I didn't think of it as an investment at the time, but cutting most of my last two years of high school to learn programming 24/7 paid off with a lucrative career. I managed to graduate and get a HS diploma despite rarely showing up. I borrowed $2,000 from my grandparents to buy an ADM-3a dumb terminal and modem so I could program from home as a teenager. I got hired f/t at Nike at 19, was making more than my parents combined a couple of years later.
In no particular order:<p>* $75 off craigslist - my dog :) (this is mostly sentimental obv, but actually my best investment)<p>* ~A few thousand dollars - A minor in CS when I was majoring in something much less pragmatic<p>* $125 from Home Depot - a water transfer pump I wasn't sure I needed that likely saved me tens of thousands of dollars of water damage. I went back and bought another one.<p>* ~$120,000 - Invested after covid and pulled right before the crash these past few months<p>* ~$200,000 - Bought a couple houses
Not me, but someone I know 20ish years ago got mad at his broker and told him to sell everything (converting everything to cash so he could find a new broker and transfer it to a new account).<p>While he was sitting on all cash the dotcom bubble burst and the NASDAQ crashed.<p>He was quite happy he happened to be in all cash right then.