This 20-something couple lost $80K in an options trading gamble — where Ramit Sethi says they went wrong

Paul, 27, thought he had a winning strategy. Riding a wave of headlines about President Donald Trump’s trade policy and looming tariffs, he took $80,000 that he and his wife Vicki had saved up and invested it in stock options.

Paul was betting that automakers like Tesla would take a hit. He was confident he could time the market and make money with his options to buy or sell. But the market had other plans.

Instead of dropping in value, shares held strong, and Paul’s aggressive play quickly turned into a steep loss.

“It was a very difficult thing to swallow,” Paul told Ramit Sethi during an episode of the finance guru’s podcast, I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

The personal finance advisor invited the couple to unpack what went wrong and what matters in the long game of building wealth.

When Paul made his first options trade on Tesla, he was riding high, pocketing around $3,000. But what began as a small win quickly spiraled into a devastating loss.

By the following day, Paul had lost $80,000 and decided to sell his position to “give in to the options trading gods.”

“I was devastated,” he admitted to Sethi.

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The money, gone within 24 hours, was the couple’s emergency fund, saved over two years. That $80,000 wasn’t just a number, it was security.

“It’s a big number to the both of us,” added Vicky. “The meaning behind it is freedom.”

Paul was crushed not just by the financial blow but by what it meant for his relationship. He called Vicky to tell her what had happened, describing it as a hard pill to swallow.

Vicky recalls hearing the distress in Paul’s voice. “I heard my husband being very anxious, very distressed, and my immediate reaction was to be the calm, cool, collected one.”

Before their nest egg was wiped out, Paul and Vicki’s financial picture looked solid. They had zero debt, $80,000 in liquid assets, $110,000 in investments and $23,000 in savings — bringing their total net worth to $213,000.