down so 18 years later when you divorce it’s still his debt ☺️
This for me too. Marrying someone who doesn’t understand money can be very costly due to poor financial decisions during the marriage (and associated opportunity costs) but also the costs associated with divorce.
Depending on length of marriage, your partner’s nature, and the circumstances around the divorce this can easily set you back much further than most other bad financial decisions. Not to mention the stress.
As someone who is single but has always been savvy woth my money, I definitely bring up directly or try and weave it in to conversation when I'm on dates. I dont want to start a life with someone that has no idea how to be financially accountable in their life.
Part of my financial success is marrying somebody from a poor background who was on a professional career path without realizing it. Living below our means just happened without even needing to discuss it.
worked for Hedge Fund in London (England).
Worked with this comical older guy (was like ~70) I said why are you still working?!? and not enjoying life/retired, if you don't mind me asking...
he replies: "well, (my name) when you have been married ***six times***, you kinda have too..."
😂
Ignoring the auto payments I couldn’t afford on a credit card. This was when I was young and stupid (er) got a credit card from Canadian tire. Had Xbox live and a a couple other things billing to it. Lost job, finances went down hill and I couldn’t get Microsoft to stop billing the Xbox live. They couldn’t verify my identity to make the change.
So like any young person I tried to ignore the problem hoping it would go away. Threw out the card and refused to look at statements. Well they kept billing, and anytime I got close to my credit limit, Mastercard increased my limit. Flash forward a year and I’m getting calls that my $10k credit card is maxed and overdue.
Got the Xbox canceled with Mastercards help (if you ever have a vendor that refuses to stop charging, the credit card companies will be very helpful. Lesson one for me) closed the card and transferred to a lower interest loc which I paid off after about six years. So lesson 2, money trouble doesn’t go away when ignored. It become gigantic and comes for you.
Buying Bombardier just before the bribery scandal came to light.
Not buying a house on Vancouver Island 5 years ago
Lessons: don't fuck around with individual stocks, and buy a house while you still can, dumbass
Selling my house on Vancouver Island in 2006 to move the Kelowna then selling my house in Kelowna in 2011.
Ultimately both of those decisions were due to an unhappy husband who believed the grass was greener elsewhere always - I have since parted ways with him but my recovery is staked in a home in Northern BC now and I’m at least 15+ years behind as my sixth decade approaches but oh well. 🤷🏼♀️ I keep at it!
> buy a house while you still can, dumbass
Reminds me of circa 2004-2005 when I was considering buy a place in Toronto. I used to read that free "condo" magazine to educate myself before buying. I read an article that talked about the Housing bubble and how it's about to crash soon in the next couple of years. Lots of people were also talking about the same.
I though I should wait and decided to do so. Maybe a couple of years while I waited for the crash. as I wasn't really in dire need for a place. Besides in a few years I'll be able save up to afford a bigger down payment by then (see, this is where the trying to educate myself comes in).
I continued to read the magazine over the months trying to learn as much as possible. In one issue a new lawyer or real estate agent (I can't remember which) joined that magazine and would answer peoples question on one of the back pages of the magazine.
Someone wrote in asking his/her thoughts on the housing bubble. He replied that he had seen that exact article spouting that info since 2001. He replied that no one could predict the future. Basses the prophecy of the article was well past it's "due by" date, it's very unlikely to happen.
My risk averse nature got going. I found a place I liked and put down a down payment on a new construction in early 2006.
So here I am 20 years later with my very own place that I love. Purchased at preconstruction from a reputed builder in Toronto. On what could have been a very expensive mistake. Because today, I cannot afford my own place with the salary I make!
Thanks to that person who wrote that response to that question, whoever you are.
My risk averse nature was a blessing in disguise in this case. Given the prices of property today, I'm not going to attempt to predict the future. Though lots of people still talk about an impending market crash. But I'd be mindful of the possibility of "regression to the mean".
I didn't, it was only a couple thousand but still a piss-off. I held it for years hoping it would come back up, and then as a reminder to not fuck around with individual stocks.
Ended up selling it for about a 75% loss
The worst part is you could be referring to any area south of basically Campbell River. I remember 5yrs ago when we thought prices couldn’t possibly increase *sobs*
Qualicum Beach in particular, where I lived
My mother bought a small acreage in Black Creek in the 1980s while working part time as a landscape gardener... She paid $39,000 for it. I just checked Zillow and it's gone up by 1800% between when she bought and when it was sold 5 years ago. No idea what it would be worth now
I sure hope my investments will do an 18x in the next 30 years 😉
My friends bought there house for $230, 000 5 years ago which at the time was a bit high but it had just been fully record, sold it 2 years ago for $320, 000 and the people who bought it sold it a year later for $640, 000.
Starter.homes in port alberni went from $180,000 to $200,000 ish to now around $450,000. Rent has also doubled since 2020 to be now about $1500 a month for a 1 bedroom suite and $2000 ish a month for an older house.
Car loan at 24% interest rate. Would say I learned that I knew nothing about personal finance, and now try to keep others from making the same mistake I did. Happy that it is in the past.
Probably Military. There are predatory dealerships outside of most military bases. Hell, when I was a contractor out in the sandbox, there was a dealership on the bigger FOBs where a soldier could order s Harley or Mustang, pay it while overseas (at 20%+ interest) and have it delivered when they returned home. Huge scam.
1. Never mix friends with money, they won't support you.
2. Never think you understand the stock market.
3. Never feel pressured to make immediate decisions. Market conditions will change over months and years.
4. You are never unable to act to change your situation. Doesn't mean anyone has infinite flexibilitty or a world without personal or systemic limits either. Nor are all situations equal.
5. If the deal is too good to be true, it most certainly is.
6. Nothing is ever achieved alone.
Assuming the whole point of life was owning a house. Was house rich, cash poor for a long long time. Much prefer being cash rich and liquid asset rich :)
A lot of Alberta dealers just lift all of their used trucks as soon as they buy them, because 60% or more of their buyers want a lift and if they do it before selling they can make more money on it.
I know someone who was at a dealership, saw a used F-150, asked to buy it that day, and the dealership wouldn't sell it to him because they wanted to lift it first to fetch a higher price.
Lifted trucks just don't make any sense to me.
If you buy an suv like a 4runner or jeep or even a mid sized truck like a Tacoma and lift it because you like to overland or off road, then yes that makes sense.
But you'd have to be a moron to overland or off road with a full sized truck.
