Youhe Zeng, 49 years old

Q: What was your worst job ever?

A: When I was 41 years old, I came to America with my family (2004). I was a farmer in Guangdong, China. I don’t know anything, but to work needs a lot of energy. Before I came here, I thought my life going to be change because everyone in my village said America is a place fill with gold. After I came here, my relatives took my family to see many places such as Statue of Liberty, Bronx Zoo… Just a few weeks later, everything back to normal and I have to find a job. Suddenly, many problems are coming to me. I was asking myself What I can do? Based on all the problems, I need money for living and my kids (two daughters and one son) need to go to school. Also, my wife is same as me who knows nothing and she would be harder to find a job than me.  As a result, I got a job in a supermarket which is call Feng Huang Cheng (a Chinese super market, it locatesd at 56^th Street and Eighth Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y.). I was helping people to kill the fish and then clean it for them. Every day I have to be there at 9 A.M. except Monday (off) which I need to take out all the seafood and set up everything. And then I have lunch at 3 P.M. because at that time there are not that much people come over to buy foods. After only 20 minutes, I have to get back to work until 9 P.M., and then I have to start clean up everything and take all the seafood back to the refrigerator. When I finished everything, it’s almost 10 P.M. Despite all of these things, I work almost 13 hours a day but I just get $350 each week. And my rent for each month is $1000. Therefore, with these pay I hardly live with my family. Even though when I was in Guangdong, China, I don’t have to work all day longs and I have my own house. Of course, there is no comparative because here is America.

Freda Mograby- 48

Q: What was your worst financial decision?

A: My brother Morris and I had been saving up money from the age of 16. In 1985, in Brooklyn, we wanted a car to share between the both of us. All the money in our savings was used for a 1980 Buick. I earned the money through various things such as babysitting, doing receptionist work, and tutoring. My brother was a year younger than I, and delivered newspapers, food, and had been a counselor at summer camps. A friend told me about someone who leases cars for a living. We bought a $4,000 car without any parental guidance. According to the seller, the car was in great condition. The joke was on us. We paid in cash in advance and received the car. A month later, we started realizing that the exterior was painted over but underneath was a junky refurbished car. The engine began making noise, and the oil began leaking. The worst part of the car was the brake, which slowly stopped working. When my brother and I went back to the seller he had disappeared. We lost around $6,000, including the cost of the car and repair. After a few months the car was in such bad condition that we could no longer drive it, and had to dispose of it.

Eric Lee, 53

Q: What was your worst job ever?

A: In 1982, I worked for Time Processing Company, in Hong Kong. It was my second job, and at the time, I was an engineer assistant. I had to make engineering drawings as standards for production of electronic products. I was still on probation, and my supervisor made the three months hell for me. My supervisor was nitpicking everything that I did. He criticized the accuracy of my drawings and even my efficiency. He disapproved of every diagram that I drew, rudely crossing them out. He stepped all over my pride as an engineer. I felt that he was being judgmental and biased. He couldn’t stand me, and I couldn’t stand him. He was ready to fire me when his supervisor stepped in. His supervisor proposed prolonging my probation, having me work under his direct supervision for three months so he could make a fair judgment regarding my work. I quickly gained his approval and trust – obviously because nothing was ever wrong with my drawings – and continued working under his supervision for the rest of the time I stayed with the company. I felt victorious because I showed my previous supervisor that I was perfectly capable.

Jonathan Esposito, 35

Q: What was your worst financial decision?

A: In 2001, I was 23 years old, living in Central Islip, Long Island. Working for a wine distributor, I met a man named Jamel, who worked at a prestige wine boutique on Long Island and had extensive wine knowledge. He became my mentor in wine, and we developed a close friendship. He frequently talked about investing in property, and since at the time I was living with my grandparents, I decided to invest in a property with him. We got a mortgage on a four-bedroom house in Bay Shore, Long Island in 2007. The mortgage on the house was $375,000, and we agreed to split the $3,200 monthly mortgage payment. Our plan was to rent rooms in the house to tenants while we both lived there. But we weren’t able to turn the house into a rental property and as a result we couldn’t rent to tenants. On top of our rental plans failing, the property value of the house dropped to $240,000 just one year after we bought it. I struggled every month to come up with my half of the mortgage payment, leaving me with absolutely no savings and the constant burden of making monthly payments. After four years of paying the mortgage off and living in the house, I made the decision to stop the payments in 2011. Stopping my payments forced both Jamel and myself to foreclose on the house and return the deed to the bank in lieu of the debt. Aside from my credit rating being ruined and paying off a mortgage for four years, there was sort of a happy ending for me; I was able to move to Brooklyn debt free.

Corwin Kilvert, 31

Q: What was your worst financial decision?

A: Looking for a watch a few weeks ago on the Internet, I found an antique Jaeger LeCoulture watch on eBay with a starting bid price of $1800. Unfortunately, I lost the auction and called it quits after my last bid of $2,500. The watch sold for $3,000. Several days later, eBay emailed me, stating that the $3,000 bidder was unable to pay the amount owed, giving me a set of instructions to obtain the watch. The instructions told me to wire $2,500 to a specific bank account. I complied and wired the money. After two weeks of not receiving a confirmation of the watch shipped or my payment received, I called eBay customer service, which had no record of my transaction. It didn’t take me long to realize that I had been a victim of Internet fraud.

