Article created by: Mantas Kačerauskas
In a perfect world, every financial decision would be well-thought out and rational. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a perfect world, and people make bad money-related choices time and again. Whether it’s bad luck or plain foolishness to blame, some are so unfortunate, they sound too bad to be true.
Oh, but they are; members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community recently discussed some of such instances. The user u/BasalTripod9684 asked them about the worst financial decisions they’ve ever seen others make, and they were ready with stories, covering everything from scammers to gambling, and beyond. Scroll down to find their answers on the list below and use this chance to learn from someone else’s mistakes.
My former sister-in-law had a thriving medical practice. She got so stressed that she joined the Scientologist and started taking their classes. She opened up five-six credit cards without telling my brother, maxed the cards out with hundreds of thousands in cash withdrawals, and gave it to that people.
My cousin spent 100% of her inheritance and took out a lien on her home to buy a 2nd home in the mountains… thing is it was being pushed over by a mountain…and they thought they could fix it… I went and seen it and every door jam was crooked and the doors wouldn’t shut.. They took me down into the basement and they were trying to use I beams to “stop the mountain from pushing on the home”. I was just like “what are you doing, that won’t solve anything” fast forward 6 months and they asked me for 50k to help and I declined. Fast forward a year and the home collapsed and now they owe over 300k+ for a home that doesn’t exist and if they don’t make the payments they lose their other house too because they used the original home as collateral and could not get insurance on the 2nd home..total money lost upwards of 700k
Put everything in his gf’s name to hide assets as he owed the IRS, the gf sold his business, cashed out his accounts and ran.
They won thousands of dollars and bought a new entertainment system instead of getting current on their mortgage. Foreclosed on later that year. The thing was, the area had recently become the new fancy area for young families, and housing prices had skyrocketed. They easily could have just sold the house, paid cash for a larger house 20 minutes up the road, and still had tens of thousands leftover.
My brother’s ex fell for a Craig’s list scam. She found a motorcycle and the guy “needed money up front to pay bills” before she even saw it. We told her don’t do it, it’s a scam. She said she already sent $1000. Of course, he was never available to show her the bike and we found out from my brother after they broke up she actually continued sending him money in hopes of getting the motorcycle. I think she was out $3,000 by the end.
A guy in my fraternity got 30k for an undisclosed reason, I’m guessing a family loss or something and he bet it all on the Yankees winning one game. They lost
My (awful) aunt was the trustee for my grandparents’ estate. When they passed, she decided to sell their house to a random realtor who put a leaflet on the door. TO the realtor, not WITH the realtor. It wasn’t put on the market, and the aunt rejected a matching offer by me after I argued hard to actually list the house and have people bid on it.
The realtor slapped a new coat of paint on it and sold it a couple of months later for literally a million dollars more than she bought it for.
My supervisor took out a loan against their 401k to pay their rent because “their credit cards were maxed.” Two weeks later, they bought a brand new 60k Lincoln with basically nothing down because “her daughter just had a baby and I need a bigger car for that.”
A friend of mine who is very bad with money and his girlfriend bought some sort of water filtration system from a door to door salesman. He has to pay something like $300/month for this filtration system. He was all stoked because it came with a free set of pots and pans.
Fast forward a year and his girlfriend has broken up with him, moved out of the house, and he’s had to sell his home because he can’t afford to live there. The water filtration system is now sitting in a storage unit where he still pays $300/month for it because he’s on a 2 or 3 year contract (sorry the details are fuzzy).
We have great water quality in my area.
Apply for a 5k loan, didn’t accept quick enough so applied for another 5k loan, both got accepted and ended up gambling it all
A dude who owned a small convenience store in our town spent like $20,000 on fidget spinners. He was posting for like a year begging people to buy them as he would lose his business and his marriage was falling apart due to it.
A guy I dated for a short time had been joining a MLM scheme selling insurances.
I listened to his monologue and told him I had no money. He was furios and tried to sell insurance to our waiter at the restaurant. He failed again. I’m still laughing today, he was no good guy.
Knew someone who answered those scam emails thinking they would get rich. Last I heard, he lost around $50k. Emptied out savings account and maxed out credit cards. Left in debt and had to move back with ailing parents. Not a close to them at all but more like a friend of a friend of a friend’s cousin. Genuinely thought he was going to be a millionaire. They kept stringing him along until the bitter end and then…poof. Biggest concern his friends had was him trying to milk his ailing parents for their last nickel and dime. Fortunately, he wised up and knew he been had. The last I heard of him was he had an hourly job somewhere and trying to get out of debt.