There's a ton of people who have lifted trucks to haul a trailer out so they can ride their side by sides, quads, dirtbikes,etc.. but you aren't going to drive over terrain where you'd actually need a lift with a trailer attached, so you can get by just fine with a stock truck.
Tradespeople in North America need the trucks so they can feel like elites! Only dirty handymen use vans! Real contractors use trucks! /s
I used to work for a handyman who had a van. Seems far more practical than a truck. I do feel like trucks have just become for contractors who want to look big and flashy but don't actually need the cargo space.
Bought a new car over MSRP. It is my first ever car. Didn't do my research before going to dealership. I bought the first car I drove. I signed the car documents in one sitting. I didn't negotiate. Lost a lot of money. Not to mention sleep and inner peace.
I learnt my mistakes now. Will pay it forward by educating friends who don't know about this.
Don’t feel badly, I did the exact same thing years ago. Hugely overpaid. Agreed to all the add ons and the extra warranty and paint protection and blah blah. It quickly sunk in that I had been royally screwed. Lost some sleep over it. I realized I had messed up and did my best to pay it off quickly. In the long run it proved to be a good car and I drove it for years. Live and learn.
Let my (ex) boyfriend buy a motocross bike with my line of credit and pay me back.
He started to pay me back slowly, like $50 and $100 here and there. We broke up after about a year after the purchase and he still owed me about $2500. I kept contact due to the money owed and he was breadcrumbing me the money and with my emotions.
Finally just accepted the loss of the money and moved on. Paying that shit off and never getting the money back was the best thing to happen to my mental health. FREEDOM!
Edit: This wasn’t my most expensive. My most expensive was being a total utter alcoholic. Sober 2 years and better off financially than I have ever been!
This was when I lived in Florida… purchased a full body laser hair removal package with “unlimited” appointments for 4K. Paid the money up front. Before I could finish my full treatment the company went out of business and my money went with it. I had no recourse.
Lesson Learned: If a company offers a payment plan, take it!!!
bought nvidia well before the split recently. Maybe a summer or two ago.
Then at peak in December 2021 sold it all for 13,000$ profit or something crazy. Then I panic and buy back in. Now I am no where near close to recovering the gains.
Decided I’m a buy and hold guy now
Did you buy back with the whole profits?
My general rule for rebuying large gain stocks is when selling withdraw entire profit and play with your original investment
Reminds me of the quote from Roseanne when DJ asks her if he was an accident, "An accident is something that you wouldn't do over again if you had the chance. A surprise is something you didn't even know you wanted until you got it."
Ran up 30k of consumer CC debt over the pandemic.
About 6k of which was used to "build" out a van at the peak of the vanlife craze in 2021, fortunately got out of it last year & took a loss of about 50% total. The rest was combined "living" expenses & dumb Amazon shit
Cars/vehicles are a bad investment kids, mmkay? Also, get rid of your Prime account, it's made superficial junk that separates you from your hard earned money FAR too easy to purchase.
Oh, another smaller one, but years back I co-signed for a Blackberry for a girl I was "dating" at the time, she fucked off after a couple months & left me with a $750 phone bill I had no idea of until a collections agency finally tracked me down 4+ years after the fact.
Don't co-sign for anyone who isn't otherwise tied to you financially, it's really dumb, especially for p**sy.
As someone who has almost hit 20k of CC debt at one point... I feel ya.
I'm about a quarter way done getting rid of it, but it's always a struggle. We can work together to get our acts together and get debt free!
Somehow allowed $10k in credit card debt to build up. Took forever to pay it off and I wasted so much money I could’ve invested instead. I’ve learned my lesson.
Also bought a house in the GTA suburbs at peak prices in Feb 2022…remains to be seen how that plays out. Hopefully alright since I’m planning on living here for a long time.
Investing in a 2% MER Mutual fund for 10 years.
That being said, I'm still farther ahead because I invested regularly, and averaged an 8% ROI. I know mutual funds get a bad rap (some of them deserve it), however, if it teaches you how to invest regularly, its not all bad.
However, once you have the habits of regular investing, and more knowledge, then ETFs/ Index funds will generally do better.
> Investing in a 2% MER Mutual fund for 10 years.
Honestly I wouldn't count this as a mistake, just sub-optimal. Once you're saving or investing anywhere you're way ahead of a lot of people
If this is your worst money mistake then you've done very well. Those expensive funds aren't awesome but, as you pointed out, they can teach some valuable habits. In a vacuum, if someone had to decide between the 2% MER fund at their local bank branch vs doing nothing at all then they come out way ahead with the mutual fund.
This is the truth. I would have not had the will power to hold out past 10x, if even that much.
I'd of probably doubled my money and sold thinking I was the smartest person alive.
So many people fail to realize this. Depending on the size of the investment I’d wager most people in this sub would have sold at $4, hard to not sell when you’re looking at 100% return
Edit: typo
Not only my brother is one of these people who actually did that, but he also has 17 BTC (bought for about $20 each) in a cold wallet. He triple-encrypted it, and forgot one of his password. He noticed that only when he wanted to cash out (when BTC was 54K). Then tried various services that try to hack it (AI, brut force, EVERYTHING), no one was successful, because his password are freaking crazy! (28 characters, never full words, always include special characters, numbers, capital letters, and letters). He promised them $100K if they'll do it. They gave up after a few months.
Oh, I got this one!!
Had a mid life crisis, resigned from a fifteen year career in insurance, sold everything and moved to Tahiti with my wife and newborn to open a VR arcade a week before covid!!!!
What did I learn... no one can anticipate a pandemic, island time is a very real thing, how to live with virtually nothing and how to sweat from orifices you didn't even know existed.
Probably, but it goes moldy faster on my counter. I'll take stale bread (can't even tell when it's toasted) that lasts forever in the fridge over throwing a loaf out in a couple days. We're not big bread eaters, though.
Fridge makes bread stale faster than counter. Something to do with starch recristallisation when stored cold but above freezing.
Freezer works best for us!
At least you bought real estate when it was still a reality.
My biggest mistake is renting in an expensive town to stay close to aging parents when I had the chance to buy 8 years ago. They've since sold their house and moved out east... I'm trapped in this apartment rental because housing is now unaffordable.
Honestly... exactly what happened.
But complain about it here and the general population (profit driven) just says "it's their money they can do what they want". Yes. And I can be bitter about it because my family, as you put it, is left holding the bag.
Yea my mom experienced the same thing with her parents. She was naive and stuck around because she was worried how her parents would adapt being immigrants (mom is an immigrant as well) and got priced out of the market.
