The 5 Dumbest Purchases I’ve Made In My 20’s

What's up, you guys? It's Graham here. So the year is almost over, and in five more months, I am no longer going to be in my twenties because I'm gonna be turning 30. That means I'm going to be entering into a whole new world of adult responsibilities and mild lower back pain. I'm reminiscing about the days when Bitcoin hit 20,000 and YouTube still monetized prank channels while thinking about all the not-so-smart purchases that I made in my 20s that will forever haunt me.

Well, I mean, technically, I'm still in my 20s for another few months, so potentially I still have time to make some really dumb financial choices. But assuming I could just keep it together until then, this list should really just sum it up. Even for me, I've been extremely careful about where I spend my money and calculating every purchase I make. But sometimes, I just don't think things through as much as I should, and from that, I have a bad time.

So let's go over the five dumbest financial purchases I have made so far in my 20s, exactly what happened, and how you can avoid making a similar mistake. Because really, all we can do is learn from these mistakes, pretend they never happened, make a video about them for YouTube, and warn other people not to do the same thing.

So, with that said, these are those mistakes and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you either. First, let's start with the one that still pains me to this day and makes me cringe every single time I think about it. That would be when I did not smash the like button for the YouTube algorithm. For real. No, it helps out a lot, so if you wouldn't mind, I would greatly appreciate it.

But being serious, though, I look back at this one and cringe inside. Looking back on it, it happened about six years ago, and it was when I paid a marketing agency $5,000 to create a custom website, logo designs, business cards, and letterheads to help expand my career as a real estate agent.

Now, on the surface, it sounds like it should be a really good use of money. After all, it's a tax write-off! I'm investing back into my business, and at the very least, theoretically, I should at least just make my money back on that, right? Well, no. Wrong!

This is actually what ended up happening. Now, just for some context on this, but really up until this point, I've taken a slightly unorthodox approach with my career as a real estate agent. I've never had a personal website advertising myself, I've never really used social media, and I mostly relied on word-of-mouth and referrals to build up my clientele. My thinking on this was like, who goes to a realtor's personal website to look up information like grahamsteffen.com? That's so outdated! Who would ever go there? All people really care about is having someone available on a moment's notice who does really good work, and a website shouldn't really make that big of a difference!

That was of course until I met up with an old friend. That old friend owned a marketing agency that was supposed to be really, really good, and we got to talking. He explained that I needed a website in order for people to take me more seriously, and I needed better business cards in order to stand out. Now, at that point, I didn't really see the need to change anything, but in the back of my mind, I was slightly concerned about potentially leaving money on the table by not reinvesting more back into my business.

He really applied the pressure for me to begin doing this immediately using terms like, “If you don't do this now, then when will you? You deserve to do this for yourself! If you could just sell one extra house from this, it’s gonna pay for itself ten times over! You need to commit to this right now, because I don’t want to waste my time with anyone who isn’t ready to move forward.”

Anyway, I gave in and spent $5,000 for him to create a completely custom website with MLS integration, information about my listings, and my sold properties, and letterheads and business cards and everything. What I got in return was not that. I don't even know where to begin to start with the website. It was a very slow process and took months to get to the point where it even resembled a legitimate-looking realtor website. There were just multiple issues, and pages wouldn't load, and pages wouldn't link to the right places. It was a constant struggle to get any update whatsoever.

Meanwhile, I went and asked several of my other friends about the so-called custom website, and they all looked at the back end and explained that this was just a template website that could have been done for a few hundred dollars in a few days. At that point, I started getting suspicious. The more I pressed about the website, however, the more pushback I got about how impatient I was being and how I needed to wait if it was to be done the right way.

That’s just when other issues started coming up. Like I said, for $5,000, this was for an entire marketing package, and that includes business cards! Well, he didn’t tell me that the cost I paid for getting business cards was only for the design of the business cards and not the cards themselves, and that would be significantly extra. Then came the letterheads, and again, for the price I was paying, I was expecting that I would get actual pieces of paper with my letterhead stamped on the top. But no! That's not what I got!

I spent over $200 for a letterhead design that just said “Graham Steffen” with my information on the upper left, within two lines going down either side on the top and on the left, and that was it. Now, this continued for months until after everything was said and done, I was left with a half-finished template website that was never fully functional, business cards that I never really used because I was not entirely happy with them, letterheads that never once got actually printed, and a $5,000 lesson that I should never be pressured into buying something that I did not entirely need.

