7 True Stories of Money Mistakes From Our Team 🎃

Have you ever made a money mistake?

If you're like the rest of us, then probably. But don't worry, you're not alone. We've all been there. That's why we decided to ask our teammates about their worst money mistakes. We wanted to share their stories so that you can learn from them and avoid making the same mistakes yourself.

1. Luxury over Savings
"My biggest money mistake was spending money on luxury bags and shoes...instead of saving it or investing in something more meaningful and valuable. I was a bit of a shopaholic, and I often indulged my taste for expensive things, even though I knew I should be saving for the future."
- Shai, Business Analyst

2. Being Too Greedy

"I bought a speculative stock at 4 pesos, and it went up to 18-20 pesos. I was so excited about the profits I was seeing that I didn't sell the stock, even though I knew I should have. Then, all of a sudden, the stock started to go down. It went to 10 pesos, then 8 pesos, and then 6 pesos. I ended up where I began.

I learned my lesson: don't be greedy. Be satisfied and content with your profits."
- Isha, Head of Content

3. Delaying What's Important
"My worst money mistake was one where not spending the money now, ended up costing me more in the long term. That was not having insurance on my phone. I had an awesome iPhone XR, brand new out of the box, for all of 1 week and had it pickpocketed from me on a night out. I had put off getting insurance on it and it was now too late. I then went back to my old iPhone 8 which served me well until a couple of years ago.

That money could have been spent on many nights out or better yet if I put that cash into Apple shares I'd have a USD gain of around 270% now 🥲"
- Lucas, Head of Operations

4. Not Starting Early
"My biggest investment regret is not starting early enough. I started investing very late in life, and I wish I had started sooner. I had too much fun, and I should have been investing at the same time. It's possible to invest and have fun at the same time, but I didn't realize that until it was too late.

If you're thinking about investing, consider starting early as well. And don't think that you have to give up having fun in order to invest. There are plenty of ways to invest without sacrificing your quality of life."

5. Not Researching Enough
"The worst investment mistake I've made was investing in NFTs without doing enough research. NFTs themselves are not bad, but investing in something that you don't understand is a recipe for disaster.

If you're thinking about investing in NFTs, my advice is to do your research. Don't be fooled by the hype. Understand what you're investing in and why. And only invest what you can afford to lose."
- Mack, Static Data

6. Force Investments and Think That The Market Will Turn Around 

"I've made a lot of investing mistakes - I come from an FX day trading background, and the problem with that is you automatically think you can make as much money in a shorter time frame. And so, when you have liquidity, when you have money available to you, it's easy to think that you could turn that around quite quickly.

And a lot of my mistakes early in my career was trying to force investments or force trading; without really understanding that there was a particular nuanced difference between trading and investing. Waiting out on strategies and holding investments actually isn't the wrong thing to do. You just need to educate yourself on time horizons and expectations with regard to results.

I think I made a lot of mistakes in terms of switching products, going from gold and commodities products to FX to equities - but all from a day trading standpoint, essentially trying to play the system.

And I can remember very early in my twenties, I saw a lot of people read signals and thought that I could automatically do that. You know, you look at the candlestick, you think it's going in your direction, and you try to play the market accordingly.

But the reason fundamental analysis - the ability to understand and read the market - is important is because it gives you a risk appetite and it develops a feeling within yourself that this is right, or this is wrong. I think all my horror stories are around that."
- Rish Tandapany, COO of Purple Group

7. Going All In
"I'm going back to the 2008 financial crisis, which some of you are probably too young to know well. I've lived through a couple of financial crises. But in 2007, a company called Global Trader, which we still own today - we sold it, we built it and sold it to Purple Group.

When we sold it, I went and took all of the proceeds. I put 100% of it into a single asset called Purple Group, which is the company that I'm in today. It was November 2007 when I bought in. The share price was R2.04 (P6.00). By February 2008, it had gone to R0.09 which is about less than P1.00. And so, I had taken 100% of my wealth, put it into one stock, and it had gone to 1/6 of its value in six months. So that's a horror story.

The good news is I'm still here, and the investment is worth much more than that today. But that was the worst financial decision at the time that's turned into probably the best one now. So…not all the horror stories end badly."
- Charles, CEO of Purple Group

Let's Recap
Investment mistakes are inevitable, but they don't have to be disastrous. By following these simple tips, you can minimize your risks and maximize your chances of success:

• Don't be greedy.
• Be satisfied and content with your investments.
• Start investing early.
• Educate yourself about investing and the products you're investing in.
• Have a risk appetite and a feeling for what's right or wrong.
• Think from a more educated perspective about your investments.
• Don't put all of your money into a single asset.

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