What Is The Largest Amount You Have Lost Trying to Make More Money?

I bet quite a few folks here must have lost a bit of money trying to make more of it. Still we all keep trying and never give up. With that good spirit I wanted to share my losses.

2012- Stock market $1000
2017 - Primary House (If I sell it now, I am looking at $200,000 in loses, so not planning to sell for next 10 yrs)
2018 - Alt coins: $600 ( Sold my eth and bought those stuff)
2020 - Off the plan Investment property that was signed in 2015 completed just before Corona, It is empty now ( Could not find anyone with good rental history. So far I have paid $5800 in interest. :).

I don’t care about these failures as long as I can feed my family. I just keep trying. :)

What about you guys?

Comments

    • Keen to hear more about your business and how your friend mistreated the business and you… I also own a business so I'd like to learn from your mistakes (if you don't mind sharing)

      • Sure what would you like to know? Here we go lol:

        We were friends for just 1 year prior to buying the business together, he actually had the business but sold it within 6 months of having it for addtional $65,000 gross profit. But made a loss because he spent $100,000 on upgrades. However the new owners ran the business in the ground and we thought it was a bargain price when we purchased the business together about 45% off (they lost about $200,000).

        As soon we took ownership problems started to rise straight away. Given the age difference and he had a lot more experience then me I just let him take control. But i didn't realise the consquences of this later on.

        He kept going on holidays saying that he deserves it and works so hard. He put me on shifts he thought was right with no input from me. I tried to put myself on shifts to reduce wages for other staff to 38 hours per week. That never happened. So when things hit the fan, the staff could do whatever they wanted. It was just mess. I took annual leave from my other business so I could work there full time, he was surprisingly happy about this, I got the roster. Guess what? I was barely rostered on, and I asked him to put me on for more hours or staff wages will go nuts. We had staff working 50-60 hours a week.

        Had expiry dates on items, he didn't care or follow up. Had issues with suppliers, he never followed up. He created issues and I had to fix them up along with trying to understand why things the way there were. In the end I just became so tired of getting blamed for things. The staff were putting in orders, my business partner is horrible at explanining things he simply told them not to order stuff. Whenever I pointed out problems, he kept blaming staff of mistakes and made the place toxic to work at. In the end, i just walked out saying that i caused the issues, i believed at the time it was all my fault.

        Mind you, we supposed to sell the business within 6 months, crazy right? he's really good at manipulating! Whenever I questioned him, he snapped at me. Saying he's right and I' wrong.

        The best part was onedrive: I told him we needed to make sure we have a backup. I asked where was the external hard drive? He doesn't know so then I backed up our entire business onto one drive which also syncs to my external Synology server at my other business just incase!
        He was so angry about having onedrive on the computer he made me remove it and said to use the exisiting dropbox service. You know what happened? The next day all the data was deleted. The owner of that account (one of the suppliers) deleted everything. Thankfully I simply remoted into the computer whilst I was at my other business (trying to sort out other issues), loaded all the files from my server and got one drive back up and running. Yet I was blamed. No apology. I was in total disbelieve, we could've been in DEEP trouble with ASIC,ATO, Fairwork and other agencies! We had no phyiscal copies of anything because they were scattered, I suck with paperwork but awesoem with digital file cabinet systems.

        Everyday there was a dumb issues that shouldn't of happened. But once he got the staff on his side, I figured out what he was his motive and that was for me to give up and hand over my shares to him and by this time I thought it was too late to do anything about it. I was ready to liqidate.

        I found out later he told a lot of lies to the staff. He was telling customers I left the business. Taking all the credit (I don't care) for my input. The staff (new business partners) told me he made me out the most shadiest business partner on the planet.

        He only admitted one mistake: The mobile eftpos system doesn't need to be charged 24/7 as the batteries are lithium. I showed him the booklet which states not to put it on charge constantly or the batteries lifespan will go much faster.

