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.

Another one. DH left his car running on the drive to defrost very early one morning . It was stolen and insurance wouldn't cover it . £7,000 to replace .

Accidently accepting the extra premium car insurance whilst picking up a two day car rental.
It cost an extra £130 which the woman didn't tell me, but as I'd signed the paper work (without checking) no refund. It cost more than the car rental.

Similar to PP, got three tickets from driving down an unfamiliar road out in the middle of the countryside too fast without realising, whilst on a weekend break.

@BuddleiasBeesAndButterflies

PaulGallico, thanks for the tip! Fortunately I’m a bit of a HP fan myself so am just as excited to see it as the kids, just trying to forget the £££

There is also a free (!) gallery / shop (could buy reasonably priced things) run by graphic designers who worked on the films v near the theatre or at least it was there a couple of years ago:

minalima.com/

It is a gallery

My first wedding

@InsideNumberNine

Ds3 left a bowl of raisins on the floor. Dog ate them.

Vet presented two options - pump his stomach for £80 or admit him for observations for two nights. It was very much a case of "do you love your dog £80 much??? Or £1095 much?"

Obvs had to go for the second option. And no, no pet insurance.

This happened to my cat ... Why would a cat eat raisins I hear you ask ..because they were covered in coronation chicken mayonnaise, I'd picked them out of a sandwich! Further proof that raisins are the devil's food

Didn't realise there would be two planes going to our destination when changing planes at Dubai. Waited for the later one, ours was the earlier. Cost about 800€ to get new tickets on another flight, after initially being told there was nothing available to anywhere for two weeks.
At the time I had a moderately severe knee injury so was hobbling everywhere. Dubai deals with western women by pretending they are not there, so no assistance was offered at any point, and the stupid place is a badly signposted series of aircraft hangars. Eighteen extra hours in Dubai airport, and extra €€ for a brief stay at the in-airport hotel, so we could at least wash.
I will never, never set foot in Dubai again.
Shithole does not even come close.

@Quincesorbet no not Durham but an equally prestigious university city

Thinking back, it should have been bloody obvious that it was a bus Lane as no other bugger was driving down it in an otherwise very busy city

Telling someone I thought was a friend at work something that gave my bastard manager an excuse to get rid of me. Cost me maternity pay and redundancy.

[quote CrouchEndTiger12]@JackGrealishIsMyNewManCrush I agree re the animals but it is anathema to say it.

Tens of thousands on a pet when it is probably cruel to put them through all that.

I don't understand the anthropomorphism. Animals aren't people.[/quote]
Exactly.

Most people love their pets, and have spent money on them at the vets, on procedures, medical treatment, operations etc, and have been happy to do so. Be it dental treatment, mending broken bones, fixing abscesses, etc etc...

But when it's an animal who is sick from the onset, you have to question why anyone would want spend 10s of 1000s on vet bills for them. All that money, and all that stress on the animal. (And as I said, probably expensive vet bills for the lifetime of the animal too!)

Even if it's a pet you had for say 13 to 18 years, you have to question if it's feasible to have lots of veterinary treatment, when they're in their winter years.

A woman I know had a dog who was fine all his life. Then he got to 13, and he started to get really poorly. One procedure after another, on his hips, eyes, heart, legs, all sorts. Spent some £30K on him over 15 months. He was in the vet more than he was out of it. They used to push him around in a child's pram!

At 14.5 years old he died anyway. All that treatment, and all that money, and the dog died anyway. Sad

Also, my neighbour's cat (who was 18,) got sick late last summer, and lost a third of his body weight in about 2 months. He was pooing blood, and not eating properly, and was really lethargic. The vet said he had cancer, and they could send him away for a course of treatment.

But he couldn't see anyone because of the danger from the radiation. So this 18 year old sick kitty, would be locked in a cage for 3 months, prodded and pulled and jabbed, and blasted with radiation. (At an age where, if he was a human being, he would be 90 years old!)

And the quote for the treatment ..... £10,000! My neighbour did the sensible thing, and had him put to sleep. Even if she had gone through with it all, kitty may well have died 6 months after it all anyway, as he was so old! PLUS, it would have been a horrible thing to put a very elderly cat through!

Drunkenly broke my friend’s parent’s wedding crystal glass (they’d been married 50 years, too) by sweeping it off the table with my elbow. Got up to clear it up and fell over and broke two more.
Grandly offered to replace like for like and took photos of said glasses. Replacement three glasses (which waterford still sold) cost over £900. And everyone there who aren’t his parents still joke about it ten years later.
His parents were impressed I came through, though. My own parents weren’t.

I accidentally purchased a stuffed fox on eBay many many years ago when drunk. I forgot all about it until weeks later, it showed up on my doorstep, having been carefully shipped all the way from The States. So on top of the enormous postage, I also had a huge customs duty bill to pay. And of course, a stuffed fox to deal with!

When I drove into a 'puddle'. I got stuck in the middle and had to be towed out. The 2 guys who showed me that the water had gone up the exhaust pipe didn't help either. Nor the van driver who made a bow wave over the top of the car. It cost me nearly a grand, on top of what I got from the insurance company, and it took 2 days for the garage to dry the engine out.Then a 'helpful' friend posted it on Facebook. My friends still remind me about it.

Fortunately, I hadn't started the engine, or the car would have been (wet soggy) toast. So it could have been worse.

Am laughing at the Waterford crystal glasses! I bet that stung!

@jaxhog

'I drove into a 'puddle'. I got stuck in the middle' and....