Brian Richard, 30

Q: What was your worst financial decision?

A: For my friend Christopher Plunket’s 21’st birthday in May, 2003, I paid $3,000 to rent out McFadden’s Restaurant and Saloon on 42^nd Street in Manhattan, including open bar. I charged the $3,000 to one of my credit cards; I didn’t think I would have a problem paying it back. Because of the interest payments, the debt proved to be a larger burden than I assumed it would be. It took me a year to completely pay off the principle, interest and late fees for a total of just over $4,500. Not only was the direct financial cost difficult to pay, but the costs were extremely intrusive on my life (almost all of my disposable income was spent paying off my credit card bills). Worse than the financial burden, I didn’t get what I wanted for my money. Instead of a fun night with close friends, many of Christopher’s friends from Connecticut came and ruined the night. They were loud, obnoxious, and did not get along with Christopher’s friends from New York.  After this irresponsible splurge, I learned to be more responsible when it comes to accumulating debt.

Mudasar Chaudhry, 30

Q: What was your worst financial decision?

A: I came from Pakistan, to America—a land of opportunity—in 1999. In 2006, I joined the TLC (Taxi Limousine Commission) in New York City. I joined the Charge and Ride Company–I bought their first Radio, which was equal to one share, using it to communicate with the base—for $75,000. I also bought a brand new limo in 2007 for $33,000. After paying for everything, I was making good money each month. My friend suggested I take loans and buy more shares using profits from my work. So, I bought two more shares for $150,000 (I didn’t have to buy more limos–I rented the shares to other drivers who would pay me). In order to pay for the new shares I took a loan from a credit union. Everything was going well until November 2007, when the economy collapsed and my company got hit. The company’s share value dropped to $10,000. From 478 drivers, the company was down to  93 drivers who had  very little work, very little earnings. I was having trouble paying the loan and was in debt for more than $200,000. I ended up declaring bankruptcy. I lost everything that I owned. My credit is completely ruined, and I cannot borrow money until 2018.

Edit Hiermann, 36

Q: What was your worst financial decision?

A: I moved back to Budapest from New York in December, 2008 after deciding to invest money I earned in the USA.  I bought a one-bedroom apartment in January, 2009 for $37,000 and spent around $1,000 renovating it. In February, I leased the apartment for $160 a month plus utilities. That August, I moved back to New York and had my mother collect the rent. A year later, when the tenant moved out, I discovered that most of the utility bills were unpaid. By then, I had decided not to return to Hungary. Therefore, there was no point in keeping the apartment. In June, 2011 I sold it for $23,000. My total costs were $41,000, including the price of the apartment and money I spent on utility bills, property tax, renovation and real estate agency fees; while I made about $25,000 from renting and selling the apartment. So my net loss was $16,000.

Renee Moore, 53

Q: What was your worst financial decision?

A: About twelve years ago, my husband and I had an old Volvo that we decided to sell, and replace with a new leased car. It was a 1995 Volvo s40, and it was in pretty bad shape. This was essentially my car, as my husband had his own. We sold the car for the low price of $850 because the buyer was an acquaintance. We began leasing a new car every three years. Then the kids started driving. Two years ago, we finally decided that the best option is to lease another car for them. But the costs are really adding up! The kids’ car, a 2010 Toyota Camry, costs $250 per month to lease. It’s frustrating because it would be great to have that old Volvo for them to drive. That way, we wouldn’t have to lease a car for them (and we wouldn’t care if they banged it up, which we have to pay extra for when the lease is up). We didn’t think about it when we sold the Volvo, because it was old and–-we thought–-useless.

Shalin Gupta, 46

Q: What was your worst financial decision?

A: Back in the early 90’s, my cousin Dhruv had just finished his intermediate studies (high school) from a private school in Meerut, India. He was a trouble-maker throughout his life, and there was a general consensus that he wouldn’t be going to college to become an engineer and join the IT boom. Nights, he stayed out late with friends, sleeping throughout the day. He would not even come to morning puja (prayers), waking around 2pm, sitting on the couch until it was night and it was time for him to go hang with his friends. I still remember him coming to our house just to eat our food and ask for money. Being the generous person I am, I would give it to him, hoping he’d put it to good use. In September of 1993, I received a phone-call from him saying that he was in Jail. Once I got there, I learned that he had broken into an electronic shop near the city area and tried to steal some SONY televisions and remotes. He was caught and held captive by the police. The bail was set at 50,000 rupees ($1,100) and he promised me that if I bailed him out, he would get a job, become a better person, and pay me back. So I took two months of my savings and bailed him out. Once he got out, he did get a job, but it only lasted about a month. He went back to jail in November for trying to steal again, and spent thirty days there.  I never received my 50,000 rupees, but even more important, I funded his alcoholism (I found out that’s what he used my money for). To this day, he hops from one small job to another and suffers greatly from not going to college and getting an education, and I still sometimes send him money just so he can stay alive and feed his family.