20 People Share What Not To Spend Your Money On

Sadly, we are not destined to live perfect lives. In fact, we need to make mistakes and learn from our mistakes. Along the way, we can share our life lessons and hope others may learn from it without having to live through it too but really that’s the best we can hope for at this point. There are so many things in life we want to experience and life is the biggest teacher of all.

#1

Image source: BehindTrenches, Stephen Phillips – Hostreviews.co.uk

I was not good at checking my company email inbox, nothing important came through there anyway (we mostly used Slack). And that is how I missed the deadline for my company’s IPO. They offered us stock at $10 and it opened at $40.

Now I read my emails.

#2

Image source: Stoneluthiery, Chanhee Lee

Agreed to take over my ex gfs bills so that she could pay off her debts. 5 years and over $100,000 of my money later she was in more debt than when we started and cheating on me. Don’t ever do this, just make her be an adult or dump her a*s. It’s never worth it

#3

Image source: SaulWellandGood, Alex Green

Took a job way up North in Canada. Quit my old job, got rid of tons of stuff, had my dad help sell my house, etc. This was in 2019/early 2020 just before COVID hit big. I ended up hating the job up North; it was terrible. Went back home, somehow managed to get my old job back, but my house is gone and I can’t afford a new one in the current market. Stupid, idiotic decision on my part, and it keeps me up at night. I hate where I am in life right now. Stupid big expensive mistake that I’ll regret for the rest of my life.

#4

Image source: elieayoub, Eduardo Soares

Kept my money in a bank ($ 150,000) because they were offering high interest rates in a country with questionable economic condition where i lived at the time. The entire system crashed and i can’t access my money since 2019 while the bank keeps charging me monthly fees, slowly draining my savings. Welcome to Lebanon.

#5

I co-signed a loan for my girlfriend at the time. I was 20 and in love. She bought the car, then put it in her mothers name, filled for bankruptcy, and went to live with the guy she was cheating on me with.

F**k you Christine. Thank you for teaching me at such a young age how s****y people actually are.

Image source: Kyle______

#6

I paid for my ex-girlfriend’s college tuition for three semesters as she ‘just one semester left’-ed me for all three. That was AFTER she got a letter stating she was no longer eligible for the Pell Grant or further loans. So, the banks said, ‘No more,’ but I paid for another year and a half, while also paying all the household bills and supporting her kid.

We broke up, and she had the nerve to talk about what I supposedly OWE her.

Image source:  Suspicious-Self2067

#7

Image source: anon, Martha Dominguez de Gouveia

Timeshare. I went to the seminar for a three nights stay at a beach resort. They got me. Phenomenal salesman, but they lie out of their asses. Spent thousands over a few years, only used the timeshare once, paid a lawyer to get us out of the contract (basically a mortgage). Now we’re free!

#8

Image source: taxable_efficiency, rupixen.com

When I turned 21, I gained full control over my inheritance account. It was how it was written in my grandparents will. At that time, it was only worth $15k.

It was the only time my financial advisor ever met with me. I said I wanted to invest all of it in AAPL.

I still remember the face he made in disgust. “Why would you want to invest in Apple?” I explained that I had just done a college paper on Steve Jobs and I truly believed that now that he was back in charge of the company, he’d turn the stock around. (valued around $1/share at the time, it has split many times since)

He convinced me to stay the course and keep the same investments my parents already had my brokerage invested in. At its peak, it grew to about $70k in value. (I still have the investment today). If I had invested in AAPL at that time like I wanted to, I’d have a cool 10M, and I could retire today.

Trust your gut people.

#9

Image source: Abject-Student-2446, Nick Chong

I discover bitcoin very early: I bought 100 of them at 63 cents a piece.

Sold the whole bunch for 300 dollars.

#10

Image source: ImmuneToTheCure, Pixabay

I invested $890 into a stock and it later became a little over 1.5 million dollars. I did not take the money out because I thought it would go up. I quit my job because I thought I was going to be rich. My stock crashed to worthless, I’m struggling to get by. I could’ve had a house, started a business. Now I have nothing

#11

Image source: useLimhamn, Leitmotiv

Sold my MTG collection in 1998. Almost full power9, 40 revised duals, all the playable cards from beta, legends etc. Sold them for $1000 and bought booze and meth.