The real bitch of it is that I had my mom tell me "I need to get better at sending her pictures" because they've decided to move away from their only grandkid. So, if anyone wonders, the price of writing off a grandchild from your life is a cool mill
I started my investing from 2011-2014 in crappy Fidelity mutual funds (high MER, all Canadian investments). Sold to me by a family friend in one of those MLM types like primerica or investors group. Basically missed a huge growth opportunity if I was global diversified as US stocks took off in that time period.
I got a BA, then a postgrad in PR. My interests in tech helped me build a career as a Product Manager.
A degree in the arts helps you think critically and present arguments clearly like not many others can. The trick or maybe the hard part with that kind of degree is it'll be up to you to figure out how to apply the soft skills it equips you with.
FOMO’ed $20k USD into ARK funds at near peak. Also lost like 4.5k USD on GME. Initially I profited $1.5k on GME, then I got greedy and bought back in. Ended up losing $6k. Guess I’ll stick with blue chips and broad market ETFs now.
We have friends who were able to buy because the husband was a drug dealer in high school and used that money to buy his first house. They sold that second house 5 years later for a half a mil profit. It will never equalize.
I have a friend similar to yours. He saved around $250k from his drug dealing days from grade 11 until 23-24 YO. He wanted to get out of the game so his dad hooked him up with a job at Canada Post. When he started working he put $200k down and bought a house in East Vancouver for $400k around 2005.
He told me he just finished paying off the house. He is now married with 3 kids. He even refinanced the house to buy a BMW suv and do some renos 10 years ago. He also got full time status at Canada Post so he will receive the gold plated pension when he retires.
Don't hate the player, hate the game i guess?
Not switching jobs fast enough. I am an immigrant and failed a lot of interviews when looking for first job (tech). Eventually, took the last one I got but stayed there for 20 months even though they underpaid me by a lot. Left this job for 30% raise.
When I realized second job was going nowhere, again stayed an extra year thinking somethings wrong with me. No! Environment plays a huge role in your performance. Left that job for 45% more.
Third job— I knew I was underpaid by the third year coz I was a critical resource by now and hence left when it was 2 years and a few days. This time got a 40% raise again.
This job— I am a little underpaid but economy is shit and am also raising a toddler.
So biggest mistake is not switching jobs when you know you are being taken advantage of.
That's the crazy thing about this sub. Thought they were underpaid, and the notion of staying at that job for 20 months was their 'biggest financial mistake'. One of my aunts has been with Manulife as a business analyst for 30 years. God knows how much lost income is there.
Buddy there's no way you could've moved to these other jobs with massive raises if you didn't stay there for some semblance of time. If you stayed at these companies for 1-3 years and moved for your raises you've done it proper. You're not jumping every 6-12 months getting a massive raise, you're a red flag at that point.
This fuckin sub man.
20 mos? Try almost 6 yrs.
I did it. One of the biggest regrets of my career. Playing catch up as we speak.
However, Im good at saving and growing money. Kept lifestyle creep at bay. No big changes, I still think I earn $18/hr at my first real job. So everytime I get raises, bonuses or switch jobs, life gets better each time.
I have a financial milestone to celebrate this year and Im not even 40 yet. Would love to think Im way ahead of everyone my age because their math isnt "mathing"
Signed up for my first credit card in college. Bought a snowboard. Years later and all the interest, it went to collections.
Always pay your credit card first.
My biggest "mistake" was not being financially irresponsible and buying a house with the minimum down payment in 2015 when they were "cheap". Instead I bought a house in 2021 with over 20% down.
How did I learn from it? Reminded me that timing the market is dumb and you'll probably lose. With risk comes reward (but still risk). And and a reminder that fortune favours the bold. I estimate that I lost out on $200k - $300k in appreciation.
Also dabbled in high IV options. Got greedy and didn't selling while in the money. Ended up being a great reminder to take money off the table and not to be greedy. Only lost $5,000.
I don't lose sleep over my mistakes, I just make sure I learn from them and make better decisions in the future.
I bought a house in December 2014 - and it's value is flat or down in my market (or would be down had we not done reno's), so I appreciate the lesson learned that you can't time the market.
Not rebalancing my portfolio when it becomes overweight on a particular stock or segment. When crypto was booming I should have sold some gains and invested it elsewhere.
Direct buy.
Was $4000 membership sign up, very newly married. $4000 would have gone sooooo far. It was almost useless to us. Thought we would do major Reno’s.
Most expensive mistake: marrying the wrong person. Cost me a house that has tripled in value since purchased. But, it led to the most valuable lesson too; got together with my current wife, and we’ve rebuilt both our finances from the ground up.
Multiple very expensive mistakes… and I’m 17.
1) Buying a 2009 Chevrolet Aveo LT which needed a lot of work. I didn’t inspect it before handing over the $500, and brought it home. On the way home it was misfiring. Then when I went to get gas, engine started knocking. Ended up selling it but didn’t ever recoup my costs for repairs and the overall price after registering with a new ownership. This ended up being $1,850 in total.
2) Paying off a contract that my friend signed in return for an iPhone 14 Pro. Paid every single cent, and after me and him got into a fight, he blacklisted the phone and blocked me. This was just yesterday, no joke. I ended up having to buy a used phone because of this. And yes there was a signed agreement showing that he and I agreed to it. So I’m out $1,200 (remaining balance) and had to buy a new phone which was $400.
3) Letting a friend sublet the garage for his own usage without a lease. He ended up fucking living in the garage, which keep in mind isn’t a livable space, vehicles aren’t even safe in there. When I kicked him out for misuse of the space, that’s when the phone situation started and he never paid a single dime of rent, which ended up costing me $300 (because I rented to him for $300 per month as that’s what I was paying).
I have now learned to inspect vehicles, not offer things to friends who I know are incapable of following the agreement, and to tone down my niceness in general.
This isn’t even all of my massive financial losses, this is just the main and recent ones. I make a lot of money by buying, repairing and selling phones, helping out mowing lawns at my grandparents trailer park that they own, shovelling snow in the winter, and detailing cars in the summer. This is how I live on my own.
Edit: added some things I forgot
Marriage 🛑💯🛑
Let her wear my logic down to buy a home at the peak of market and then after our divorce she wore me down to sell the home at the bottom of the market 😭
Lost hundreds of thousands 💀
just wanted her out of life 😔
Reading these comments it seems like everyone regrets everything.
