‘It was a sinkhole’ — Man shares his biggest financial regret was ‘leasing a car right after graduation’
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SINGAPORE: People often say your 20s are the best time to experiment, make mistakes, and learn from them. But when it comes to money, some choices can weigh on you for years.
One man recently shared on Reddit that his biggest financial regret was leasing a car right after graduating from university.
“I had just landed my first full-time job and convinced myself I ‘deserved it’ after four years of studying,” he wrote on r/SGMoney.
“At the time, it felt like a reward – now I know it was a financial sinkhole. I’m kicking myself for [this one decision]. Between monthly payments, insurance, maintenance, and petrol, I was basically living paycheck to paycheck for years.”
Looking back, he said that if he had stuck with Grab or public transport and invested even half of that money instead, he would “probably be sitting on a decent STI ETF portfolio today instead of a stack of old car receipts.”
Curious to hear from others, he asked fellow Redditors: “What’s one money move you made in your 20s that you really regret now?”
“Not learning to invest properly.”
In the comments, several Singaporeans chimed in with their own stories. One said his biggest mistake was giving up full financial control to his spouse during marriage, which left him with nothing after a divorce.
He explained, “I only started building my own savings after a divorce in my 40s. Left the marriage with no money but have been working super hard after that to build up enough so that I never have to burden my kids financially.”
Another commenter shared that he now regrets “dumping every cent he owned in cryptocurrency.” He added, “Maybe right now I would be sleeping peacefully unworried about work and the terrible job market.”
A third wrote, “I was naive and got conned into buying an Endowment fund, and I bought one China stock and got burnt badly. Never again. I also followed some fin influencer blindly and bought a ‘growth’ stock without studying and got burned some more. Wait, you only asked for one, right? LOL.”
A fourth added, “What I regret in my 20s is not learning to invest properly. During COVID, when everyone made money, I lost money. Also, I listened to my parents to buy more whole life insurance when I already had one. No intention to have kids, so nobody to pass down to anyway.”
In other news, a 20-year-old seamstress took to social media to share her experience of working at a “slightly well-known” vintage boutique, where she says she was grossly underpaid, overworked, and constantly belittled by the “toxic and narcissistic” store owner.
In her post on the r/SingaporeRaw forum, the woman explained that she had first joined the boutique as an intern for four months before leaving to continue her studies. After graduating, she returned to the same workplace, but resigned just two months later, citing mental health struggles and unrealistic expectations from her boss, who was paying her only S$16 an hour.