The most important lesson I have learned from all of this is that you should never commit or buy into something just because you feel pressured into doing it. I don't think I've ever seen a happy ending when someone is pressured into buying something that then works out in the end. I've noticed it almost always ends in regret, and that's never how you get long-standing results. Unfortunately, that is a lesson that cost me $5,000 to learn.

Now my second dumbest financial purchase in my 20s is what I'm wearing right now: a $1,200 tailored suit that has never been worn before. This happened when I was 20 years old and felt like I needed to finally buy myself an adult suit for formal events, meetings, and occasions. I thought if I'm gonna go do this, I may as well just go and buy something really nice that's gonna last me for decades. But unfortunately, I had no idea what I was doing! I just went to the first high-end suit place that I could find and trusted the salesperson to find me the best suit for the best price.

So the salesperson just picked out a decent-looking navy blue suit off the rack, put it on, and then tried tailoring it around me. I trusted that this would be a really good suit, and when it was tailored, it would fit me like a glove. But instead, I got a suit that looked a little bit like grandpa owned it! Now, partially that was my fault because the store I went to looked as though it catered exclusively to the 65-and-older community, but also the suit itself just fit horribly.

Even with tailoring, you'd get it if I'm standing up, but this suit is really boxy. It's kind of square; it kind of looks like I have stumps for legs because of how loose the pants are. The pants are also pleated, which, by the way, has not been in style for decades unless you're like 80 years old, and in which case it's still cool. Anyway, I was really unhappy with the purchase, and because it was tailored, I could no longer return it. So I went and took this suit to another tailor to try to fix it, but because the suit was so off-proportioned, they recommended I not even spend any more money on it and instead just go and get something else that fit better off the rack.

Then, I've kept this in my closet now for almost a decade unworn as a reminder that I shouldn't just blindly trust salespeople at suit shops without doing any of my own research first. Not to mention, when it comes to looking good, how much money you spend makes no difference whatsoever! A $50 jacket from H&M will look significantly better than a $1,200 designer jacket that's one size too big, that doesn't fit, that is out of style! For me, in fashion, it just matters that it fits really well and is not going to fall apart in a few months than it is about how much it costs. I wish I knew that before spending $1,200 on something that I was never going to wear.

So now I'm gonna put it back in the closet now that I've officially worn it for a YouTube video, and I'm gonna switch back to my H&M.

My third mistake is something that should have never happened in the first place. I should have known better than this, but I wasted $7,500 on a really bad landscaper who did such a horrible job, and the worst part about it was that it was kind of my fault. Here's what happened: in 2016, I bought a property in West LA that needed an entirely new landscape. I'm talking the entire front and back yard needed to be ripped out, the irrigation system, new lighting, new plants, new grass—everything!

So I began to call around and interview landscapers to see who would be the best fit, to see who could get the work done, and how much it would be to do that. Well, after doing that, it seems like most people quoted anywhere from $10,000 to $12,000 with labor and materials included, and expected a two to three-week turnaround time. But last minute, I got a referral for someone else who agreed to do the exact same job for $7,500 because he was going through some tough times and really needed the business, and he said he would start work immediately if I paid half up front.

But I should have known better than to just hire the cheapest person! Just because! And it was awful! The next day when the work started, the landscaper showed up with his son and four of his son's friends. They began working and clearing out all of the old landscape, but they ended the work really early—like they started working at 8 a.m. and stopped working at 12!

I thought to myself, "Well, it's weird, they left it half-finished like this, but oh well, they're just gonna come back the next day and they'll finish it up. No worries." Now, the landscaper did say he was going to be returning the next day, and he did, but it was just him. The same thing happened—he started working at 8 a.m. and left around 12 and didn't really get that much done. That continued for three weeks straight.

Now, in his defense, the work was getting done, albeit pretty slowly. I thought to myself, "Well, I'm saving so much money from doing this that even if it takes me a little bit longer, it's really not the end of the world as long as it just gets done." And that is really when the first red flag came around. As we planned out the layout of the landscape in the front, I noticed he didn't remove any of the excess dirt to make room for the gravel that was supposed to be going in.

That's when he told me that that was not included in the work, and dirt removal would be extra. Well, me being dumb and not wanting to deal with it, I just paid him a few hundred dollars extra to remove the excess dirt and really do what he was supposed to be doing anyway in the first place. Well, a few more weeks of that went by, and as the work was nearing completion, I started noticing a lot of other issues.

