Know Top Finance Authors’ Best and Worst Ever Money Decisions?

The one decision that makes us cringe to this very day. The one other decision we’re incredibly happy to have made. These worst & best decisions aren’t limited to money decisions, but that’s what we’ll dig into today…

Know Top Finance Authors’ Best and Worst Ever Money Decisions?

I’m happy to share my own worst-ever financial decision if it helps you avoid making a similar mistake, but I’m even happier to share those made by my colleague personal finance authors.

Worst-Ever Money Decisions Revealed by Top Personal Finance Authors

I Fess Up

At $8000 ($15,800 in today’s dollars), it was 4 times the $2000 I had available in cash for the deal. The helpful dealership finance guy hooked me up with an easy auto loan for the missing $6000, at 10.4% annual interest!

Going to university. For some people it works, for me it did not and landed me in £12k worth of debt. That’s nowhere near as bad as how much it costs now of course (this was back in 2003-2006) but it’s still a big old chunk of money I wasted.

Charlie Brown’s Mistake

Best Money Decisions Revealed by Top Personal Finance Authors

Now we come to those financial decisions we’re happiest we made… I’ll lead off again.

First, buying my first home in 2000. It was the first step to financial independence, insulating me from rent increases, and allowing me to benefit hugely from a runup in real estate values – in the 5 years I owned it before selling, it doubled in value.

My Best Financial Decisions

Ben’s Greatest Financial Decision

“Starting a side hustle doing work I am obsessed with and investing 100% of the profits in low-cost index funds.”

What we see here is that financial mistakes come in all shapes and sizes. The thing we all have in common is that our best decisions involved taking a leap of faith and pursuing financial freedom through something we enjoy doing.

The Bottom Line