What's your most expensive moment of stupidity?

[HangingOver]

Cheer me up MN.

I visited DF for the first time since moving a loooong way away on the train this weekend. The train fares were over £200 all in but worth it to see DF. Raced to the station today to get the connecting train home and realised the return journey I booked was, in fact, yesterday. Minutes to spare and only first class seats available. £198. So my two days with DF cost me over £400. What an absolute wally! Am trying to channel my inner Love Islander and just say "it is what it is" (and obviously being grateful I actually had the money in my account to buy it). I was trying to think back and I think this is probably my single most expensive incident of stupidity (the one time the waiter accidentally charged my card €300 instead of €30 not counting as that was his fault).

Tell me yours while I drink my fifth cup of free tea.

Think you win listsandbudgets .

I was going to moan about starting therapy. I was with the same therapist for 4 years. Granted It was three months after I decided I didn't want to live anymore and I know I did change in some ways but I sometimes wish that I had quit sooner. The first year was also twice a week and I know I spent more then 9k on it. The last year was just going in circles.

Aw so many stupid (it’s been a stressful day at work) scenarios 😂

Petrol in the diesel car I had owned for about 2 years 😩

Reversing (not slowly) into this stupid 1ft wall in an empty carpark because I never seen it 🧱

Drunk bidding and winning on an iPad that can’t be upgraded so doesn’t work 📱

Paying for my parking ticked then being unable to find my car 🚗

Doing a big shop then realising when told it’s X amount I don’t even have my purse with me 🛒

inexplicably forgetting the same pin I’ve had for 10 years and locking myself out my card bank 💳

Also I promise I’m not actually a bad driver I’ve been driving since I was 17 but just have the occasional brain fart 😂…also I’m only 29 so believe it or not it can’t be dementia x

Went out to buy some chocolate as I had PMT - forgot what I went out for, and came back with a pair of skis 😳

@Lndnmummy

Dropping car key in the drain. Last car key. £520 for a new one.

I dread doing this every time I visit my daughter's new house, the biggest grate imaginable there.

I know something about the cost of new keys ever since my late OH left a set of car keys in the pocket of the trousers he put into the wash! Of course it was my fault, I should have checked the pockets.

I've also got a thing with buses:

1. I didn't remember that the country I was in was an hour ahead, so I had already missed it and had to buy another ticket.

1. On the return journey back I had booked from the area that I had originally started with for the same time.

3.Not brought the correct ID to take the theory test.

4.Missed a £100 flight as we got caught up in traffic.

We recently came close to buying a new fridge because we didn’t realise it had an on/off switch.
There have been clothes I didn’t wear, courses I didn’t complete. A flat and a car I didn’t haggle for, massive library fines, and cinema tickets I forgot I’d booked. Paying for a full survey on a house purchase that fell through may have been the most expensive.
The one that seemed most serious at the time was spending 1450 pesetas on a bottle of wine in 1988. I thought I was being massively extravagant by spending 450.

Went on holiday with friends to Tenerife after graduating from uni- had a lovely final day, hiring a car and driving round the island with a lovely lunch, buying last minute souvenirs and presents. Turned up at the airport for our late night flight, only to discover that we (and 70 other passengers) had the wrong date for the flight... our's had left 24 hours previously. Unfortunately due to check-in and flight departure falling across the two days, we had misread when we were leaving. Unfortunately as it was also the last day of the school holidays, there were very few seats on any flights back to the UK, at great cost! My friends were able to buy two seats but my boyfriend and I ended up having to fork out for flights to Paris, trains to Calais and ferry to Dover... what an adventure.... luckily someone took pity on us on the ferry and bought us a pint as we had completely run out of money!
Think it was this journey home that put the nail in the coffin of the relationship with my 'then' boyfriend as I realised how useless he was at organising and coping with any of this- let alone paying for any of it!!

Actually this act of stupidity didn't cost anything but could have been. Having spent 3 days in HK on a stopover to Sydney, we had gone on the star ferry (I think that's what it's called) at day but not at night. I was adamant that I was doing it before we left.

So I decided we'd go to the airport, check in with our cases, leave the airport, do the star ferry and return in good time for boarding. Except it wasn't quite that simple, we got very late, boarding had closed and they very kindly delayed the flight for us. We boarded to a mortifying announcement about our lateness and the ire of our fellow passengers (quite justifiably). Completely stupid, I don't know we were thinking given we were students travelling on a tight budget.

About 15 years ago my boyfriend (now DH) and I paid about £26 for flights for Stockholm in the Ryanair sale for a bargain weekend away.

We went to the wrong airport for our flight home and had to fork out about £200 for a 150km taxi journey to the right one. Amazingly we got there just as they were calling our names over the tannoy and made it to the plane with literally seconds to spare.

My friend was about 10 years old and her parents had bought her a Rolex watch. A couple of years later she gave it to a friend not realising the value of the watch.

My dad recently had his wallet stolen when he went food shopping. He’d filled 2 trolley loads of food and got to the checkout to discover he didn’t have his wallet. A couple of hours later he was €3000 short in his bank accounts. He’d stupidly left the PIN numbers in his wallet. I felt awful for him as he is usually is so alert and savvy. He’s in his 80s. Someone was obviously following his movements.

