Biggest monetary mistake youve ever made

[nath]

The whores. Definitely the whores.

[homeslice]

Buying a brand new car out of college in the late 90's. Tied up most of my assets the first two years. Could have used the dough and really invested in the NASDAQ high flyers.

[lozen]

Buying my Ex a car as her ex was screwing her. Guess she screwed us both in many ways

[disjunction]

Tie:

(1) Not selling my brother's company at the high after its IPO. Hard to fault myself for this, because if I were the selling type, I would have sold it before it hit its max, at the same price I sold it for anyway. About an 80K mistake.

(2) Two months ago, quitting my job to go to grad school full-time. I thought this would free up more time to play poker, and it hasn't.

[paperboyNC]

Lost 2k in the dotcom crash. Though overall I'm up over 30k in the stock market.

I've lost more than that at blackjack or poker at times, but I'm a net winner at both games so it's not really a mistake.

I've never bought a new car, did spend about 10k having a long-distance relationship (flying almost EVERY weekend) adds up.

[The X-Factor]

Buying my ex and engagement ring 3k down the drain....

[BiPolar_Nut]

[ QUOTE ]
3rd suicide attempt, still have no feeling in about 80% of my left side.

[/ QUOTE ]

But what was the monetary loss?

My worst was buying a house that I didn't stay in for at least 3 yrs...not a big hit tho.

Worst monetary loss as a percentage of liquid cash would have been spending my only nickle on a $0.05 popcicle at age 7, then dropping it down a sewer grate while fumbling to open it as soon as I walked out of the candy store.

[doubLe a tom]

DWI, havent had court yet but I imagine its gonna cost me a good chunk of change.

[omgwtf]

Has nobody else ever lost some real money?

In 1999 I sold my stock in a company I helped build, but had previously had a falling out with. I got a cash settlement of > $500K. Most of that went into the stock market because I was confident I could figure that out.

It took some time and a lot of effort and learning on my part, but I got very good at it. In & out of stocks and options with great timing, I was up to $4 million on March 15 2000. That was the day I moved into my new office to start a software company. I wanted to do something more productive with my skills, so I sunk a bunch of money into this new software company and devoted 100% of my effort to my company from that point onward.

I was so focused on my software company that I didn't even check my account, let alone stay current with market trends and warning signs. All of my positions were long and my account was margined. When the crash came, the market fell so hard and fast that at one point during the day my net account value was about -$100K. And no, I didn't have other cash on hand.

The market rebounded slightly just in time and I ended the day at about $1 million. I should have sold everything but since I was completely out of touch at the time, I didn't realize how serious and long-term the downswing would be. And normally, after a steep fall in stock price is the worst time to sell. By the time it was obvious the market was not coming back, my brokerage account had eroded to be less than what I've made playing poker.

As for the company, it ran out of money when investments dried up after 9/11, and subsequently went through a Chapter 11 reorg. Since then it has survived, but never managed to make it out of bootstrap mode.

So my bad decision was abruptly abandoning my active trading, leaving all of my market positions in place while I started a new company. This decision cost me $4 million.

[jackdaniels]

[ QUOTE ]
Has nobody else ever lost some real money?

In 1999 I sold my stock in a company I helped build, but had previously had a falling out with. I got a cash settlement of > $500K. Most of that went into the stock market because I was confident I could figure that out.

It took some time and a lot of effort and learning on my part, but I got very good at it. In & out of stocks and options with great timing, I was up to $4 million on March 15 2000. That was the day I moved into my new office to start a software company. I wanted to do something more productive with my skills, so I sunk a bunch of money into this new software company and devoted 100% of my effort to my company from that point onward.

I was so focused on my software company that I didn't even check my account, let alone stay current with market trends and warning signs. All of my positions were long and my account was margined. When the crash came, the market fell so hard and fast that at one point during the day my net account value was about -$100K. And no, I didn't have other cash on hand.

The market rebounded slightly just in time and I ended the day at about $1 million. I should have sold everything but since I was completely out of touch at the time, I didn't realize how serious and long-term the downswing would be. And normally, after a steep fall in stock price is the worst time to sell. By the time it was obvious the market was not coming back, my brokerage account had eroded to be less than what I've made playing poker.

As for the company, it ran out of money when investments dried up after 9/11, and subsequently went through a Chapter 11 reorg. Since then it has survived, but never managed to make it out of bootstrap mode.

So my bad decision was abruptly abandoning my active trading, leaving all of my market positions in place while I started a new company. This decision cost me $4 million.

[/ QUOTE ]

You win this thread.