        • +1

          Damn, bad move going into business with someone you only knew for 12 months with no proven track record of success or long-term business management

  • +3

    Good thread for finding future scam targets

    • +2

      "our motto is the trapezoid"

  • I bought ~$750 of BTC around late 2017 when it was around its peak.
    Around $2500 on some crap shares a few years ago - technically, I haven't lost the money as I never sold them, but their total value is now less than the trading fees to sell :(

    • Excuse for my ignorance on btc and the topic in general, but I just googled how much 1 bitcoin is right now and it says it is ~15k can you explain to me how it is of little value to you at the moment? This is really interesting but I'm also completely ignorant in the topic and most definitely am missing something

      Thanks anyway :)

  • Not me, but a colleague invested $15k on horse that won all those races ( cant remember horses name!) …….he was only winning very small amounts, but he backed it 8 runs in a row when it won!
    Too risky for me, but I admired him for his venture.
    Later he told me the $15K was an inheritance from one of his departed family members.

    "Lucky Phil"

  • Primary house isn't a loss until you sell.

  • I technically lost but made money here. Politics aside, I put $2000 on Labor winning the election and $1000 on Coalition winning the election. SportsBet paid out both. Technically was meant to lose the $2,000 but surprise elections are always rollercoasters.

  • +1

    Lost my 2 jobs this year due to Covid-19, around $55k of loses if I am still employed. Oh wait? Does this count?

    • +3

      I think that Covid loses deserves its own thread. I lost 20% of my income. And a vacant propery draining interest.

    • You're rich in spirit!

  • Just put another $100,000 into an overseas project that I’ve already put $70k into. Will take me another $50k to find out whether or not I’ll lose it all, or if I need to borrow a million $ to see it turn into a profit.

    I’m also about $10k down on the market after I bought shitloads of shares to make some people in a Facebook group laugh (thanks $BOT). AMA.

    • +1

      Where do find investment opportunities like that?

      • You make them.

        I researched an industry, learned another language, went to a foreign country, established all of the business relations, sorted out my situation here and then it was just a matter of executing what I spent a couple of years preparing for.

        Got the admin process down so well that I ended up starting a seperate business in that country that specifically consults to foreigners wanting to do business there. Have staff and paying clients for it.

        • Can I make a guess that it's China?

        • wow.. thats a lot of work.

  • +4

    $5 on roulette. Put it all down on 0. Still not happy about that, 10 years later.

  • +1

    $1k at the casino.

  • $1, but with covid I'm making more money then ever.

    • Good for you. But, How? Funeral Service? psychiatrist? Pharmacist?

      • Not to bad, your welcome to come down, it's not like you need the money in that pocket.

  • +2

    Not very bright (also scammy) dentists, psychologists, doctors, mechanics, car dealers (company and secondhand), restaurant staff…. The list is a mile high bro.

    Probably have got scammed and given the run around so many times, I reckon it'd be in the 10s of thousands of dollars, easy.

    I like people, I really do try, but it's somewhat difficult to not be a misanthrope. Being frustrated by everyday life and trying to learn a thing or two from life experience, while putting on a resilient happy face… can be difficult.

    Investing in people is a thing also, I'd say most of the time that's money thrown to the wind too.

    Like everything in life, it pays to be discerning.

    *I feel like many of the things I mentioned are a form of investment in ones life, QoL etc…

  • +12

    I figure I'm losing a lot of money working for the same pay when the government is printing money for double dole payments.

  • +2

    I've been extremely risk adverse my entire life.

    Never made any big investments so have never lost anything major.

    It's like the lottery, many losers, few winners. Bad attitude but when you cant afford to lose, it's best to avoid all together. That's my mindset anyway..

    Token loss was buying a small number of shares in funtastic a long time ago, they dropped right after buying. I still hold them today in this stupid belief they might by miracle recover haha.

    • +2

      If you want to sleep well, that's how you do it. But, at the same time you have to be able to control your mind to be content. For some, the "being content" part is more difficult that losing sleep.

