This Week's Question: What Financial Decision Changed Your Life? (Either for the Better/Worse)

The Lobby
#1

This week’s question is about life-changing decisions you’ve made that had a significant amount of impact in your financial status. Perhaps you married into a wealthy family, bought a winning lottery ticket, decided to invest in your retirement account, bought land, or maybe invested your entire life savings in crypto…

What’s that one life-changing financial decision you’ve made?

Personally, I’ve not placed myself in financial ruin (thank goodness), and I think a huge part of that is not having friends who will influence me to have spending habits that are beyond my means. I’ve found that it’s really important to choose the people you surround yourself with!

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#2
#3

I had been made redundant by an insurance company, who paid me to seek another job at no cost. Having spent a few weeks in a recruiting agency I applied for a job at Oxfam, UK charity having no idea what would be the outcome.

I was asked to attend an interview for an international audit post based in Oxford, which would offer me a first time out of England since my school holidays, decades in the past.

For whatever reason, I must have flipped a lucky coin and the job was mine. i spent ten years travelling the world, touching down at forty countries airports, some more than once, just on my allowance - which I would have never been able to afford had I stayed in England.

A real life changer.

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#4

I suppose a big one would be my student loans from university. The problem is that I don’t know what I would have become without that experience.

I can’t separate the loan from the person I am today. I still have that debt.

But to be honest, it’s not anyone else’s fault that I haven’t been able to pay it back. I could have sought better-paying jobs, but I made bad choices. Loans are a heavy burden to carry.

However, I have stopped using my credit cards, thanks to Dave Ramsey. I froze my credit cards back when Equifax had a security breach, and I never unfroze it. I paid them off and never looked back.

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#5

Rather than luck, I’m sure you deserved the position, Steve! :blush: I think opportunities like this are super rare and very selective, so I’m sure you excelled. :blush:

#6

Still such a big step forward! :blush:

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#7

Tbh, I’m still trying to manage my finances properly. :sweat_smile: But with the help of my fiancee, we’ve started tracking all of our cash flow on a spreadsheet. :blush: I was annoyed at first, cause that would mean I would have to track all of my expenses. I had to input all of my withdrawals, etc. But it’s been months since we started doing it, and we’re finally able to save up a bit! :smiley:

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#8

Was it annoying because it’s tedious, or because you had to face how much money you’re actually spending?

Coming face to face with how much one is spending can be scary. We all like to think we don’t overspend. But when we track it and add it all up…¨jeez, that’s how much I spent this month!!!¨

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#9

DEFINITELY THIS! :sweat_smile: I never really realized just how much I spend until I saw the summary of my credit card bills for a month. :sweat_smile: And what’s even worse is that I feel like my partner is also observing and scrutinizing my every expense. :sob: I’m sure he doesn’t really bother much, but that’s how the tracker makes me feel.

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#10

¨damn, honey. why do you spend so much money on bubble gum?!¨ haha

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#11

This sounds amazing! How long would you stay at each country?

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#12

Normanly, less than a week at each office site, although I had many opportunities to travel around in Land Rovers.Going through the Serengeti from the Maassi region of Ngorongoro up to Tanzania was an amazing trip.

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#13

Did your car get attacked by lions?!

That kinda stuff scares me. Driving thru the middle of nowhere. The slightest car trouble drops you to the bottom of the food chain. Unless you think you can punch a lion in the face…haha

But as long as things go according to plan, it must be beautiful!

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#14

The Serengeti is quite busy everyday, with several stop off points. The lions are used to humans, so as long as the car windows are closed there is little danger. However, elephants and even hippos need to be watched carefully.

As for punching a lion in the face, young maassi boys paint their bodies to deter lions from attacking their cattle - and them. Spears are usefull.

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#15

Learning to trade forex and actually trading gradually my broker is the best

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#16

After returning to a positive net equity 33 years ago, having carried a debt half the size of a UK house, my wife and I decided to invest just in two things. Unleveraged gold, and highly leveraged UK property. A real life changer for the better

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#17

HAHAHAHA he tries to be more subtle about it, but I know exactly what he means. :sweat_smile:

#18

I’ve also been given the advice to invest in gold. :open_mouth: I just don’t really know where to start. :open_mouth:

#19

That’s nice to hear! :blush: Haha. If you don’t mind, how long have you been trading? :blush:

#20

Nothing magical. When I first met my wife, we used to go down to the gold souk in Old Damascus every Friday (day off in Syria) and buy small 9 ct gold trinkets that fit on a gold bracelet. It really helps if you love jewellery. At that point, 24 carat gold was USD 400 per ounce, and in the early nineties it sank to USD250 per ounce. It is now about $1,800 per ounce. As we got older the 9ct was replaced by 18ct, and we just kept buying and never sold. Later my wife “swapped” less valuable pieces for more valuable pieces, and ten years ago we opened a Bullion Vault account in London, sold some of the jewellery and bought bullion standard gold. I guess you could say that is dollar cost averaging. But when it is jewellery it sure is fun wearing it. :slight_smile: