When it comes to money, the mistakes millionaires make can be even worse than those of regular people because they can lose billions of dollars or even put their businesses out of business. To get back on your feet, you need more than good ideas or a promising business.
Earning a million dollars is much easier than keeping it or making it grow. This is because there are many mistakes that can be made along the way, which can cause even a large bank account to lose a lot of money. No one wants to lose money, even if it seems like there is plenty left over.
Unfortunately, there is no magic formula that protects money or makes it grow on trees. What there is, though, are the experiences and advice of others, which can be used as a kind of guide to do all sorts of things with money, like learn how to save, invest, or handle money wisely.
It’s normal to make mistakes, but you can also learn from other people’s mistakes and stories so you don’t make the same ones and lose everything. People like Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos are well-known, in part, because they have made a lot of money. However, they have also lost a lot of money and talked about what they did wrong so that no one else makes the same mistakes.
The mistakes made by 5 millionaires that cost them their money:
Bill GatesÂ
Mistake: Not taking advantage of opportunities
Bill Gates once said that letting Google beat them to making Android before they could make their own smartphone project was the worst mistake of his career. This cost him $400 million.
Gates said that they knew the Smartphone market would be very successful and powerful, but they did not act when they had the chance to. This caused them to lose in a field where, according to Gates, they had everything to win. So you need to not only have good ideas, but also work on them and use the chances that come your way.
Elon MuskÂ
Mistake: Act, or speak, without thinkingÂ
Early in 2022, it came out that Tesla had lost more than $500 billion, but not because its products were bad or nobody wanted them. Instead, Elon Musk’s tweets were to blame.
Musk is said to have written something that upset his investors and hurt the stock of the company. Investors thought Musk was too focused on his plan to buy Twitter, which could be bad for the company. As a result, Tesla lost millions.
Whether we like it or not, what we do and say affects how other people think and feel, and making hasty or careless choices can have deadly results.
Warren Buffett
Mistake: Waiting too longÂ
This isn’t exactly a mistake Buffett made, but it is one he says you should avoid if you want to make money and keep it.
Buffett says that you should always invest early because if you wait too long, the stock may be too expensive for your budget or more people may buy it. You don’t have to wait too long to start your business (because someone else may have the same idea), you don’t have to wait to start saving (because the sooner you start, the more money you will have in your account), and you don’t have to wait to make decisions that may be good for you.
Jeff BezosÂ
Mistake: Not having a backup planÂ
You need to be ready for the worst case scenario, because it could happen when you least expect it.
Jeff Bezos was one of many millionaires who lost a lot of money to inflation because he wasn’t ready for it or didn’t have a plan to deal with it (Buffett was the only one left), which brings us to It teaches that you should hope for the best, but you should also be ready for bad things to happen. For example, you could start an emergency fund so that you don’t end up with no money if you have an accident or have to pay for something unexpected.
Larry KingÂ
Mistake: Spend more than you earnÂ
Some say that the TV host made a lot of money with his shows in the 1960s, but he ended up going bankrupt in the 1970s because he spent too much money and liked to gamble.
King was careless with his money because he thought he would always be rich. Because of this, he ended up losing almost everything he had made, so he had to come up with a new plan to get it back. He did this by getting a better handle on his spending and investing in television.