I was parked in a carpark that I have used for about 10 years. There was a sign on the machine strictly for hotel residents only so I dithered for a while trying to decide where to go and park. 3 weeks later I got a parking ticket of £60 as I was seen driving in and there for 14 minutes. I decided to fight my case and lost and ended paying £100.

Was at work and needed to get the horse’s livery money out ( always in cash ) to pay that evening . Went to the atm , got out £300:, tucked it in my pocket book which I always put in my hat . Put hat and contents on the roof whilst unlocking the car , when a colleague put up an urgent assistance call . Dived into the car , blue lighted it to the colleague - and then realised when it had all calmed down , that I’d left my hat on top of the car with all its contents . £300 scattered the length of Seven Sisters Road . Found my hat when I went back though !

@keffie12 Could you not have just sat down on the table and lowered yourself down???

Similar to OP - booked Eurostar to Paris with then-BF. Got to St Pancras to realise tickets were for yesterday. Went and bought new ones on the day hour before the train or so (was very early AM). Total cost was way over 1k. (I was on a very well paid contract back then so could afford this but still makes me cringe).

Was having a wedding dress made as I was pregnant. We paid a deposit of £150. Dress was gold coloured and was going to cost £800. Id also bought shoes and ordered them to be dyed the same colour as the dress £80. Went for a fitting and dress was like a meringue on me. It was really horrible I wanted to cry. Mum also hated it and told them it looked awful on me and not like the dress style they had originally showed us. We lost our £150 and 3 days before the wedding had to go into London to find a wedding dress and new shoes. I was 6 months pregnant by then. Eventually found a lovely ivory wedding dress in Monsoon.

19 year old me booked tickets for 3 to the theatre a show my two best friends who went to different unis wouldn’t shut up about.

Two friends had already booked tickets to go on the same night (didn’t book me a ticket though) so I ended up watching it alone with two empty seats next to me and meeting them afterwards. They weren’t the cheap seats either (cost me at least £80 a ticket).

The friendship didn’t last long after that though so there is good news from it I never forgave them. The theatre was full bar those two seats and people were trying to get tickets on the night

Oh yes over the years I’ve wasted £1000s of pounds on clothes and shoes I didn’t wear or hardly wore.I wasted money on courses I didn’t end up doing.

Mine's a skiing one... (how very Mumsnet of me )

Years ago we were skiing with six friends on for New Year in Alpe D'huez. Last run on New Years Eve before we went back to the chalet to get ready to party. Ski'd across the mountains, taking a mixture of big cables and button lifts and runs, so were quite far from home when we realised that we had mixed up the time of the last lift by an hour (old school watches set on the wrong time I think) and all the lifts were shut. We were a few mountains away from our base so had to ski down from where we were to get to street level with no idea where we were. Trudged for ages until we got to a bar and asked them to call us a cab.

Because there were seven of us, we had to get two cars.
But more importantly because we'd ski'd over mountains - what had taken us an hour to do was nearly three hours drive to get around the mountains.

Then the final insult was that it was NYE so double fare.

It cost us about £350 to get home.

We felt like idiots. Because we were idiots.

Getting married.

Years ago I booked a holiday keg in Croatia. I then booked a return flight non refundable to the wrong city!!! So I was meant to book a flight to Zadar but booked to Zagreb 😳😳😳

I ended up fluting into Zagreb and hiring a car a did a little 2 day trip driving down to the holiday rental. And then I had to book another flight back from Zadar!!!

My dog who had an inflammatory bowel condition and ended up costing thousands as the Insurance stopped paying out for a pre existing condition after a year, he was only a year old.

Same dog ate a bag of chocolate raisins DS 2 left in his blazer pocket, of course this was on a weekend so £800 later following a night at the vet school.
DS 1 then aged 13 ran up a £700 phone bill when we moved house and he used his data to watch videos and films while we waited for WiFi to be installed. Vodafone were complete arseholes about it and didn't give an inch, they also made it very difficult to leave our contracts.

My friend bought the wrong HOUSE

Good. Lord.

Realised I had booked the wrong long stay car park at a completely different airport. Rebooked that morning for the correct airport but too late to cancel the first. Left late for the flight. Then had to book another flight at another airport as we were stuck on the m25 and couldn't get round in time. Then had to pay the full hourly 'drop off' parking rate at the new airport for 7 days. Then had to pay for a taxi from original airport to new airport to pick up the car.

That mistake was in the thousands

Walking from car park to work I saw a lady struggling to cross road. So I helped her cross, when I got to pavement off she went and I turned and lost balance and fell back into the road. Knocking my head on the kerb. Woke up to see a paramedic and spent two days in hospital. DH rushed to hospital and while there I had a call on mobile sacking me from new job for letting them down. A bill for the ambulance ( not Uk) and a hefty hosp Bill. Plus my car was impounded. I was def in the wrong place at the wrong time.

@Binjob118

I literally just ordered and picked up a fan for £105 from John Lewis to cool my kids bedroom. Got it home and it's a bloody fan heater.....!!

Should have a cooling option too?