What was your biggest money blunder?

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: SWScorch
I once lost my wallet with $200 bucks in it. No idea how I lost it. Luckily, two years later, I was walking by the pond behind our house, and saw something lying in the mud. I picked it up, and it was my wallet! The money was still in there, just stuck together. Brought it to a bank and got my money back So that has a happy ending.

Over Christmas, I bought my gf some presents, and since I never use a checkbook register, I only keep a rough estimate of how much money I have in my account in my head. I knew I'd be getting low, so I deposited $150 in the account. Unbeknownst to me, the bank doesn't actually credit your account until 2 days after the deposit (fvcking bastards). I then bought a sub from Subway, which overdrew my account by 8 cents, costing me $32 in insufficient funds fees. Then, all the purchases I made on gifts came through, each one incurring its own insufficient fund charge. $160 in fees because of that. Pissed me off to no end.

I think banks have way too much license to screw you when stuff like that happens.

 

[Budmantom]

1st marriage, I asked her to leave, I gave her a newer car and told her I would take care of all the debt($30k).

It still hurts, financially.


Tom

 

[Garion]

Two things come to mind..

1: Just after high school, I opened an account with a smaller bank in Phoenix. The account package I took offered me a $1,000 overdraft protection service as one of this minor line items. Back then, I was dumb and didn't track my finances well. I started the account with a couple of grand, and then did normal payments and deposits into it. A couple of months later, I thought I had plenty of $$ in the bank, but I found out that when I looked at the balance available on the ATM screen or ATM receipts, it shows what I cash I had in the account PLUS the $1,000 overdraft. i.e., if I had $300 in the account, it showed I had $1,300 available. Needless to say, I drained the account and they came calling for their $1,000.

Bought $1,500 of pre-IPO stock in my company (AT&T Wireless) at $31.5 after all the corporate hype. Cingular bought them out at $15.

- G

 

Lost a few grand in the stock market during the tech crash.

 

[Doggiedog]

Bought $250K in one Internet stock never to see the light of day. Sold it at $25K.

Bought into a private placement at $50K (was worth $250K at one point) but was locked in for 1 year. Still have it and its worth about $4K.

Edit: Bought $20K in a stock, got impatient, sold it 2 weeks bf it took off at a loss. I would have ended up with $3M if I held it 2 months.

 

[Arkitech]

7 years ago took a 200 dollar cab ride only to find out later I could have taken a shuttle for free



scuse me while I go cry

 

[murban135]

Not investing in the stock market earlier.

 

[cmdrmoocow]

A grand in trying to visit Russia: Visa, invitation, plane ticket, etc....

Big mess.

 

[KK]

Originally posted by: Garion


Bought $1,500 of pre-IPO stock in my company (AT&T Wireless) at $31.5 after all the corporate hype. Cingular bought them out at $15.

- G

I was lucky enough not to be one of the ones that got involved in that.

My biggest money thing was investing 1,000 or so in tech stocks.

 

[cyclistca]

I use to work for a company called Nortel. Got my deferred profit sharing in stock and decided to put most of my retirement contributions in the stock. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: Yossarian

Originally posted by: Banana
So many . . . But the biggest in recent memory was when I failed to use about $1300 saved in my flex spending account. Lost it all The account manager said that my claim was a cosmetic procedure, so she denied it. No, it wasn't penis enlargement.

Looks like I win the dumbass prize.

goddam I hated those flex spending accounts. what a fvcking scam. let's see, guess how much money I'm gonna need to spend on sickness for the year, if I underestimate I'm screwed, if I overestimate I'm screwed.

You should be allowed to use over the counter medicines and such now.

 

[erub]

Convinced my dad to buy a computer off of ebay for $1300..sent a check to Florida..never saw it

Luckily it wasnt my money, but I still feel bad about it..my mom doesn't trust internet purchases to this day

Other than that, car accidents/tickets - between me and my parents (outside of insurance coverage) - probably $7000 over the last five years..

 

[edro]

$1200 laptop for school... used ones for about the same performance were ~$600.

 

[Bumrush99]

Lets see, I think it was 1998.

CompUSA or whatever it was called back then:

HP POS CRAP Pentium 1 166
64MB Memory
POS 4,3GB Hard Drive
High End S3 Virge 2MB Onboard Card

Woohoo Bundle Deal discount!!

HP POS Inkjet Printer 2 PPM, broke after 3 months

HP 15 Inch Monitor, 1024 resolution @ 60hz!!

All for only $$2500!!


The kicker- Belkin SURGE Protector, NOT BATTERY BACKUP - $90

 

[DurocShark]

Getting married.

 

[CPA]

two:

bought $500 worth of Enron stock when it plummetted to $13/share. Thought it would bounce back. Oh well.

put $1000 earnest on a pool contract for a house we ended up not purchasing. The house we ended up purchasing costed much more and we had to put more money down, so I wouldn't have enough for the pool. Had to cancel the pool contract and lost my $1K. Should have been more patient.

 

[Kev]

Originally posted by: Doggiedog
Bought $250K in one Internet stock never to see the light of day. Sold it at $25K.

Bought into a private placement at $50K (was worth $250K at one point) but was locked in for 1 year. Still have it and its worth about $4K.