    • I used to have a very similar mindset to yours, probably still do today, however I'm slowly coming to the realisation that inaction is probably worse than taking a step and start building experience and growing an investment because you'll be way behind taking into account inflation YOY. It's not easy, I think most people will lose money but hopefully the learnings and networks you gain along the way will open up new doors and opportunities. I have a mate who has tried all sorts of different business ventures, made some $, lost some $ but key is he never gives up.

      For me I've invested $5k in shares many years ago (admittedly rather naively without doing research or understanding fundamentals)- it's gone to the red but last I checked it's gained back a bit but I'm just going to sit on it for the time being. I've yet to start on anything solid but I think Covid times do bring an advantage of giving a bit of extra time to everyone (if situation applies) that you can really make advantage to learn something- a new skill, or an area where you just couldn't find time before.

  • I've lost a truck load of cash on ripple (if you dont know what that is then there is my point)

    Have lost money on shares but also made money on shares overall im better off….

    Generally taking educated risks does lead to better financial outcomes

    Im ont made of money so ever loss hurts

    • Hehe, The blockchain currncy was like a pyramid scheme, we all know it is going to collapse but wanted to get a piece of the pie and get out. But, it is always too late. :)

      • Honestly i knew it too but i had a mate who turned 50k to a 250k in Crypto

        So i wasl ike f**k it ill try get rich too….nek week everything crashes my mate loses everything he made and more and down a bunch of cash

        NEVER AGAIN

      • It's just like the stock market just not well regulated. There were / are many fake projects, scam coins, exit scams and pyramid schemes, but not the entire market.

  • +1

    Shares…never again

  • $170,000 on Envion in early 2018 tho it's currently in liquidation in Switzerland for almost 2 years now and I bought alot of tokens at the bottom to dollar cost average. Will soon see hopefully within the next couple of months if I've lost it all or 2x+. Started buying the majority of my tokens at 70 US cents all the way down to 4 US cents.

    • If I may ask, how did you come to a state in life such that you could to take a $170k risk? Did you have any big wins over the years that built you confidence? Is this something you normally do? I am curious.

      • +1

        Made a nice gain on Ripple, bought late 2017 for around 19-20cents and it went to $2 or $3. I sold at $1. Then I put in alot more to dollar cost average.

  • 70k shorting btc earlier this year

    • +1

      Hope you made more on the way.

  • +2

    Nice way to indirectly market your product without looking like spam 🙂.

    • +3

      I would definitely agree that the number of people checked out the product was little bit higher, which gave me the morale boost to do a demo video which I have been procrastinating for last two weeks.

      But, honestly, I made this post because I was feeling down a bit at that time with my failed attempts to make more and wanted to talk to someone who shares a similar story.

      Now, I really feel energised, ready for something new. :)

      • +1

        Don't get me wrong, it was a good idea. You've added value as obviously people are replying and like your topic but you've also managed to plug your product. Well done.

  • $400 gambling at star city casino

    • Ha, I did lose a $100 in Las Vegas. But, thats just for fun. Never went there with the intention of making money.

  • 2018 - Eth/Ripple

    Lol Yep.. I joined you there.. only 2k though

    • Yep. To the moon we went. 😏

  • I sold after pay for a 2K loss, shortly after it went through a massive bull run.

    • +4

      One thing worse then losing your money - is cutting your losses only for it to essentially jackpot shortly after….

  • $12,000

  • 15K in binary trading/betting with TitanTrade. Damn, it was 3-4 years ago. Still upset when think about i.

    • did u get it back in any way? that sucks.

      • no chance. they are a bunch of scammers operating in Marshall Islands which has no laws.

  • +1

    I fixed my home loan interest rate for 3 years in November. I don't want to know what that is costing me.

  • +6

    Well I've definitely lost alot of time to making money

  • Got my feet wet back in University a years back with Share Trading.
    Can't remember exactly how much but would have lost around $1000-2000 including brokerage over 1-2 years.
    Hurts a lot when you're still studying.
    Learnt to hold stocks long term and not get too emotional with the noise.
    Also learnt to Diversify and have Index Funds and Mutual Funds.
    Definitely learnt the hard way but I consider that a valuable lesson and rather lucky that made mistakes earlier in life.

