> greatest regrets as an investor

“Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention …”

I, personally, have a “no look back” policy. I’ve seen folks drive themselves nuts, literally, over choices made decades before. So, I don’t REGRET. I’ve made mistakes, blunder, and brain freezes. I’ll share one of the many financial lessons I’ve learned after paying some very expensive “tuition” at the University of Hard Knocks.

The biggest “lesson”, what you’d call a regret, is that, from youth to middle age, I always spent money like a drunken sailor. Savings were for old people. I had some thrifty relatives, but they never transferred that wisdom to me. During this period, I had many investment opportunities, ideas, and opportunities that I couldn’t, wouldn’t, or didn’t take advantage of. In hindsight, I would have been fantastically wealthy if I had taken advantage of them.

You want a specific. I worked on Wall Street and, during that ‘drunken sailor’ era, I thought I knew it all. I “invested” in all sorts of stuff pushed by my employers — the worst was Real Estate Unit Trust. They were dogs; the organizers and the firm made a lot of money. It was a disaster. And, caused me tax problems.

I wised up at some point in my life and got a real financial planner, who gets paid a fixed fee. They’ve gotten me organized and accumulating. Luckily, in my life, I’ve been lucky to stay employed and earning. Time heals all stupidity?

(I’ll permit myself one “coulda”. I know the “shouldas, couldas, and wouldas” will kill you.)

I “coulda” had a much better and different life if I’d just been a little smarter about money.

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