Edit: Bought $20K in a stock, got impatient, sold it 2 weeks bf it took off at a loss. I would have ended up with $3M if I held it 2 months.

:shocked:

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Yossarian

Originally posted by: Banana
So many . . . But the biggest in recent memory was when I failed to use about $1300 saved in my flex spending account. Lost it all The account manager said that my claim was a cosmetic procedure, so she denied it. No, it wasn't penis enlargement.

Looks like I win the dumbass prize.

goddam I hated those flex spending accounts. what a fvcking scam. let's see, guess how much money I'm gonna need to spend on sickness for the year, if I underestimate I'm screwed, if I overestimate I'm screwed.

My fiance has one of those useless pieces of sh|t too.

They're just a way to dump the increased cost of health insurance back on the employees. They're horsesh|t, plain and simple.

Whoever thought of those needs to be gutted and left to die in a ditch.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: erub
Convinced my dad to buy a computer off of ebay for $1300..sent a check to Florida..never saw it

Luckily it wasnt my money, but I still feel bad about it..my mom doesn't trust internet purchases to this day

Other than that, car accidents/tickets - between me and my parents (outside of insurance coverage) - probably $7000 over the last five years..

I would feel better about that if it was my money.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: Yossarian

Originally posted by: Banana
So many . . . But the biggest in recent memory was when I failed to use about $1300 saved in my flex spending account. Lost it all The account manager said that my claim was a cosmetic procedure, so she denied it. No, it wasn't penis enlargement.

Looks like I win the dumbass prize.

goddam I hated those flex spending accounts. what a fvcking scam. let's see, guess how much money I'm gonna need to spend on sickness for the year, if I underestimate I'm screwed, if I overestimate I'm screwed.

How are you screwed if you underestimate?

This is my first year with a flex account, and I can already tell I've underestimated the amount I'll need. So when the money runs out, I'll just pay in cash, same as normal. I'll still have saved the tax on that $600 that I put in the account. No loss - I just won't be able to save as much as I could have if I had put more in.

 

[Feneant2]

Invested just over 40K canadian in the stock market in 2000- was down to around 15000 a year later. Some very dumb mistakes in my part, such as buying an IPO and an overhyped tech stock which plummeted to 0.01$ a share when I sold it.

 

[SithSolo1]

Lost wallet age 9, $150
New computer age 17, $3500 for a 500mhz P3, 4x DVD-Rom, 128MB PC100 ram, 19 monitor, 16MB video card, tv-tuner
New cell phone age 20, $310 3 months later it was $70
NEX 3520 16 DVD-Burner, $70 got it 8 or so days ago and I still haven't installed

 

[Doggiedog]

Originally posted by: SithSolo1
Lost wallet age 9, $150
New computer age 17, $3500 for a 500mhz P3, 4x DVD-Rom, 128MB PC100 ram, 19 monitor, 16MB video card, tv-tuner
New cell phone age 20, $310 3 months later it was $70
NEC 3520 16 DVD-Burner, $70 got it 8 or so days ago and I still haven't installed

Could have been worse.

I waited 2+ years to get a DVD-burner and bought 2 NEC 3500As for $75/each. 2 weeks later its $48 and then a week later the 3520 comes out.

 

[AStar617]

Does this count?

Came aboard my privately-held company in 2000 when the tech sector was still the land of milk and honey, and my compensation offer included 1000 stock options at $1 per share ("Stock A"). Of course, even after buying in, Stock A would be effectively worthless on the open market until the company went public or a rare buyback occurred, so I didn't pull the trigger, not wanting to spend that size a sum of money on something so immediately intangible. No harm, no foul, I still would have the option to buy anytime at the same price, and would do so if/when the company had its IPO, which looked to be very soon at that time.

Soon the tech market dried up, and I was looking to be the wiser of the option holders for not jumping as our company did a complete 180, almost to the Jedi-Mind-Trick point of denying they ever intended to go public. Whatever.

Fast forward a year or so. A division of our company got spun off into its own entity, As someone who had not yet took the stock option, this adjusted the stock options I had to reflect a greater interest in the resultant Stock A shares at a lower per-share cost. For those who did buy into the option, they received one share of the newly formed, still-privately-held company ("Stock B") for every share of Stock A they had bought before. Still didn't appear to be a big deal since none effectively had any worth on the open market.

Well last year, Stock B became worth something. A LOT of something. The spinoff was bought by a publicly-traded company, and all Stock B shares converted 1:1 to that of the buying company ("Stock C"). Stock C was trading on NASDAQ at $33 per share at the time!

Cliffs:

- Offered comp. package I couldn't refuse, including 1000@$1 private stock options, before dot-com bust; I hold off on buying
- Market goes south, company pulls out of IPO, I am temporarily teh WINNAR for not spending the grand :thumbsup:
- Company spins off division, I get option adjustment instead of 1:1 spinoff stock because I hadn't yet bought into the option
- Spinoff acquired by public company, shares converted 1:1, I don't get $33,000 and am ultimately teh L0s3r :thumbsdown::thumbsdown:
- I drink a lot more now

 

[CTrain]

A girl I dated in Fla went back to school in Hawaii.
We decided to meet up in Cali and hang out for 2 weeks.
I paid for everything.
The the end of the trip, she said "Can we just be friends ?"
That trip cost me me around $3000 for both me and her.