[sarah2045]

I am dreaming about buying an acreage and turning it into a business. It's a massive risk but it's pretty much my life long dream.

I'd love to hear of your biggest risk or life gamble you have taken? Doesn't have to be business related.

[emmafg]

12 years ago ,just after my DH and I got married ,we had enough saved to put a good deposit on a place in inner Melbourne. Deciding we were too young to settle down, we sold everything we owned and moved to London.

We flew out on 9/11 (bad timing!), arrived in London to find the bottom had fallen out of the IT job market. I found a job reasonably quickly, but my salary could hardly support us.

We ended up spending just about every penny we had (had enough for one way flights back home) at the point DH picked up a job after 9 months. That job came with stock options which enabled us to move back to Melbourne 7 years later, pay for our current house outright, have the school and uni fees for our 2 x DD's in the bank, and almost enough to retire on if we wanted.

A financial gamble that paid off for us. We are looking to start a business this year which will risk our retirement fund, but we are very excited about it.

Not sure if this is what you were after.

I have certainly taken other big gambles, though those were not financial, and no regrets there either.

[julz78]

Trying to have another baby after having a stillbirth and miscarriage with around a 30% + chance of losing the baby again.

It absolutely paid off I now have a beautiful little girl running around who is the light of my life.

[la di dah]

I got on a plane with a return ticket that was for two months later to spend it with a man I'd never met in person (online relationship) in another country, living in his house.

I mean it wasn't quite really that big - we'd known each other for years and done a lot of phone/online/snail-mail talking and right until I got on the plane I wasn't scared but then I was just ohgodohgodohgod for the length of the flight.

Out of curiousity I just asked my DH his and he replied: "A four year internet relationship."

[Apageintime]

Letting my then bf of 3 months move with me to Canberra so I could take up my dream job.

Both the move and the BF worked out perfectly (he's now my DH)

[Maple Leaf]

Dh quitting his job with a consulting firm and going out on his own.

Was a huge risk as the consulting firm wasn't so nice about it and tried to wreck DH's chances of going solo.

But we held fast and now he's making 100% his own fee and not paying any of it to the firm.

My biggest personal gamble was marrying a man I had only spent 12 days with (in person) and moving over here to be with him after having never left North America before.

[AllegraM]

Internet dating. Now happily married to my online man, the love of my life with a beautiful son and another bub on the way.

[poppy_star]

Out of the blue, we found a house that was larger with all the features that would suit our growing family. It was a few suburbs further out, and we thought we would almost be exchanging at the same price. Our house wasn't ready for the market and I convinced my DH that we should do a bridging loan so we could secure the new house.

The market dropped out of housing... GFC, by the time we were ready a month latter. It took us 5 months to sell and the bridging loan left us very tight almost to the point of breaking us. During this time I was really upset that I had convinced us to do this.

The big picture is the main thing, 5 months of angst has lead to the best decision of our lives. We have a good local state school to send the kids, whereas if we stayed we would have to consider private school. We have met many families in the area. The house mets our needs opposed to having to spend a couple of hundred thou on the old house. Since we moved, a major road have been put through 2 houses behind, cause the price plummet. I think we got out by the skin of our teeth.

In a nut shell, we gambled financially to gain a better lifestyle and better financial security.

[ladyantebellum]

Took a job in a town thats almost in the middle of nowhere far from family and friends.
Paid off big time as I met and married DH here and now have three beautiful kids.

Together our biggest gamble has been going into serious debt to buy a farm. Although we bought it more for lifestyle reasons (and it always been a dream of Dh) than financial reasons.

[Ehill]

We flew out on 9/11 (bad timing!), arrived in London to find the bottom had fallen out of the IT job market. I found a job reasonably quickly, but my salary could hardly support us..

We landed in London about 5 days before 9/11! Thankfully I got my job straight away but my DH took ages to get a job and we had to live off my cr&ppy secretary salary for about 2mo.

About 6mo after arriving in London my DH found a franchise opportunity that he was determined to go for. It is a huge well known franchise that was already massive in Oz but had only just started expansion in the UK. We figured we had nothing to lose so went for it. It took a year to find a retail location but finally got there and ended up opening 3 in London.

The profits and sales of the shops set us up financially to return home to Oz.