Stupid ways you've wasted money

[Haypanky]

Please help me feel better by telling me your tales of money mistakes... I'm so embarrassed and horrified... On Friday I spent £390 on 2 tickets to Mumford & sons... I like them, but not that much!!! And we don't really have the money! It was supposed to be a massive treat. I thought £175 was the total price, there was a big red clock counting down, the kids were at me, I got click happy confirm confirm confirm... There isn't an adequate excuse. The tickets are non-refundable, and if I sell them, I need to go there on the night and hand them over to the buyer which involves a couple of hours drive, paying to park... I can't be the only one to have done something so stupid... can I?!

Was this viagogo by any chance? I got a refund from them, tickets were priced at 178 I thought it was total and only after purchasing was it confirmed that this was for each ticket plus booking fees. Went down chargeback route with credit card company

QVC has had a lot of my money ,creams, lotions and things I didn’t know I needed. I don’t watch it now and have to use everything up

I once did this with Bastille tickets. I spent more than needed on the wrong site so then bought more on the official site. I sold the unofficial ones for less than I paid. The people went and had a great time. I ended up selling the other ones too as I couldn't go in the end. I had seen them before anyway but totally wasted money this time. Those dodgy sites trick you so you aren't the only one! I do love Mumford & sons. Go anyway and enjoy the show. You'd have to drive there anyway

Not me, but I lover overseas and a friend has had furniture she has admitted she will never use in storage for the last ten years at a cost that works out to be £29,000

Fiona, how do you budget like that ? £390 on all that ?

Paying to be upgraded from premium economy to first class on a Virgin flight about 15 years ago, i was quite flush at the time and it was a bit of a whim at the end of a quite special holiday. Total waste of money as first class then wasn’t nearly as nice as it appears to be now. I was so disappointed!

Had a couple of near misses recently. I gave serious thoughts to buying 2 Nine Inch Nails tickets at the Albert Hall, they only had box seats left and they were eye watering at about £650 I think - I talked myself out of it thankfully but it took a while! Same with tickets for the Harry Potter play, I got as far as selecting seats then looked at the total and shut the browser down sharpish in horror🤭

Gym membership that I then don’t use but don’t cancel as I keep telling myself I’ll start tomorrow. Some crappy statuettes at an antiques fair. The seller flattered us and we were suckered in. Overpriced photos of DC at various sports competitions - and overpriced poor quality hoodies from the same events. I’ve also bought theatre tickets and forgotten to go - usually as I bought them online late at night after a couple of glasses or so of wine and forgot to then enter the dates in my diary, having elected to pick up at the venue. The list goes on and on.....

This thread is making me feel better...

I just paid $452 for a 12-page energy assessment of the house. The assessor spent about an hour here, mostly outside looking at windows, and also took a photograph of the furnace, hot water tank, etc.

The assessment, when it finally arrived, turned out to be a photo of the house, and a list of the types of windows and doors, followed by 11 pages of generic advice, cut-and-pasted from government brochures. "buying energy-saving appliances can save you money", that kind of thing.

Total rip-off. I'm wondering whether to complain to someone, or just write it off to experience.

@darkriver198868

My biggest one is: I have had almost 60 (possibly more) mobile phones over the last 14 years. I cant explain why.

That’s 4 phones every year 😱how? why? Do you still have them all? You could open a phone museum!

Laser hair removal - spent over £1000 didn't work after 12 sessions and have gone back to waxing

Lent my sister the money to buy the flat she just had to have, and didn't put anything in writing about repayments because, well, family.... Ten years on, I've not seen a penny back and she tells me that she's not going to as it was a gift.

Amazon-because I always end up filling up my basket with shite i don’t actually need. Also the NEXT sales! I thought I was getting bargains but essentially I was buying shit I didn’t need because it’s like a free for all and if you didn’t take it someone else would!
Also Lazer treatment on my undereyes (I was talked into this) £90 per session and it did absolutely sweet FA!

Forgot - hundreds of bloody beanie babies - especially the bears but also other random sick making ones. Hundreds of pounds wasted - I could cry.

£199 on leather trousers? Can you wash leather trousers or are they wear once?

Toys for DD. Like Oonies or Cutiestix which she wanted but then were crap. But the worst part is I can't just cut my losses there. Oh no. I convince myself if I just buy a different pack of the balloons or a different pack of the stick things she'll actually use the original set. She never does, so I just waste even more money. I see myself doing it but I just can't stop. I refuse to admit to myself that the first purchase was a waste so just compound it :(

An allotment. I live in NI & there are next to no council allotments, so we private rented a double plot off a farmer for a year. Plan was we’d grow our own, make our own jams/chutneys, and even dehydrate herbs etc. We’d save a fortune. We covered it in black gardening fabric (?) so that the grass/weeds would die naturally (no chemicals on our plot). Badly tore my ligaments and was practically housebound for 3 months other than having physio. Paid £40 a month (yes really), plus the cost of the gardening black stuff. Didn’t plant a thing. And so the farmer ended the contract at the beginning of the next growing year.

Haha darkriver can I have a phone? My phone is 9 years old a total brick and I'm the butt of endless family jokes. But that's what happens when you have spent £40 on stupid balloons

Reading this full thread has made me feel much better about some of my fails over the years.

Paying for full AA cover for 2 years for a car I'd sold those 2 years before..... Gym memberships ongoing for the past say 5 years? Have periods of going religiously for approx 2 weeks then nothing again for 6 months.... Not contesting the shambles of our wedding day 6 months ago, paid specifically for some 'extras' which the hotel didn't provide on the day yet didn't contest it as "didn't want to make a scene".... (should have received at least £1500 back ).....

Oh this thread is making me feel better! I'm a person who has hot flushes of embarrassed regret over my many past mistakes. One of my best was spending £300 on a replica 1860's dress, hoop skirt and corset to wear to a murder mystery party.

Everyone else was wearing jeans.

@GreatWesternValkyrie I actually dont have any except my very cheap battered one. I got trapped in a horrible cycle of buying mobile phones and selling them. CEX where I live knows me very well as the local carphone warehouse.

Great thread. Good to know so many of us have been caught out.
Mine was buying tickets for a Madness concert on a sham site. It was the first one to come up too! Arrived at concert after a long wait in the rain to be told we couldn't get in.
Has put me off buying tickets on line.

MsLexy I’m the same. And knitting patterns too... Defo need an intervention on that score lol.

This summer instead of a holiday we refurbished our bathroom which ended up costing three times more than originally planned. Anyhoo after it was done I went to Ikea to buy a few accessories and as I was driving at 1mph out of the parking space I accidentally bumped the car next to me (first bump EVER In 30 years of driving might I add). Not wanting to be the a scumbag that drives off I left my number thinking it wouldn't be more than a couple of hundred pounds to fix. Fast forward a few weeks and I'm £786.23 worse off! Most expensive bathroom accessories ever!😫

Mslexic I hear you

A sofa (second hand about £100 + delivery) that wouldn't go up the stairs. Not a huge amount but the embarrassment cost me.

Plane tickets, had to not go due to school not informing ds of an important exam day.

Marni trousers unworn and coat only worn a handful of times _ now I know why it was in the sale.

many things bought on impulse usually clothes which all add up to a lot over the years.

Me and DH ended up bidding against each other for an eBay item! Not even sure how it happened, but like you OP, I started panicking with the timer going down and somehow thought DH was someone else. Can't remember if it was me or him that won the item. Luckily it wasn't a huge amount we wasted, but I felt pretty stupid!! Turned out we changed our minds about it anyway and it's still in the shed two years later...