Whats the most financially costly business/private mistake you've ever made??

[collin]

We've all done it and gone and made a costly business/private financial mistake during our adult lives...so whats yours and how long did it take you to recover or haven't you recovered as yet??

Maybe a tetchy negative thread but we could keep it light hearted and try and come in from a funny or positive angle...:hug:

So come on what is the worst business/personal idea you have been daft enough to come up with that has been an absolute flop and something even you shake your head at when looking back..."why oh why the heck was I daft enough to think that was going to work " kind of thing???

 

[jimboodee2]

This is a good thread Collin, not much has happened to me on the business side of things YET (fingers crossed and all that)..... But recently we were buying a bigger newer house and eveything was in place , we had a buyer etc PERFECT....but a month before we were to move our buyer still had not signed the contract and apparently her circumstances had changed. And with a month to go, we were in a position that either we stay with the new house and pay the builders interest on a daily basis until we sold ours which would be HUGE or settle and run..... They wanted to settle on near 15k..... thats the most expensive purchase I have made with nothing to show for it.....But hey these things happen for a reason ... xxxx

 

[Blue Rose]

Gosh, where do I start???

Hmm, i think I will have to post my answer later when I have more time, lol

 

[redsadie]

Not really made any huge financial mistakes except for getting talked into a credit card I didn't need when I was a student and ran it into the ground. Ouch!

I think though, thinking about the future, my business plan could cost me dear if I don't get it right

What about you Collin? What prompted this thread?

Sarah. xx

 

[steve@nouvatan]

marriage !! its cost me 3 houses

 

[redsadie]

marriage !! its cost me 3 houses

Ouch! :hug:

 

[steve@nouvatan]

Ouch! :hug:

it was worth it i came away with my sanity and dignity intact worth more to me than bricks n mortar

 

[persianista]

I have made lots of mistakes along the way. All of which have been valuable lessons so no regrets.

 

[collin]

What about you Collin? What prompted this thread?

Sarah. xx

Well Sarah...Steve beat me to it..also for me the most expensive mistake ever..well saying "yes" to the vicar at my first wedding...oddly as the words came out of my my mouth I thought..."ouch" this is gonna hurt later in life

Costs me each and every day since then :irked::lol::hug:

 

[Natalieabdn]

I bet you know my one :lol:

It will be worth it though x

 

[collin]

I bet you know my one :lol:

It will be worth it though x

I do Natt's :hug:but I do think in the long run it will finally pay dividends for you ....you've just got to keep up the pressure and hard graft till then :hug:

 

[FlawlessBeauty]

I have one, not a major sting, but about £400, which means a lot to me.

I agreed to an advertising deal. I paid in stages, made up an attractive advert and it was printed on the appointment cards for the local health centre. Its a big, busy place and i thought it sounded like a good deal.

The cards were running for two years and whenever they reprinted, about every 3 months, i could change my advert.

What they didn't tell me was that everybody and anybody was giving the health centre free cards and they have tons of boxes of them. They just pick a box at random and use those.

I was gutted but it was in my early days and definitely a learning curve

 

[diesel1978]

My biggest financial mistake has to be my friends oh and the ex!

At 20 my ex borrowed circa £10k on my Credit cards and initially was paying it back. Then one day he turned round and said he was'nt paying it anymore! I should of got rid of him then! However i did'nt ...it took me another 8 years to get shut! I paid off the £10 k in 2 years and worked my ass off to do it ...then spent another £6k in solicitors and court fees etc to get him out of my life!!

Then to top it all my best friend who i have always helped out financially asked to borrow £300 for a few days until she got paid so that she could go to Leeds Fest. Of course i gave her my card and told her to take the money out and bring it back a few days later when she had the money back! well she did'nt come or call or text! I then found out she had also paid her rent on my card!!!! It's been a year and we have been in contact! there have been tears and promises but as of yet i am still waiting!!

Business wise nope never made a major boo boo until recently! Financially i can make it work what it has cost me........however i feel like a fool and a failure lol and that seems worse than any money i have lost!!

The words MUG sping to mind lol!!! x

 

[Lynne Baker]

I signed a pre nup before my first marriage truly believing that my husband would behave honourably should the worst ever happen.
How wrong I was. Not only did he insist on the pre nup to the tune of 28K, but he took 6k out of our joint building society account, and three weeks before telling me he was divorcing me I signed a joint loan agreement for another 6k for a truck (for which I was not insured to drive)
I was very hurt, but I was a horrible person in those days so I guess I had it coming.