  • +3

    $4000 in 4 days trading NAB just as lehman collapsed in '08. My salary was $18/hr.

    $5k buying Centro in 2010 which subsequently collapsed.

    Lost $8k buying Myer at IPO.

    Bought my house in Aug 2015. Strangely I seem to have lost money (prob 5-10%) even though it was 5 yrs ago, based on what I can see on the market atm.

    My boss bought an $8 million house Jan this year in Melb… Ouch. So I guess my losses are nothing.

  • +3

    This thread of similar stories is helping.
    I have had to put my loss in the back of my head and chalk it up to a super expensive life lesson in my 20s.

    30k to crypto. Wish I never got involved, especially because it's a tax nightmare.

    I thought it was a one in a lifetime chance to make big money. Seeing all the rich youtubers didn't help.

    Never again. I'll just be a worker ant till 70.
    Worst one was ripple. Bought at 2 dollars since it looked like it was going to 10 dollars.

    It really helps reading similar stories because the depression and thoughts that kick in are horrific.
    All I do is think about what I could have bought with that money. Helped pay my parents house. Gigantic TV. Insane pc. Nice car. Weeks of happy endings haha. Instead I got nothing.

    I should have stopped at 10k but my logic was the more I put in the more I would make. Thank God I didn't have 100k in savings.

    • +1

      $30K is a big loss, but shares went down in 2000 and a lot of people lost more than that. A friend of mine lost all his money, his wife's money and his parent's money. He lost about 2 Mio from the peak of the 2000 hausse.

      I Lost a brickload of money too, but only looking from the peak, if I take the value from before the 2000 hype, I did break even.

      Then in 2008 another hit in the share market, lost another 30%, temporarily.

      We are always smarter after. But the lesson I took from this is
      A) Do not invest in shares or similar, because when you buy, the people selling have most of the time more information than you.
      B) Do not invest in shares, because I don't have to worry what the market did int he US when I was asleep
      C) Do not invest in shares, because it's a bloody mess doing the tax declaration
      D) Do not invest in shares, because I have a mortgage, and that's where the money goes

      So do not think what you could have done with that money, because it's going to eat at you.
      Or another way of seeing it is, that you did not buy that fast car, that you would have had a deadly accident
      And you did not buy that expensive watch and suit, that would have attracted gold diggers, which would have you plucked more than the 30K

      • So…. Should I buy shares? Thanks.

        • +1

          Of course you should, if you have no mortgage. You should buy them at their lowest, buy only in a company you researched yourself, buy Australian Stocks, and have a tax consultant doing your tax declaration. Once bought, don't check everyday what the shares are doing, check every 5 years or so.

    • Lot of my colleagues got into this and started bragging about the money they made in the morings. I invested that $600 as a medium to stay relevant. The reason I did not go full force is ai never understood the value proportion. Some of them made like $200K, but most of them lost a lot. Since it was a group loss, they had each other to console. The issue you had could be you were alone. This shall too pass

  • +16

    2018 - 40k wedding and honey moon.

    2020 - 100k divorce settlement and legal fees.

    • I am not sure if he is trolling or not. If it is true, hope you don't have kids, I just started watching two and half men again.

    • +8

      So you trying to make money from your wife did backfire? This thread is about "Trying to make money" not "What was your biggest expense"

      • +1

        tried to do the DINK- double income no kids

        Now its

        SINK - single income no kids

    • Damn, thats one expensive wife you had

  • Does playing Roulette or Black Jack count as 'Trying to make money" ?

  • +1

    $9000 .. burnt my hands in ripple (xrp).. bought when it was @ $4 something

  • +1

    What's your investment property that you're looking to rent out?

    • +2

      It is an apartment in central coast. Almost al the applicants I had have real bad rental history. In the process of changing the agent. Will write another whole post about it.

  • Small cap stock. $100k investment did rise to $300k a couple years ago but I stupidly didn't sell any and it's now worth $60k (and has been as low as $25k).

