What’s the best financial decision you have ever made ?

29 comments

1. After getting married I gave up having any chance at a good or even par financial decision.

2. Buying a house in 2019.

3. Finally investing in a rental property 8 years ago.

4. Real-estate. Having a rental property has made a nice cushion. People always need a place to live!

5. I started a 401(k) when I was 20 years old

6. Stopping gambling

7. Vasectomy.

8. Starting over after leaving an ex. It was terrifying not knowing how things would turn out, but it was necessary to achieve my career path and to better my mental health.

9. Buying a house in 2018.

   We’d been planning to save for a few more years, but when our landlord unexpectedly sold the building and told us that the new owners were planning on terminating everyone’s leases, rather than paying to move into another apartment we scraped together all the money we could with what we’d already saved (including our wedding fund since we were engaged at that point) and used it as a down payment on a house.

   PMI sucks but if we’d waited a few more years to buy, I wouldn’t be able to afford a single house in this town today.

10. staying with parents for an extra year and saving up as much as possible.

11. Quit teaching and took a corporate job

    I now pay about 4x more in taxes than I earned as a teacher.

12. Sell my soul to get the bag out of college. Got into software dev and stuffed money into investments for 5 years before I let myself live a little.

    It definitely wasn’t ideal from a social or mental health point of view, but I’m thankful to my past self for the sacrifice. It’s set me up really well for later stages of life and given me options.

13. Started putting money into my 401k when I was about 20 years old. I put as much in as I could afford, and avoided buying unnecessary things like fancier cars, stereos, or flashy smartphones like my friends who worked with me did. Despite only having a retail job and a teaching job, neither of which pay well, I’m on track to retire a millionaire.

14. Learning English and choosing the software engineer career instead of psychology.

    Also probably vasectomy at 24 will pay off the dividends in the future haha.

15. Bought a house when I was 22 back in 2021. People thought I was out of my fucking mind lol. Definitely had my doubts at first and stayed up late many nights wondering if I made the worst financial decision of my life. So far it has proven to be a very good

16. My dad always said “pay yourself first” meaning save 10% of everything you make. I’ve made that a rule in my adult life and it’s really paying off.

17. Got married *to the right woman*.

    It was not a financial decision at the time, but it worked out that way.

18. Investing in index funds.

19. It’s going to sound ass-backwards, but here we go…

    Declaring bankruptcy.

    About 15 years ago, I was in debt up to my eyeballs. It wasn’t any one thing, just years of horrible spending habits, credit cards, etc. I thought I could manage it. And I was. Barely. Then, one of my credit cards, that had like a $12,000 or $15,000 balance or something like that realized I was in deep. They jacked my payments up from a few hundred a month to about a thousand a month. I pulled it off for a few months by renting out a spare bedroom, selling plasma, walking to work, etc.

    But then my fiancee (yeah, I was trying to keep a relationship going too) suggested I just go ahead and declare bankruptcy. It was personally embarrassing but I realized I truly did not have any other choice. I was living in a tiny home that I owned, zero equity in it, negative equity in fact, the foundation was crumbling, etc.

    So I did it. It was in early 2010 when we were in an economic downturn and tons of people were declaring bankruptcy. It was a few months-long process and I was nervous for most of it. My income was slightly above some “automatic” level whereby a judge would automatically OK the bankruptcy. I was terrified they wouldn’t approve it.

    But the judge OK’d it, along with losing the house which I was 100 percent OK with. It was tiny, the foundation was crumbling, it was 100+ years old, etc.

    We got a rental house, did end up getting married and still are to this day. In great financial shape. Own a nice home. The bankruptcy has fallen off my credit, and both of us are at 800+ credit scores.

20. Living within my means. It’s the first step to becoming financially sound and far too many people never get that far.

21. We were in Vegas. It was 2am, catching a plane home at 6am. Went to the $2 BlackJack table with $20 in my pocket. Left at 5:30am with $17 left in my pocket. Played over 100 hands.

    I never felt so rich in my entire life..

22. Not having kids or getting married

23. Buying a pizza with 20 bitcons

24. Moving to Japan, surprisingly.

    * Housing is actually affordable.

    * Great walkable city, no need for a car.

    * Affordable healthcare.

    * All of this with a pretty good salary.

25. I don’t know if this will be invited here but investing in crypto, especially BTC and ETH. It’s helping grow my portfolio and balancing out the losses in shares, ETFs and Mutual Funds

26. Ermm I dont plan on ever retiring or having kids and working until I kill myself at 70 if I life that long so invested much of my excess in adventures. I have been living abroad and traveling for over 12 years, seen the world. Invaluable experiences. Also, laser eye surgery.

27. Buying a 2004 Camry in 2012 with cloth seats in a boring color. Was well maintained but had a few scratches due to its 75yo owner. That car took me from poverty to plenty.

28. I married the right woman. A little late in life… married her in my 40s but she seriously had the biggest affect on my finances out of everything I’ve done my whole life (except for build and selling my company).

    While she didn’t have a lot coming in to the marriage and she didn’t have a large salary, she invested and saved what she could as a lifestyle out of school . She had no debt coming in either. Combined with my portfolio and earnings, she’s worked with me and our advisor closely, encouraged me to quit a high stress but lucrative job to a much lower stress equally lucrative job. She’s encouraged for a little bit of high risk/high reward investments too so it’s not like she’s conservatively investing with me. She budgets our household effectively and maximizes things like loyalty points and credit card cash back. She also doesn’t spend lavishly even though she could.

    My first wife was a spender. Many of my ex gf’s and an ex -fiancee was a spender. The pressure to deliver a certain lifestyle to keep your woman happy and not nagging/fighting with you is a massive drain on resources and mental health.

    Marry well. That’s the best I can give

29. Stopped drinking alcohol. My income lasted a lot longer between pay checks.