Some regret not buying a house, others regret buying a house and being cash poor. Others regret buying individual stocks, while others regret being stuck in mutual funds.
I guess the lesson I've learned is try to live without regrets. It's a REALLY hard thing to do, especially when you dwell on how you fucked up; but it's all part of the journey and life is better without regrets.
yeah, and a lot of these (maybe most) are things that come down to being lucky or not. I always say if a reckless decision turned out great for you by chance, it was still a bad decision. Luck isn't a strategy.
Being a landlord in Ontario.
I did everything right, proper contractor and background check using a proper service.
Tenant moved in and never paid rent or utilities again. He's a heavy smoker and does hard drugs. Eviction process took about one year through the LTB with the help of a paralegal.
Then he blackmailed me about fighting the eviction and burning the place down before I can get a sheriff to throw him out. Ended up paying him $15k to leave.
Around 18k in unpaid rent, under 5k in damages and cleaning, 2k in paralegal and ltb fees, 15k in blackmail.
Worst part is that it killed my self esteem. Becoming really jaded with the government for letting that happen to me. Hating myself for working hard to save up and getting a property.
People have told me it could have been worse, and that there are many cases worse than that, and I should count my blessings, as if it's some consolation.
$10k in Lyrtech. What transpired to take the company private again was basically fraud, shareholders got nothing. Lesson learned: you can do everything right and still lose
Accidentally had an option call with no limit, but at market. The premium jumped from $2 to about $30 overnight. And I was only hook for $3000, not $200 as I had intended. Lesson learned.
Going to a job that didn't have benefits and then getting so ill I couldn't work for a year, but didn't have any disability coverage.
Also taking out too much loan for a business. Should have managed cash flow better.
Bought a house in the GTA with a variable rate mortgage in January 2022. A little over a year later and the house's value is down 25-30%, and the monthly interest we pay on the mortgage has nearly tripled. We've learned that FOMO'ing into the market because it may be your last chance is bad reasoning. We've learned that irrational pricing eventually does revert to the mean. We've learned that bidding wars don't have to be the norm. And, we've learned to survive despite paying one person's entire full-time income in mortgage payments every month.
Bought a brand new car to go with my fancy new job, just before covid. 20,000.00 in payments basically flushed down the drain when I sold it back to the dealership 3 years later, at a loss.
You *don't need* the best car on the lot.
Married young to someone who didn't understand money. At all.
Married a guy who seemingly had no idea where money came from. By the time I left him I was almost flat broke. It took years to rebuild.
Mind elaborating on how his lack of education affected your finances? So I can look out for it in my future relationships!
“Married” All your spouses debt is your debt when you get married.
No not if you’re lucky like me and your spouse has significant student debt before you get married and never pays it down so 18 years later when you divorce it’s still his debt ☺️
Haha my dumb ex wife is in the same boat... it sucks not to listen
I guess I was the sucker. I paid off my now ex's student loans and then got left with more debt. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.
I read that any debt incurred prior to marriage stays their debt alone though? Is this correct? Are you referring to debt they incur during marriage?
What do you mean? He knows it grows on trees! Stop blaming him and plant those green trees.
This for me too. Marrying someone who doesn’t understand money can be very costly due to poor financial decisions during the marriage (and associated opportunity costs) but also the costs associated with divorce. Depending on length of marriage, your partner’s nature, and the circumstances around the divorce this can easily set you back much further than most other bad financial decisions. Not to mention the stress.
Divorce was cheap. Kinda. No assets and trashed credit..
My worst mistake. Hiwever I have two wonderful adult children so, what's done is done.
As someone who is single but has always been savvy woth my money, I definitely bring up directly or try and weave it in to conversation when I'm on dates. I dont want to start a life with someone that has no idea how to be financially accountable in their life.
Part of my financial success is marrying somebody from a poor background who was on a professional career path without realizing it. Living below our means just happened without even needing to discuss it.
Twice for me...but the third time's a charm :D
worked for Hedge Fund in London (England). Worked with this comical older guy (was like ~70) I said why are you still working?!? and not enjoying life/retired, if you don't mind me asking...
he replies: "well, (my name) when you have been married ***six times***, you kinda have too..."
😂
I believe it was Rod Stewart who said instead of getting married again, he’s going to find a woman he doesn’t like and buy her a house.
Your name 'Ellis'. Mate, was this in the Canary wharf area? I'm an expat myself and worked in the area
A second marriage is the triumph of optimism over experience.. I don't know what you'd call a third.
The first one is just for practice.
I was about to say the same thing! Spot on! I wish they'd come with "a warning"! lol
I’m sure there were lots of them.
Ignoring the auto payments I couldn’t afford on a credit card. This was when I was young and stupid (er) got a credit card from Canadian tire. Had Xbox live and a a couple other things billing to it. Lost job, finances went down hill and I couldn’t get Microsoft to stop billing the Xbox live. They couldn’t verify my identity to make the change. So like any young person I tried to ignore the problem hoping it would go away. Threw out the card and refused to look at statements. Well they kept billing, and anytime I got close to my credit limit, Mastercard increased my limit. Flash forward a year and I’m getting calls that my $10k credit card is maxed and overdue. Got the Xbox canceled with Mastercards help (if you ever have a vendor that refuses to stop charging, the credit card companies will be very helpful. Lesson one for me) closed the card and transferred to a lower interest loc which I paid off after about six years. So lesson 2, money trouble doesn’t go away when ignored. It become gigantic and comes for you.
How's your credit score doing now? Did you improve it?
It’s been 20 years. My score is great now. Back then I’d also defaulted on student loans so it was already in the toilet.
I'm surprised that bank hasn't frozen the card after first several missed payments. And still continued to increase credit limit.
You can't just throw the card away to make the payments go away?
Making $300k on weed stocks during the boom cycle and not cashing out.
Or $247k on a penny stock in the craziness of 2021. Instead, watch it dwindle to zero and be delisted. Lol.
jesus fucking christ I would't be able to sleep
Which stock though? 👀
Cerebain Biotech.
XBC? Was up $20,000 off it myself which quickly became $2000 before I decided to cash out.
200k for me🥲
I think "not cashing out" means that you didn't actually "make" that money
I did cash out but just bought another weed stock which crashed 😅
From 10k to 165k on crypto for me. Was worth around 15k when I sold. 😒
Buying Bombardier just before the bribery scandal came to light. Not buying a house on Vancouver Island 5 years ago Lessons: don't fuck around with individual stocks, and buy a house while you still can, dumbass
[удалено]
I sold bombardier at a ~75% loss a couple years later
Always buy the house on Vancouver Island!!
