{"id":7333,"date":"2021-06-09T10:00:28","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T10:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mouthymoney.co.uk\/?p=7333"},"modified":"2025-03-03T10:32:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T10:32:00","slug":"how-my-father-lost-his-life-savings-by-making-one-fatal-investment-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mouthymoney.co.uk\/investing\/how-my-father-lost-his-life-savings-by-making-one-fatal-investment-mistake\/","title":{"rendered":"How my father lost his life savings by making one fatal investment mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"investment<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mouthy blogger Nick Daws explains why diversification is key when investing, as he learned from his father’s terrible investment experience.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me tell you about my dad. He was a kind, thoughtful man and I learned many important things from him. But money was, sadly, never his strong point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s an example. Some years ago a family member persuaded him to invest all his spare cash in a media services business a friend of a friend was setting up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t hear about this till the investment had been made. But even though I was much younger then I could still see it was insanely risky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a new business with no track record. And Dad knew nothing whatsoever about the media – he was a carpet-fitter turned hydraulic machinery salesman. And perhaps sensing that his wife (my stepmother) would disapprove, he didn\u2019t actually bother to tell her about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the next year or so, any time my partner Jayne and I went to visit, Dad would find an opportunity to take us aside at some point to give us an update. Inevitably this would begin with a conspiratorial, \u201cDon\u2019t tell Shirley, but\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first the news seemed encouraging, but soon it became clear the business was going south and Dad\u2019s money was going with it. I\u2019ll never know the full story, but it seemed to me he was badly advised (to put it kindly) by the relative concerned and quite probably cheated by the main shareholder, though it was all technically within the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually he had to confess to my stepmother that he had lost most of their life savings. This inevitably caused a rift between them and had further ramifications that continued for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This entire incident was, of course, deeply traumatic for the whole family. The one good thing it taught me was the folly of putting all your eggs in one basket when investing<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I vowed I would never make that mistake with my own investments and have therefore always aimed to diversify as widely as possible. To date that principle has served me well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n