Age definitely helps. The older I get the more forgiving I have become. Thank you for your comment.

Thank you for your comment Xrayvsn. A $2 million dollar financial hit is a big one! I’ve made minor money mistakes and some medium sized ones, but not too many giant ones that were out of my control. Honestly, all of them hurt about the same for me. The big ones stung just as much as the little ones, but you are right I learned a whole lot about myself and how to mitigate risks moving forward. Thank you for sharing your story and congratulations on reaching FI by age 50!

As a side note, I’m actually a long time reader of your blog, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever left a comment! 😉

When I started blogging I decided to start out with a series of all the financial mistakes I made in my life. It ended up being a 5 part series and along the way I kept total of the estimated hit to my financial net worth. It was shocking but when I totaled it up I came up with close to $2 million dollar financial hit. But those mistakes shaped me in to the person today and I am happy to say I more than recouped that loss several fold over and became financially independent before my 50th birthday.

Am I perfect now? No. I still make mistakes. Most recent one was selling my tesla stock way too early (took a $7k profit when I sold in 2019 but if I held on to it would have had over a $160k profit. It stings but not the end of the world.

Thank you for your comment. I completely agree. My biggest mistakes in life have certainly provided the most profound lessons!

I’m hoping that writing down my mistakes will help me purge them from my mind and move past them. I find it difficult to change my money mindset after 40 years of thinking this way. The impact to my finances is certainly not significant, but I’d like to make the mistake, think about it for a brief moment, learn from it and move on. So far, I still let the thoughts linger in the back of my mind.

I just sent a package to USPS a week or two ago that appears to be lost. If it doesn’t turn up it looks like I’ll have to undergo the nightmare insurance claim filing process. I’m crossing my fingers it just gets to where it needs to be!

And re: post office insurance, I sold some things on EBAY a while back, and I vowed never to buy insurance again. They have so many restrictions on the insurance that it’s nearly impossible to collect it. They’re happy to take the insurance fee, but in order to collect it you have to prove the worth of the contents, receipts for whatever you shipped etc.

Hi Steveark, Your comment reminded me of my worst money mistake. Just before the Great Recession my CEO held a forum for all employees. He calmed our fears and told us the news of mortgage failures and banking problems were unfounded and that our company was rock solid. My husband and I doubled our efforts and bought extra company stock. It tumbled and became absolutely worthless just after that. Our CEO was a liar and we paid the penalty for believing him. My options also became worthless at the same time and my retirement fund went from over $30,000 down to zero. So, yup, I feel you on this one!!!

Money mistakes can really make you second guess your decisions can’t they? The higher interest rate isn’t so bad, (especially if you can pay it off in 5 years), but the fact that it adjusts could be. The low monthly payment is great. My husband and I put ourselves into a bad situation with two mortgages with 10 year terms. I would never do that again and I am so happy they are now paid off! I hope to never have a mortgage again, but if I did I would choose a lower payback plan and just throw extra at it so we don’t feel so strapped for cash.