Dumbest and smartest moves you've made (excluding spousal choice or children)

[Dueller]

Dumbest: A friend invited me to a party where he was seeking 12 investors with $10K each to risk for him to develop a home improvement product prototype. Liked him but based on his track record he was not the safest bet. besides, I didn't have $10K laying around at the time. Three years later your ROI was c. $750,000.00. The friend? Freddy Carl. The product? Viking Range.

Smartest: Taking the risk at age 30 by quitting my GS-13 government job and going to law school even though I had not been accepted at the time of my resignation. The only real downside was the law firm I worked for at the time handled the Viking deal and we got to hand out those $750K checks.

[tabs]

add to that list of dumbest..not taking a flying carpet ride from Tabs...

[Hugh R]

Smartest:

Holding onto a piece of crap British sports car for 37 years which I sold for a bundle.

Joining Disney, wish I'd done it 25 years ago.

Dumbest:

Hanging around with Chad and Jay in high school. Cost me almost four years of my life (17-21) which I'd rather not discuss.

[legion]

Dumbest:

Believing that Bob had really changed this time. (Just like I believed him last time, and the time before that.)

Hiring Bob to be on my house painting crew in college.

Letting Bob into my vehicle. (He once decided to hide his stash in plain view on the passenger seat.)

Smartest:

Refusing to pick Bob up after he disappeared at a Phish concert at Alpine Valley and mysteriously reappeared in Milwaukee the next day.

Refusing to take Bob's phone calls for the past 2 years.

Staying in Bloomington after college.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Smartest:

Going to graduate school and "hedging" myself against a downturn in the aviation industry (my undergraduate degree was aviation and my aspiration was to fly commercially). Once 9/11 happened and decimated the industry, the wisdom of my choice was pretty evident.

Dumbest:

Not getting done and through school sooner. If I'd compressed it down the way I should have and gone right from undergrad to grad without 2 wasted years in between, I'd have gotten out of graduate school in 1996 - in perfect time to capitalize on the "dot-com" bubble and possibly have made a bunch of $$$ in the recent RE bubble. At the time I was quite the little techno-geek, very computer-savvy, etc. and could have EASILY found work with a "dot-com" (or started one up) and assuming I played it right, could have made an absolute killing (also assuming I got out at the right time and didn't run it into the ground).

Instead, I graduated in 1999, right as things were peaking and starting to crash. It was also a bad time to be entering the real world "without a pot to piss in". If I'd had even ANY $$$ to my name back then and bought some property in 1999/2000 I'd probably be a lot wealthier today - maybe even retired. But my timing has been that unfortunate 2-3 years off. . .

Hell, I remember looking at a 2BR loft condo in WESTWOOD for $150k in 1999 when we first moved here. Guarantee that place would've fetched $400k or more early last year. But in 1999 I didn't have schit to my name except a pile of student loan debt and the clothes in my truck, so nobody would take my desire to buy seriously, much less lend to me.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Dumbest: not asking Elisa K. to marry me.

Smartest: haven't gotten there yet.

[Buckterrier]

Smartest: Marrying my wife

Dumbest: Divorcing my wife

[m21sniper]

Smartest: I bought a Porsche.

Dumbest: I bought a Porsche.

[cab83_750]

Dumbest:

Headhunter called me and said: I have a perfect job for you. Instead of 30 miles, you would commute 2 miles. Oh, and, you would need to have a 20% cut in pay as it is close to your house.

I researched the company and found out they could not even pay their janitor (so I was told). I immediately called the Headhunter, yelled at him, and we parted ways.

Well, 2-4 years the later, I was told the founding fathers and the janitors, and the employees who stayed with the company during rough start-up time all became ga$$$$ilionaires! The company...............AMGEN!


The smartest:

I was in my first semester of college attempting to be an accountant. Waiting for the bus, a lady said, "You know, there is now a machine called a computer that when you enter a credit, it knows what to debit (or vice versa). It will always balance the books." After my 1st semester, I quickly switched to MIS.
On hindsight, due to all the H1 visa, it is no longer the smartest.

The smartest.......becoming a father of 2 kids.

[911Rob]

Dumbest: waiting until my son was 8 to get custody of him.

Smartest: marrying my wife (by far my greatest success!)

[trekkor]

Dumbest: I didn't get one of those grocery store 'club cards' and could have saved $3 tonight.

Smartest: I found a fiver on the ground in the parking lot tonight.


KT

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Dumbest: losing a girl 13 years ago
Smartest: Getting her back this year

[Joeaksa]

Dumbest... well, its still something I cannot talk about just yet, but it was rather stupid. It worked out fine in the end but will not do that again!

Smartest... investing with my Father in thee wildcat oil wells way back in the late 1970's. Two were dry, and one was not and its paid off its initial investment in 18 months. For 40+ years after that I get a check every month.... and when the price of oil and gas go up I just smile and go to the bank. Course now it does not fill up the tank as many times but it sure helps.

Dumbest... letting my German ex-wife get away from me but in the end prolly not a lot I could have done about it anyway.

Smartest... running into a lady from the Czech republic 15 months ago and getting her contact info. She might make me an honest man again.

[WolfeMacleod]

Dumbest: Not trademarking a product name before an ex-customer decided to use it for himself. We're now battling it out.

Smartest: Starting my company and not giving in when times were rough. Other than this, I'm largely unemployable with a very specialized skillset. Add marrying my wife to that - she made it possible for me to do it.

[The Gaijin]

Dumbest: Studying Japanese in college during their "bubble economy".

Really dumbest: Not studying Chinese at that time.

[Seahawk]

Dumbest? How many characters per post are we allowed?

Dumbest: Selling my house in Coronado, Ca.

Smartest: Selling my house in Coronado...it is how I was able to, "buy the farm"!

[89911]

Dumbest: Spending most of my High School and College year lifting weights and thinking that was the way to attract females and be successful. Fortunately I kept up the school work and later realized that the most sexy part of a man to most women is the size of his wallet and not his arms.

Smartest: Having the knowledge of what I wanted to do for a career early in high school and that I wanted to be my own boss.

[Zef]

Smartest...move from private to Government job.
Dumbest...sold my 914 Limited Edition (Bumblebee)

[onewhippedpuppy]

Dumbest: Not finishing college the first time. Straight out of high school I went to college, and majored in mechanical engineering (aka drinking). 3 semesters and that was done. Went back for 2 semesters, did well, then quit. I could have finished with no kids or attachments, and would have 5 years of experience today.

Smartest: (Other than my wife and 2 kids) Going back to college. It's been damn hard to work to major in aerospace engineering and work full time, but we've made it work. I'm already making more than I ever have, and don't graduate for another month (almost here thank God). It's given my family a future, and was 100% worth the hard work.

[vash]

DUMBEST! i rented a nice, upgraded house in the oakland hills. the owner, my friend's dad said, "hell you should just pay me $225,000, and buy this place from me". this was 10 years ago. it had a view of the bay! DUH!

second dumbest. not going to military academy because i was scared.

smartest: still waiting, but i have had some close calls