First, he wouldn't show up when he said he would, and he would go days without returning any texts or calls after I was trying to figure out what happened or when he was gonna be showing up—just nothing! The second I requested the gravel was to be added around the perimeter of the backyard, where I was gonna be planting some ficus trees. So he does that, but he doesn't install a divider to separate the gravel from the grass and also doesn't install a weed barrier to prevent the grass from just growing up from the gravel.

That became very evident when grass started growing up from everywhere. The lining was also just absolutely horrible. I have no idea what he was thinking, but here is a picture to show you guys just how uneven this was. In addition to that, he never fully got rid of the grass that was underneath the sod he installed. I started noticing that when the grass started looking really bubbly. So, I went over and looked closer and peeled it up, and then noticed all the old grass growing underneath it.

So, I explained my perspective, and as a landscaper, he should know that all these things need to be done. Since I'm not there to constantly supervise to make sure all of this is being done correctly, he needs to redo it the right way. So, he agreed and said he would fix all of it for me, not to worry. I came back a week later when he said he installed the weed barrier. Except I looked and I couldn't find the weed barrier! I started going through the gravel and digging down like six inches to the dirt, and going even further beyond that, I could not find any weed barrier whatsoever.

He kept insisting it was there and I just wasn't digging deep enough. And for those who aren't aware, a weed barrier is basically a cloth that goes above the dirt and then you put gravel over top of it. That's to block the light and the nutrients from hitting the grass and preventing grass or weeds from growing up above it. So, even if what he was saying was true, it was installed incorrectly, and he has to redo it.

So now at this point, he agrees to redo the weed barrier, but his son and his son's friends start complaining that the work is too hard and is taking them way too long to do! The landscaper goes to me and says, "I now need to pay extra because this is extra work that's added on top of everything else they're doing. It's taking them much longer than I didn't tell them that he needed a liner between the grass and the gravel. I didn't tell him that he had to remove all the existing grass underneath the sod. I didn't tell him he needed to install a weed barrier, and for that, I have to pay more!”

So at this point, he started getting angry, and frankly, I just had enough of this! His work has dragged on now for months! He chose to leave the work half-completed, and I had to hire someone else to redo all the landscape correctly a second time. Now, this was a mistake that I take full responsibility for. First, I should have been supervising the entire job very closely from the very beginning instead of just relying on him to do all the work correctly himself.

Second, I should have been much more specific with my expectations and the work that needed to be done and how long it was supposed to take to get that completed. Third, as soon as I started noticing something was wrong, I really should have cut my losses and hired someone else to do it right the first time! But hey, you know what? At least on the bright side, I got a great lesson in landscape design and what not to do for the low price of like $7,500.

A fourth, I can't mention dumb money purchases without talking about the holy grail of all of them, and that would be cryptocurrency. Now, here's what happens: really, since the very beginning of this channel, I've always been against cryptocurrency and Bitcoin. I just felt it was a very risky, speculative investment with not a lot of intrinsic value, and for that reason, I never decided to put my own money in it.

But as prices continued to climb in 2017, so did a lot of excitement. I got thousands of people going and telling me to invest in cryptocurrency or to buy the certain coin at the certain day where I should invest in a certain hoop coin that was about to 100x. I mean, it was absolutely crazy! Honestly, I started to feel like a grandpa who just didn't understand it, who felt left out and just thought it was a bad idea.

But after a while of seeing this, it just started wearing down on me, and after a certain point, I just figured, "You know what? I may as well put a few thousand dollars in Bitcoin just to experience this firsthand, learn about it, and see what it's all about!" First, I day traded Bitcoin and made a few hundred dollars fairly easily, and at that point, I definitely understood what the appeal was all about.

But after a few days of doing that, I got bored with Bitcoin and I thought that if I was going to do something risky, I may as well just put my money in altcoins instead. For those that aren’t aware, that's pretty much like the penny stock versions of cryptocurrency. I ended up putting all of that money in a cryptocurrency called RaiBlocks when it was $2.50, and within a week, it went all the way to $37.

I remember looking at my account and seeing the account balance be ridiculously high for doing no work whatsoever and then getting greedy and expecting it to go up even more. It was $37! I was sitting on a lot of profit, and I thought to myself, "Well, it's gonna go to $40, and then I'm gonna sell it at that point, and it's a sure thing! It's about to be listed on all these exchanges and it's about to go up! Let me just hold on one more day!"

But guess what? It didn't happen! Right after that point, RaiBlocks ended up going through several controversies, several exchanges were hacked, and it had so many issues. Now it's sitting at $0.83, which is very far from the $37 it used to be at. I was an idiot! I didn't sell any of it off! I just let it ride, and here we are today!