 

[Northern Nails]

We've all done it and gone and made a costly business/private financial mistake during our adult lives...so whats yours and how long did it take you to recover or haven't you recovered as yet??

Maybe a tetchy negative thread but we could keep it light hearted and try and come in from a funny or positive angle...:hug:

So come on what is the worst business/personal idea you have been daft enough to come up with that has been an absolute flop and something even you shake your head at when looking back..."why oh why the heck was I daft enough to think that was going to work " kind of thing???

OMG!! Nothing as major as the other posts.
For me this would have to be freebies. For example, doing free repairs...

Not anymore though...:lol:

Luckily thats has bad has it got, hehe

 

[kennedia]

This ones easy for me - sheer stupidity.

Moved to a bigger, nicer house last year. Borrowed £10K more than I needed to on the mortgage. Blew it all on, well shopping in Harvey Nicks and holidays if I'm honest and now I can't afford to do semi-permanent make up training.

You have to learn from your mistakes though - so now i'm doing hair extensions to save up for it. Every mistake you learn from is not a mistake it's a lesson. You just have to look for another route.

Joy xx

 

[Blue Rose]

This thread has made me look back over my life & boy what a MUG I have been.

1st time I got stung was when an opportunity came up to buy another beauty salon, back in 1997. I bought it as a 'going concern'. Hmm, her version of that & mine were pretty different as on the Monday when I took over I realised she'd been in over the weekend, phoned all her clients & started doing them from home. Her full timer did the same with her clients. I was left with a part-timer who didn't have many clients so income was pretty zilch.

I kept that going for a year before having to pull the plug. Very nearly ended up bankrupt. Was out of pocket by oohh £30k or thereabouts

A few years later I was bored with my little salon & felt in need of another challenge. Started an online chocolate business called Dedicated to Chocolate. My now ex hubby thought it would be a good idea to open a shop, so I did. (He really, really, really should have known better than to put ideas in my head!!!). In hindsight, it was in the wrong location & went t*ts up after a few months. Out of pocket by many 000's!

Some of you may remember reading about the next disaster.

Last year I employed my then friend to do some admin work for me & to sort out a client database on the laptop. I trusted her to do the work & paid her weekly accordingly. Long story short, she never did ANY of the work but was happy to take nearly £1500 off me over the course of a few weeks.

Persued it through the courts to try & get my money back. She declared herself bankrupt so she wouldn't have to!! That little disaster cost me the least financially but hurt the most cos she was supposed to have been my friend but blatently stole from me :irked:

So there you go. I seem to lurch from 1 disaster to another & wonder when oh when I will ever learn.

 

[Becca Bee]

I think my worst business mistake was when i agreed to take the manufacturing division of the family engineering company on. I'd worked alongside my dad and brother for 10 years, i thought i could do it, 3rd generation engineer... my dad retired, my brother ran the sales side, and left me with the biggest millstone, a manufacturing division, riddled with debt, huge rent on a industrial unit, it used to cost just shy of a grand a week to heat in the winter and clapped out machinery.

It was the most stressful 4 years of my life, i persuaded my now ex to re-mortgage the house, to pump a huge pile of cash into the business. In the end, my vindictive sister in law manipulated my brother, and effectively didn't pay me for 5 months, so i ran out of cash flow, sold the company to them for £2, and handed over a profitable business to them (it came to me in such a state). She killed in just under 3 years, her customer service was worse than sh*te...

It cost me many tens of thousands, my marriage and led to a serious case of depression, but it alos focused my mind, i ended up temping for half what i used to earn, i retrained as a beauty therapist, and now have 2 jobs...

I am so much happier now, and i'm even on better terms with my brother,
especially now he's divorced my ex sister in law...

i'm no longer bitter, things can only get better to be honest...

Rebecca

 

[Bagpuss]

borrowing my way out of debt....re-mortaging the house to try and get out of debt....not seeing that i had a debt problem sooner....not getting debt help sooner......BUT...that was 5 years ago and have been 100% debt free since......huge lessons learnt...and even bigger "whats important" lessons learnt....and those things are FREE

 

[Ruth Mills]

Hmm, perhaps it was remortaging on a 10 year fixed rate at 5.64% in the summer of 2007, whereas I'd be paying 1.5% at the moment if I'd stayed on my previous deal! And the BBC says that the interest rates are probably going to stay low until at least 2014 in the news at the moment!