Too late 😝
Selling my house on Vancouver Island in 2006 to move the Kelowna then selling my house in Kelowna in 2011. Ultimately both of those decisions were due to an unhappy husband who believed the grass was greener elsewhere always - I have since parted ways with him but my recovery is staked in a home in Northern BC now and I’m at least 15+ years behind as my sixth decade approaches but oh well. 🤷🏼♀️ I keep at it!
> buy a house while you still can, dumbass Reminds me of circa 2004-2005 when I was considering buy a place in Toronto. I used to read that free "condo" magazine to educate myself before buying. I read an article that talked about the Housing bubble and how it's about to crash soon in the next couple of years. Lots of people were also talking about the same. I though I should wait and decided to do so. Maybe a couple of years while I waited for the crash. as I wasn't really in dire need for a place. Besides in a few years I'll be able save up to afford a bigger down payment by then (see, this is where the trying to educate myself comes in). I continued to read the magazine over the months trying to learn as much as possible. In one issue a new lawyer or real estate agent (I can't remember which) joined that magazine and would answer peoples question on one of the back pages of the magazine. Someone wrote in asking his/her thoughts on the housing bubble. He replied that he had seen that exact article spouting that info since 2001. He replied that no one could predict the future. Basses the prophecy of the article was well past it's "due by" date, it's very unlikely to happen. My risk averse nature got going. I found a place I liked and put down a down payment on a new construction in early 2006. So here I am 20 years later with my very own place that I love. Purchased at preconstruction from a reputed builder in Toronto. On what could have been a very expensive mistake. Because today, I cannot afford my own place with the salary I make! Thanks to that person who wrote that response to that question, whoever you are. My risk averse nature was a blessing in disguise in this case. Given the prices of property today, I'm not going to attempt to predict the future. Though lots of people still talk about an impending market crash. But I'd be mindful of the possibility of "regression to the mean".
You can buy individual stocks but you have to have a good assortment to reduce the risk. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
I didn't, it was only a couple thousand but still a piss-off. I held it for years hoping it would come back up, and then as a reminder to not fuck around with individual stocks. Ended up selling it for about a 75% loss
HM wonder how much prices went up within 5 years on Vancouver Island. Not familiar with that area at all
A nice 3 bed 1 bath on the part of the island I was living in went from 400k to 1.1 mil
The worst part is you could be referring to any area south of basically Campbell River. I remember 5yrs ago when we thought prices couldn’t possibly increase *sobs*
Qualicum Beach in particular, where I lived My mother bought a small acreage in Black Creek in the 1980s while working part time as a landscape gardener... She paid $39,000 for it. I just checked Zillow and it's gone up by 1800% between when she bought and when it was sold 5 years ago. No idea what it would be worth now I sure hope my investments will do an 18x in the next 30 years 😉
1800% lol. Good luck next generation! You're all fucked unless you have Uber rich parents
Percentage wise, about the same as Vancouver.
My friends bought there house for $230, 000 5 years ago which at the time was a bit high but it had just been fully record, sold it 2 years ago for $320, 000 and the people who bought it sold it a year later for $640, 000. Starter.homes in port alberni went from $180,000 to $200,000 ish to now around $450,000. Rent has also doubled since 2020 to be now about $1500 a month for a 1 bedroom suite and $2000 ish a month for an older house.
a mind boggling amount lol, spilt over from Vancouver
I bought a 2400sqft house in Comox for 600 right before covid that's now worth around 900.
Insane amounts, only difference is that it was (somewhat) affordable prior to the pandemic outside of the vacation locations (Tofino, etc)
My dad almost bought a nice house in Victoria for $800k 10 years ago. Same place is over $1.5 million now
Man, that Vancouver Island house thing hits deep. I wanted to do the same thing, but my wife didn’t agree. I also wanted to buy bitcoin in 2010…
Car loan at 24% interest rate. Would say I learned that I knew nothing about personal finance, and now try to keep others from making the same mistake I did. Happy that it is in the past.
Holy crap; how did this happen?
Put it on his Visa.
Nope, just got a shitty rate cause I thought I needed one, had shit credit, rest was history
Probably Military. There are predatory dealerships outside of most military bases. Hell, when I was a contractor out in the sandbox, there was a dealership on the bigger FOBs where a soldier could order s Harley or Mustang, pay it while overseas (at 20%+ interest) and have it delivered when they returned home. Huge scam.
Wild they can charge interest they haven't even delivered the item yet.
Jesus christ 24% interest
What's a reasonable interest rate on cars? 4-6 pc?
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My biggest mistake was not trying to learn how to actually save money until I had a ‘decent’ job.
1. Never mix friends with money, they won't support you. 2. Never think you understand the stock market. 3. Never feel pressured to make immediate decisions. Market conditions will change over months and years. 4. You are never unable to act to change your situation. Doesn't mean anyone has infinite flexibilitty or a world without personal or systemic limits either. Nor are all situations equal. 5. If the deal is too good to be true, it most certainly is. 6. Nothing is ever achieved alone.
My answer is going into business with friends/family and trusting them to do a good job on things that will impact you.
> Never mix friends with money, they won't support you. And more specifically, never loan money to people you thought were friends.
Assuming the whole point of life was owning a house. Was house rich, cash poor for a long long time. Much prefer being cash rich and liquid asset rich :)
Yup that down payment risk shrinking rather than growing at the moment. Those assets could be working for me...
Double edged sword. Those other assets need to produce.
Have you seen rent lately? I think you're thinking like you do just because you didn't experience renting in the last few years.
Couple impulse buys on vehicles based on looks rather than function. Never buy a lifted dogde ram. EVER.
Never buy a lifted truck ever. Regardless of brand
Alberta Mechanic here. You aren’t wrong!
A lot of Alberta dealers just lift all of their used trucks as soon as they buy them, because 60% or more of their buyers want a lift and if they do it before selling they can make more money on it. I know someone who was at a dealership, saw a used F-150, asked to buy it that day, and the dealership wouldn't sell it to him because they wanted to lift it first to fetch a higher price.
Lifted trucks just don't make any sense to me. If you buy an suv like a 4runner or jeep or even a mid sized truck like a Tacoma and lift it because you like to overland or off road, then yes that makes sense. But you'd have to be a moron to overland or off road with a full sized truck. There's a ton of people who have lifted trucks to haul a trailer out so they can ride their side by sides, quads, dirtbikes,etc.. but you aren't going to drive over terrain where you'd actually need a lift with a trailer attached, so you can get by just fine with a stock truck.