Would be able to pay for a house with those cards now.

#12

Image source: orange_cuse, Pixabay

Didn’t contribute to my 401k for like 15 years. what a doof.

CheesyComestibles added:

I just this year started a retirement account. Nobody taught me about this s**t. I’m 12 years into working. I could have had 12 years of gains, but instead got like 10 bucks interest in my savings account.

Why is money management not mandatory for high school graduation? I was taught nothing. I still know very little and trying to teach myself is like pulling teeth.

#13

Image source: eatafetus632, Michal Balog

Bought a mobile home as a starter home. No one ever explained to me as a young adult the importance of investment and future planning. Mobile homes of course do not hold nor increase in value so you never build equity. It’s akin to renting except you have to cover all your own repair costs too.
Terrible financial decision. Don’t buy mobile homes kids. Just don’t do it

#14

Image source: EdwardJStoddard, Inzmam Khan

i went to america for 10 days to visit a buddy of mine. cost me a fortune and i arrived to find he had been absorbed into his new girlfriend and was not the guy who left. Anytime he was away from her he was miserable and didnt want to do anything when he was with her all they wanted to do was have sex so they tried to get rid of me. massive waste of money and the loss of a friendship

#15

Image source: LtDrowsy7788, Artur Tumasjan

Becoming a doctor. At the end of the day, it’s just a job. It wasn’t worth flushing my 20’s down the drain and accumulating a mountain of debt for this. I’m (finally) in a good spot in life now, but I don’t think the sacrifices I made to get here were worth it. Even from a less self-centered point of view, I don’t really do that much good for others with this job. Modern medicine is so much better at dragging out death than it is at improving life, and I’m tired of being a part of it.

#16

Image source: GothTheLife88, Tima Miroshnichenko

At the height of the pandemic, I had a pretty severe “hidden” mental breakdown due to the trauma of isolation/quarentine and general terror over the whole thing. Combined with my own long-standing battle with Bipolar Disorder, I wound up withdrawing €4,000 from my savings account and going on a massively impulsive shopping spree.

Initially I told myself that the money was for a PC/laptop upgrade but as my mental health tanked the further the quarentine went on, I just kept spending in a desperate bid to feel something other than the crushing terror and uncertainty, chasing the fleeting dopamine hits that come from impulse purchases.

That was nearly 3 years ago and I’m still trying my damndest to build up my savings again. I hope I ever have another breakdown that bad as it was so embarassing when I eventually told my parents the full extent of the spree.

To add insult to injury, I also got an ill-advised Mohawk so I was both broke and (semi) bald.

Nowadays I’ve grown my hair out but I’m still struggling to recover my savings. Squirelling a away a few bob each week and hoping for the best. Thankfully, I’m on better medication now but yeah, things were bad for a while.

#17

Spending money on in-app purchases for mobile games. Bonuses, upgrades, special features…all so I can loose interest in the game a year later. It’s flushing money down the toilet.

Image source: dark_equus89

#18

Image source: mangotangy, Torsten Dettlaff

5 years ago I bought plane tickets for my ex to come and see me, he cancelled on me 3 days before saying his grandma was on her deathbed (she is currently still alive) I was 16 and I wasted 3 years worth of savings

#19

Image source: RobotGoatBoy, peter lowe

Sold my signed Banksy prints for a couple of grand to fund a new kitchen. Saw the same prints a couple of years later selling for £80,000.

Blurgh. Just swallowed another mouthful of sick thinking about it (and they did a s**t job of the new kitchen floor).

#20

Image source: khendron, energepic.com

Nearing the end of the dotcom boom (it hadn’t busted yet) I had a about s**t ton of stock options to exercise. I was about to do it, when I heard that my Dad was entering the hospital for a cancer operation. I put the stock options exercise on hold for a week and went to be with my Dad (and Mom).

While my Dad was in the hospital, my company released an earnings warning and our stock price got annihilated. When I did eventually exercise my options, I was down about $1,000,000 from where I was before my Dad entered the hospital.

For the record, my Dad is OK. And if faced with the same situation I would make the same decision. It might have been a big *money* mistake, but it was not a mistake.