You know, looking back in hindsight, I did have a lot of fun buying into the hype. To me, it was a lot like going to a casino with some friends and putting money down on the craps table. I treated this the exact same way, but I do regret being so carefree about it. Seeing all the money in the account should have set off some triggers for me to think, "Wow, this is actually real money, and I would never go and put $50,000 in a cryptocurrency like this, so I should sell!" But the greed really just got the best of me.

That was me really getting emotional about this, me thinking I could inch out just a little bit more profit from RaiBlocks and me thinking that, you know, I had known something that other people didn’t know. That was entirely my fault, and even though I had a great time learning about cryptocurrency and getting involved with everyone, I should have taken a pretty much guaranteed $40,000 profit at the time than just leaving it to see what would happen.

So I just got to say for anyone watching, just know that it's okay to make risky, speculative investments with money that you could afford to lose or that you intend to lose. But at the very least, if you made money doing this, at minimum, just sell up enough to recoup your initial investment, and that way, you're not going to be negative! If something sounds too easy or too good to be true, then it absolutely is! Things like that won't last forever; they're unsustainable, and it just becomes like a game of musical chairs as to who can get out first without being left without a chair.

Lastly, my fifth mistake has less to do with one thing in general and more so just a common occurrence that happens to me time and time again, and that is when I am too cheap where it matters the most! When that happens, it just ends up costing me way more money than had I spent a little bit more upfront and not been so cheap.

Like for example, with camera equipment, I can't tell you how many cheap mics I went through that either broke or sounded like complete crap before I finally realized, "I'm wasting so much money doing this! I should just spend a little bit more and get something that's quality that is going to sound good and last!" For the price of all of those combined cheap mics, I should have just spent money on one good one from the very beginning, and that would have saved me money!

The same thing also applies to my tripod. The very first one I bought was the cheapest one I could find online because I didn't want to spend the money. Well, guess what? It broke pretty quickly, and then I had to spend more money on something better anyway! The same thing also used to happen to me when I didn't want to overspend on a parking meter.

So I would try to save 25 cents because I didn't need that extra 15 minutes, and then I would just end up getting a $65 parking ticket! This is one of those lessons, by the way, that I can't seem to learn because for some reason, I keep making these similar mistakes. For example, I wanted to save some money by starting up another LLC for my program, the Real Estate Agent Academy.

So, I thought to myself, "Instead of paying my CPA—$400 to do it for me, I’m just gonna do it myself on LegalZoom in 20 minutes and save all the money." Well, it turns out I did not need the LLC because my S-Corp would have worked just fine. And because I started the LLC in October of the calendar year, I had to pay an $800 filing fee for that year that I never even used!

All of that I could have just saved by spending a little bit more money upfront! So anyway, here's what I'm getting at: it's not worth it to go cheap upfront to try to save a little bit more money if that means you're just gonna have to spend more money anyway in the long run to do it correctly. This could apply to pretty much everything out there, and even for myself, I still find myself doing this mistake every now and then, but I am getting better at it.

So please, learn from my mistakes! It's so important to spend more money upfront if that means it's going to last you three times as long than it is to save 25% on something that you're gonna have to replace in a few months.

So there you have it! My dumbest financial purchases in my 20s so far. I'm definitely not proud of some of this, but at the very least, if you're able to learn from it and not make the same mistake as well, then it was all worth it. Everything I just mentioned could have been avoided by a little bit of upfront research and a little more planning, realizing that spending more money upfront can often save you more money long-term, and that is something that has taken me way too long to realize.

So, with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching! I really appreciate it! As always, if you guys enjoyed videos like this, make sure to destroy the like button, subscribe button, and notification bell! Also, feel free to add me on Instagram; I post there pretty much daily. So if you want to be a part of it there, feel free to add me there. Also, feel free to add me on my second channel; that is the Graham Stephan Show. I post there every single day I'm not posting here, so if you want to see a brand new video from me every single day, go and make sure to add yourself to that.

Lastly, if you guys want free stocks, Webull is holding a promotion for the month of December. They will give you two free stocks plus a $5 gift card when you deposit $100 on their platform. So if you're interested, just use the link down below in the description, go and sign up for that, deposit $100, get two free stocks and a $5 gift card. You may as well just do it for the month of December; it's pretty good! So anyway, go ahead and enjoy that, and with that said, thank you again for watching, and until next time!