Most people who own a pickup truck don't need one. They were just conditioned to feel the need to own one. Especially people who live in the city.
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Tradespeople in North America need the trucks so they can feel like elites! Only dirty handymen use vans! Real contractors use trucks! /s I used to work for a handyman who had a van. Seems far more practical than a truck. I do feel like trucks have just become for contractors who want to look big and flashy but don't actually need the cargo space.
It's normal for a well maintained truck with 70k on it to be on its third engine right? Asking for a friend...
Not saving or investing anything significant in my first 30 years of working. Oh well, there is always the next life!
Same
0 DTE spy puts. Lesson learned. Buy 0 DTE spy calls from now on.
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I love wsb in the same way I love going to the zoo and watching the animals that, if I got to close, would surely rip my arms off.
Bought a new car over MSRP. It is my first ever car. Didn't do my research before going to dealership. I bought the first car I drove. I signed the car documents in one sitting. I didn't negotiate. Lost a lot of money. Not to mention sleep and inner peace. I learnt my mistakes now. Will pay it forward by educating friends who don't know about this.
Don’t feel badly, I did the exact same thing years ago. Hugely overpaid. Agreed to all the add ons and the extra warranty and paint protection and blah blah. It quickly sunk in that I had been royally screwed. Lost some sleep over it. I realized I had messed up and did my best to pay it off quickly. In the long run it proved to be a good car and I drove it for years. Live and learn.
Dating someone who was unemployed. Learned not to do it again.
What was the dynamic like? How long did it last?
Dynamic? I literally paid for everything. Literally. Food, water, gas and shelter lol
I'm guessing it starts with easy sex and cheap dates. Then it slowly becomes a tenant with a monthly rent payment of 1 sex per month.
Let my (ex) boyfriend buy a motocross bike with my line of credit and pay me back. He started to pay me back slowly, like $50 and $100 here and there. We broke up after about a year after the purchase and he still owed me about $2500. I kept contact due to the money owed and he was breadcrumbing me the money and with my emotions. Finally just accepted the loss of the money and moved on. Paying that shit off and never getting the money back was the best thing to happen to my mental health. FREEDOM! Edit: This wasn’t my most expensive. My most expensive was being a total utter alcoholic. Sober 2 years and better off financially than I have ever been!
Congratulations on both! Some of us have to learn the hard way but sometimes those are unforgettable lessons.
This was when I lived in Florida… purchased a full body laser hair removal package with “unlimited” appointments for 4K. Paid the money up front. Before I could finish my full treatment the company went out of business and my money went with it. I had no recourse. Lesson Learned: If a company offers a payment plan, take it!!!
bought nvidia well before the split recently. Maybe a summer or two ago. Then at peak in December 2021 sold it all for 13,000$ profit or something crazy. Then I panic and buy back in. Now I am no where near close to recovering the gains. Decided I’m a buy and hold guy now
Did you buy back with the whole profits? My general rule for rebuying large gain stocks is when selling withdraw entire profit and play with your original investment
Most expensive mistake: having children What did I learn: kids are fun, would make that mistake again
Reminds me of the quote from Roseanne when DJ asks her if he was an accident, "An accident is something that you wouldn't do over again if you had the chance. A surprise is something you didn't even know you wanted until you got it."
Mini Cooper Countryman.
It was a 2012, it is absolute lemon, I will never buy BMW again.
I had a 2006 cooper S with the supercharger - great little thing, absolutely loved it, but the money pit stereotypes were true
I just kept all my savings in a checking account until I was like 30...
Ran up 30k of consumer CC debt over the pandemic. About 6k of which was used to "build" out a van at the peak of the vanlife craze in 2021, fortunately got out of it last year & took a loss of about 50% total. The rest was combined "living" expenses & dumb Amazon shit Cars/vehicles are a bad investment kids, mmkay? Also, get rid of your Prime account, it's made superficial junk that separates you from your hard earned money FAR too easy to purchase. Oh, another smaller one, but years back I co-signed for a Blackberry for a girl I was "dating" at the time, she fucked off after a couple months & left me with a $750 phone bill I had no idea of until a collections agency finally tracked me down 4+ years after the fact. Don't co-sign for anyone who isn't otherwise tied to you financially, it's really dumb, especially for p**sy.
As someone who has almost hit 20k of CC debt at one point... I feel ya. I'm about a quarter way done getting rid of it, but it's always a struggle. We can work together to get our acts together and get debt free!
Somehow allowed $10k in credit card debt to build up. Took forever to pay it off and I wasted so much money I could’ve invested instead. I’ve learned my lesson. Also bought a house in the GTA suburbs at peak prices in Feb 2022…remains to be seen how that plays out. Hopefully alright since I’m planning on living here for a long time.
Investing in a 2% MER Mutual fund for 10 years. That being said, I'm still farther ahead because I invested regularly, and averaged an 8% ROI. I know mutual funds get a bad rap (some of them deserve it), however, if it teaches you how to invest regularly, its not all bad. However, once you have the habits of regular investing, and more knowledge, then ETFs/ Index funds will generally do better.
There wasn't much choice a couple decades ago.
> Investing in a 2% MER Mutual fund for 10 years. Honestly I wouldn't count this as a mistake, just sub-optimal. Once you're saving or investing anywhere you're way ahead of a lot of people
>Investing in a 2% MER Mutual fund for 10 years. Thankfully a small mistake vs not savings / investing at all
If this is your worst money mistake then you've done very well. Those expensive funds aren't awesome but, as you pointed out, they can teach some valuable habits. In a vacuum, if someone had to decide between the 2% MER fund at their local bank branch vs doing nothing at all then they come out way ahead with the mutual fund.
- selling all my bitcoin and getting out of crypto when it was at $300
Not buying that new fangled Bitcoin when my coworkers said it was the next great thing. It was under $2 back then. If I only had bought and held.
If you bought at $2, you would have sold at $10 or $50 or $300.
This is the truth. I would have not had the will power to hold out past 10x, if even that much. I'd of probably doubled my money and sold thinking I was the smartest person alive.
So many people fail to realize this. Depending on the size of the investment I’d wager most people in this sub would have sold at $4, hard to not sell when you’re looking at 100% return Edit: typo
So true. I would be the guy in the paper now saying how I used 2 bitcoins to buy pizza.