    To put in context, next biggest ever investment is $20k so this really was like going "all in".

    It has taken me a while to stop dwelling on that one…

    • +1

      See, the hardest part is selling a growing stock. It is really tiring to buy some good stocks. Then we try to hang on to them. By the time we realise the situation, it would have already gone real bad.

  • +5

    $40,000 on Bitcoin and other Sh|tcoins. Bought in hard when they were at their peak. Biggest mistake of my life.

    • Hope you have recovered.

    • -5

      why would you buy at peak though?

      • +2

        hindsight? you don't know it's a peak at the time

  • ~3000 trading XAUUSD forex. No stop loss because I'm dumb. It was a bullish market, went to bed and woke up it went bearish. Got margin called and lost everything. fml. Now I just see a profit and ask myself am I happy with this and then close the trade.

    • Forex price difference with margin. Beautiful way of losing everything in one night sleep. And it does not even have to move much: 1% difference is all it needs. You put money on a number ( on roulette ) and it did not arrive )

  • +1

    $3k on crypto and mrs still gives me sh!t about it everyday!

  • +1

    Memorable losses
    * $200k in bad ASX floats - think Myer at $4.10 a share with glossy prospectus and Jennifer Hawkins
    * $150k in crypto in 2018 (but gained that back in 2020 crypto)
    * $70k in shares in a gold mine in a developing country (license repossessed by the regime)
    * at least $30k on IT ventures
    * opportunity cost of buying bad real estate with very low growth and high outgoings and holding for 15 years+

    Wins outweigh the losses.
    The biggest risk in life is not to take any risk at all.

    • So, lost $150K and earned it back in 2020? Does that mean you never sold? Or, you put another $50K and made $200k?

      • Continued investing more. Much of the original never recovered.

    • Wow that's a lot of losses. What were the memorable wins outweighing those losses?

      • Had more frequent losses than wins, however the wins have been far larger in quantum. Real estate and business have been the best but both required alot of hard work.

    • +1

      " $70k in shares in a gold mine in a developing country (license repossessed by the regime)"

      I feel your pain. I invested in Intrepid Mines for their offshore gold prospects which all ended up worthless or worthwhile but repossessed. They sold their boring Aussie mine for $40m to Northern Star, which turned out to be a ripper and went up 10-20x in value. Backed the wrong horse in that race…

      • Good news is there is many penny dreadful's sitting on vast quantities of gold where the current gold price makes them viable .

        Now just figure it out :)

      • Invested in Bio Diesel company partnering with BP, what could go wrong ?

        On the other hand sold 40K shares of nvidia in 2012, at about 12$, now nvidia is at $457, you do the math.

  • Wow so many people have invested in shares. Did anyone bought Afterpay share during March diving prices?

    • yes bought at 17 and sold at 20 :D

      • Oh well at least you catch some of it :)

        • i picked apt, z1p as well as bgl. sold all of them too early. too darn early, i am stupid :|

    • I had a buy order of 10k shares sitting at $8 but never got filled so never ended up buying it.

      • Who are you? Assad ?

  • Went in too deep and blew 30k on mining/drilling small caps. Only buy indexes and diversified funds now.

  • Lost 13k in Kodak shares in 1 week.
    Bought around 18.60 and sold Monday night at 9.60 (There's been massive hype in the states regarding this stock)

    • LOL are you a robinhood trader?

  • $15k in shares when the Covid crisis hit :(

    • Not the first time they jumped into a hyped trend. Back in 2018 they tried to get into crypto.

  • +1

    Not much, but I bought into the stock market doom and gloom when Covid started up, and sunk a couple of grand into BBOZ. Bought in at around $14 per share (which turned out to basically be its peak), and it's now sitting around $7. But I figure I'll just hold onto it indefinitely; stock market has gotta dip sometime.

    Probably the bigger one was trying to save cash by hiring a truck instead of movers. Hit the top of the truck on sturdy low hanging tree branch (which isn't covered under insurance), then had to pay up $5k that I didn't have for the repairs. I just pay for the movers now :)

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