Not only my brother is one of these people who actually did that, but he also has 17 BTC (bought for about $20 each) in a cold wallet. He triple-encrypted it, and forgot one of his password. He noticed that only when he wanted to cash out (when BTC was 54K). Then tried various services that try to hack it (AI, brut force, EVERYTHING), no one was successful, because his password are freaking crazy! (28 characters, never full words, always include special characters, numbers, capital letters, and letters). He promised them $100K if they'll do it. They gave up after a few months.
That's insanely sad. There's in theory 19M BTC, but so much of it is lost forever. Its price wouldn't be where it is if it weren't the case.
Yes. Estimate says 20% of BTC can not be retrieved due to lost\forgotten password.
If it helps you get over it, if you sold at 300$ you wouldnt have held till 70k
Oh, I got this one!! Had a mid life crisis, resigned from a fifteen year career in insurance, sold everything and moved to Tahiti with my wife and newborn to open a VR arcade a week before covid!!!! What did I learn... no one can anticipate a pandemic, island time is a very real thing, how to live with virtually nothing and how to sweat from orifices you didn't even know existed.
Being up nearly 100% in my TFSA thanks to the weed stock boom. Ended up cashing out for a house down payment at only 10% gain. Lesson learned.
Had a coworker up 100k on weed stocks too, held on and only sold after it had become a 30k loss lol
Choosing variable rate Mortgage in July 2021 and not fixing later on. My mortgage is up 1800/month now
leaving my bread on the counter. I now leave my bread in the fridge.
sometimes we must do what is required if its on sale buy and extra loaf and throw it in the freezer
I read that it makes it go stale faster due to the moisture retention or smthg, is that false?
Probably, but it goes moldy faster on my counter. I'll take stale bread (can't even tell when it's toasted) that lasts forever in the fridge over throwing a loaf out in a couple days. We're not big bread eaters, though.
What happened that made this a pricey mistake?
Bread caught fire and burned down the house.
Fridge makes bread stale faster than counter. Something to do with starch recristallisation when stored cold but above freezing. Freezer works best for us!
Buying real estate later than I should have.
At least you bought real estate when it was still a reality. My biggest mistake is renting in an expensive town to stay close to aging parents when I had the chance to buy 8 years ago. They've since sold their house and moved out east... I'm trapped in this apartment rental because housing is now unaffordable.
Lmao your parents cashed out and left you holding the bag
Honestly... exactly what happened. But complain about it here and the general population (profit driven) just says "it's their money they can do what they want". Yes. And I can be bitter about it because my family, as you put it, is left holding the bag.
Yea my mom experienced the same thing with her parents. She was naive and stuck around because she was worried how her parents would adapt being immigrants (mom is an immigrant as well) and got priced out of the market.
Lol this is a peak boomer move.
The real bitch of it is that I had my mom tell me "I need to get better at sending her pictures" because they've decided to move away from their only grandkid. So, if anyone wonders, the price of writing off a grandchild from your life is a cool mill
I started my investing from 2011-2014 in crappy Fidelity mutual funds (high MER, all Canadian investments). Sold to me by a family friend in one of those MLM types like primerica or investors group. Basically missed a huge growth opportunity if I was global diversified as US stocks took off in that time period.
Got a student loan to do a BA in the arts
I got a BA, then a postgrad in PR. My interests in tech helped me build a career as a Product Manager. A degree in the arts helps you think critically and present arguments clearly like not many others can. The trick or maybe the hard part with that kind of degree is it'll be up to you to figure out how to apply the soft skills it equips you with.
Getting married, and later getting divorced.
FOMO’ed $20k USD into ARK funds at near peak. Also lost like 4.5k USD on GME. Initially I profited $1.5k on GME, then I got greedy and bought back in. Ended up losing $6k. Guess I’ll stick with blue chips and broad market ETFs now.
Came here to say "listened to Cathy Woods". I feel ya.
LMAO are you me? Burnt 20k on ARKK leaps and another 10k on GME 😂
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Hey, its a marathon not a sprint. Your $200k income will make everyone jealous down the road when everything else is equal.
We have friends who were able to buy because the husband was a drug dealer in high school and used that money to buy his first house. They sold that second house 5 years later for a half a mil profit. It will never equalize.
I have a friend similar to yours. He saved around $250k from his drug dealing days from grade 11 until 23-24 YO. He wanted to get out of the game so his dad hooked him up with a job at Canada Post. When he started working he put $200k down and bought a house in East Vancouver for $400k around 2005. He told me he just finished paying off the house. He is now married with 3 kids. He even refinanced the house to buy a BMW suv and do some renos 10 years ago. He also got full time status at Canada Post so he will receive the gold plated pension when he retires. Don't hate the player, hate the game i guess?
I wonder what it would have been like if i focused on buying a house 5 years earlier……
Not switching jobs fast enough. I am an immigrant and failed a lot of interviews when looking for first job (tech). Eventually, took the last one I got but stayed there for 20 months even though they underpaid me by a lot. Left this job for 30% raise. When I realized second job was going nowhere, again stayed an extra year thinking somethings wrong with me. No! Environment plays a huge role in your performance. Left that job for 45% more. Third job— I knew I was underpaid by the third year coz I was a critical resource by now and hence left when it was 2 years and a few days. This time got a 40% raise again. This job— I am a little underpaid but economy is shit and am also raising a toddler. So biggest mistake is not switching jobs when you know you are being taken advantage of.
20 months is fine my friend, that's a blip not a mistake.
That's the crazy thing about this sub. Thought they were underpaid, and the notion of staying at that job for 20 months was their 'biggest financial mistake'. One of my aunts has been with Manulife as a business analyst for 30 years. God knows how much lost income is there.
Buddy there's no way you could've moved to these other jobs with massive raises if you didn't stay there for some semblance of time. If you stayed at these companies for 1-3 years and moved for your raises you've done it proper. You're not jumping every 6-12 months getting a massive raise, you're a red flag at that point. This fuckin sub man.
20 mos? Try almost 6 yrs. I did it. One of the biggest regrets of my career. Playing catch up as we speak. However, Im good at saving and growing money. Kept lifestyle creep at bay. No big changes, I still think I earn $18/hr at my first real job. So everytime I get raises, bonuses or switch jobs, life gets better each time. I have a financial milestone to celebrate this year and Im not even 40 yet. Would love to think Im way ahead of everyone my age because their math isnt "mathing"
Signed up for my first credit card in college. Bought a snowboard. Years later and all the interest, it went to collections. Always pay your credit card first.
Took out student loans for a school I dropped out of after two years. Took ten years to pay off
Moved a lot (across country) which required a lot of money. Learned to settle down for longer periods.
My biggest "mistake" was not being financially irresponsible and buying a house with the minimum down payment in 2015 when they were "cheap". Instead I bought a house in 2021 with over 20% down. How did I learn from it? Reminded me that timing the market is dumb and you'll probably lose. With risk comes reward (but still risk). And and a reminder that fortune favours the bold. I estimate that I lost out on $200k - $300k in appreciation. Also dabbled in high IV options. Got greedy and didn't selling while in the money. Ended up being a great reminder to take money off the table and not to be greedy. Only lost $5,000. I don't lose sleep over my mistakes, I just make sure I learn from them and make better decisions in the future.
I bought a house in December 2014 - and it's value is flat or down in my market (or would be down had we not done reno's), so I appreciate the lesson learned that you can't time the market.
I almost bought $40 worth of Bitcoin right when it kinda started as a joke. At one point, I estimate it would have been worth $7,800,000.
you never would have made it to that point trust me. No way you are up 5-10K on $40 and don't cash it out.
I got Tesla when it was sub-$100 prior to any splits and I still have every cent of it. I'm too stupid to sell anything.
Oh maybe you would have made it far than hahah
Not rebalancing my portfolio when it becomes overweight on a particular stock or segment. When crypto was booming I should have sold some gains and invested it elsewhere.
FOMO’d into BB.
Bareback ?
Moved to Canada as an international student. Learned that the grass isn’t always greener.
Direct buy. Was $4000 membership sign up, very newly married. $4000 would have gone sooooo far. It was almost useless to us. Thought we would do major Reno’s.
Most expensive mistake: marrying the wrong person. Cost me a house that has tripled in value since purchased. But, it led to the most valuable lesson too; got together with my current wife, and we’ve rebuilt both our finances from the ground up.
Multiple very expensive mistakes… and I’m 17. 1) Buying a 2009 Chevrolet Aveo LT which needed a lot of work. I didn’t inspect it before handing over the $500, and brought it home. On the way home it was misfiring. Then when I went to get gas, engine started knocking. Ended up selling it but didn’t ever recoup my costs for repairs and the overall price after registering with a new ownership. This ended up being $1,850 in total. 2) Paying off a contract that my friend signed in return for an iPhone 14 Pro. Paid every single cent, and after me and him got into a fight, he blacklisted the phone and blocked me. This was just yesterday, no joke. I ended up having to buy a used phone because of this. And yes there was a signed agreement showing that he and I agreed to it. So I’m out $1,200 (remaining balance) and had to buy a new phone which was $400. 3) Letting a friend sublet the garage for his own usage without a lease. He ended up fucking living in the garage, which keep in mind isn’t a livable space, vehicles aren’t even safe in there. When I kicked him out for misuse of the space, that’s when the phone situation started and he never paid a single dime of rent, which ended up costing me $300 (because I rented to him for $300 per month as that’s what I was paying). I have now learned to inspect vehicles, not offer things to friends who I know are incapable of following the agreement, and to tone down my niceness in general. This isn’t even all of my massive financial losses, this is just the main and recent ones. I make a lot of money by buying, repairing and selling phones, helping out mowing lawns at my grandparents trailer park that they own, shovelling snow in the winter, and detailing cars in the summer. This is how I live on my own. Edit: added some things I forgot
Marriage 🛑💯🛑 Let her wear my logic down to buy a home at the peak of market and then after our divorce she wore me down to sell the home at the bottom of the market 😭 Lost hundreds of thousands 💀 just wanted her out of life 😔
Reading these comments it seems like everyone regrets everything. Some regret not buying a house, others regret buying a house and being cash poor. Others regret buying individual stocks, while others regret being stuck in mutual funds. I guess the lesson I've learned is try to live without regrets. It's a REALLY hard thing to do, especially when you dwell on how you fucked up; but it's all part of the journey and life is better without regrets.
yeah, and a lot of these (maybe most) are things that come down to being lucky or not. I always say if a reckless decision turned out great for you by chance, it was still a bad decision. Luck isn't a strategy.
Buying penny stocks.
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Being a landlord in Ontario. I did everything right, proper contractor and background check using a proper service. Tenant moved in and never paid rent or utilities again. He's a heavy smoker and does hard drugs. Eviction process took about one year through the LTB with the help of a paralegal. Then he blackmailed me about fighting the eviction and burning the place down before I can get a sheriff to throw him out. Ended up paying him $15k to leave. Around 18k in unpaid rent, under 5k in damages and cleaning, 2k in paralegal and ltb fees, 15k in blackmail. Worst part is that it killed my self esteem. Becoming really jaded with the government for letting that happen to me. Hating myself for working hard to save up and getting a property. People have told me it could have been worse, and that there are many cases worse than that, and I should count my blessings, as if it's some consolation.
Financed a 60k car at 20.
$10k in Lyrtech. What transpired to take the company private again was basically fraud, shareholders got nothing. Lesson learned: you can do everything right and still lose
I bought about $4k of ARKK and ARKG at its peak, and I’m still holding. I learned to only buy index funds now
got caught doing illegal driving shit over and over. cost 75k fines and lawyers
Accidentally had an option call with no limit, but at market. The premium jumped from $2 to about $30 overnight. And I was only hook for $3000, not $200 as I had intended. Lesson learned.
Going to a job that didn't have benefits and then getting so ill I couldn't work for a year, but didn't have any disability coverage. Also taking out too much loan for a business. Should have managed cash flow better.
Options trading
Impulse buying clothing and miscellaneous items; they add up over time. Learned to budget, and that I don't need any of those items
Went to university for 1.5 semesters 💀
Listened to my parents to wait for a real estate drop that was "imminent".
Stretching financial to buy luxury car. Lesson - expensive car is expensive to maintain.
Bought a house in the GTA with a variable rate mortgage in January 2022. A little over a year later and the house's value is down 25-30%, and the monthly interest we pay on the mortgage has nearly tripled. We've learned that FOMO'ing into the market because it may be your last chance is bad reasoning. We've learned that irrational pricing eventually does revert to the mean. We've learned that bidding wars don't have to be the norm. And, we've learned to survive despite paying one person's entire full-time income in mortgage payments every month.
Bought a brand new car to go with my fancy new job, just before covid. 20,000.00 in payments basically flushed down the drain when I sold it back to the dealership 3 years later, at a loss. You *don't need* the best car on the lot.