I bet that you never went there again!

@StrangeLookingParasite

Didn't realise there would be two planes going to our destination when changing planes at Dubai. Waited for the later one, ours was the earlier. Cost about 800€ to get new tickets on another flight, after initially being told there was nothing available to anywhere for two weeks. At the time I had a moderately severe knee injury so was hobbling everywhere. Dubai deals with western women by pretending they are not there, so no assistance was offered at any point, and the stupid place is a badly signposted series of aircraft hangars. Eighteen extra hours in Dubai airport, and extra €€ for a brief stay at the in-airport hotel, so we could at least wash. I will never, never set foot in Dubai again. Shithole does not even come close.

Ohhh this makes me so angry 😡

I’m forever doing stupid things, but the worst one to date -

2017, found a really good deal for a holiday in Majorca. Me, DP and nearly two year old DS. Really excited, my first time abroad, had a rough two years with anxiety/depression and DP’s breakdown.

It was left to me to sort DS’ passport. Every time I went to get passport photos he refused to stand at the background, cried, wouldn’t take the photo. Cracked it within a week of the date they said that I would need to send the passport off by to get it back in time. Took the application to the post office on the day that was the deadline and paid for the checking service but not fast track as I wasn’t working and couldn’t afford it/not in my budget.

A month or whatever passes and it’s the Friday before the Tuesday we were meant to fly out. No passport for DS. I call and they say there was a mistake, I had misread the form and got the person to sign saying it was a likeness of me, not DS, and it wasn’t picked up at the checking service at the post office. It was my boss that had signed, had to drive the 60 mile round trip to get him to re sign the pictures then send those recorded delivery.

Call saturday, no sign of the pictures.

Call Monday, got the pictures.

DP had to leave for Manchester as the flight was a 6am one and I said I would go to Newport and get the passport in person then fly out same day and we’d only miss that one day.

I book a train to Newport with DS, which was like £50, and DP booked us onto another flight for 6pm that day, plus transfers, for about £95.

The problem with that was I didn’t know for definite that the passport would even be in Newport, but didn’t have the guts to tell DP. So I carted DS the four hours on the train, with two big bags of luggage plus the pram and the baby carrier. Called the passport office once I got there and they said ‘the passport will have gone to Manchester.’ so I immediately booked a train back home, costing £80.

By this point DP was already at the hotel. I called the passport office again and they said don’t worry, it’s hereX but you can’t pick it up till 4/4.30. Flight was out of Cardiff.

Spent three hours traipsing round Newport to kill time (it rained.) Finally got the passport then paid for a taxi to try and make it on time to the airport - £50 and the best part of an hour in a taxi with no car seat for DS.

Missed the flight, obviously, then had to book another flight at 5pm the next day, plus £70 on a hotel.

Spent the day on Barry island before going to the airport and negotiating check in and security with nerves shot to pieces, anxiety sky high, a wired baby who hadn’t napped and then realised in the lounge area that I hadn’t booked transfers, so had to rush that too!

Oh, and because I hadn’t banked on spending an extra night in the U.K, I hadn’t packed enough nappies, so DS made the trip from the Cardiff hotel to Barry, on the bus, wearing a hand towel as a nappy until I could buy another pack from Boots

Not my
Finest hour at all, and must have cost me around £500 extra.

Spent the best part of €40,000 divorcing my ex husband who hasn't paid one cent in maintenance for his children for years.

Not me but my dsis. On an extended holiday from Australia and decided to wash her fabric handbag. With her passport in. With two weeks left till she went back. Had to get biometric photos done at Australia house, regular ones no good So, train visit to London, queue all day there. Emergency passport with photos. Stay in hotel. Close on 500.

StrangeLookingParasite This reminds me, years ago I flew to Australia via Dubai.
I told my family my flight would arrive at 2am, the day after I left, but obviously I should have said 2 days after I left due to the lengths of the flights and time differences.

So my poor family members went to the airport a day earlier in the middle of the night and waited for me to get off the flight from Dubai. There was another family also there waiting for their grandmother who didn't appear either.

The airport told them this happens all the time and passengers are always getting lost in Dubai.
My family never let me live it down.

Just got a speeding fine for doing 37 in a 30 mph limit.

@Nicecupofteaandacake

I was looking for a new car, and had max £1200 to spend. Looked for weeks and nothing suitable. Then a car came up at a local car sales place, 10 years old, incredible condition, lovely to drive, TONS of paperwork! The garage offered a month warranty. It was £1500 and I sold loads of stuff to get the extra £300 I needed to buy it.

I should have combed through the TONS of paperwork, as that would have told me all about the knackered injectors and engine issues, which conveniently enough we’re not covered on the car sales place warranty. Car had to be scrapped after 6 weeks. This was late 2019 and I still haven’t gotten over it, nor have I been able to afford another car. Fuming just thinking about it.

We have a very similar story. Borrowed £4000 from DH’s parents in July 2019, bought from a lovely family dealership, test drove the car, checked it over, lots of paperwork and reassurance. It was a horrible rainy/muddy day and they even cleaned it for us before we drove it off.

Three months later we broke down doing 70mph on the M1. Sold it for £900 to a mechanic but £3000 gone basically. I’m still not over it.

We also turned down the extra insurance on a rental car in Iceland. On our last day, a speeding passing truck kicked up some stones on a dirt road and one of them chipped our windscreen. That cost us £1000.

A friend who’d been working back to back shifts in Scotland with her husband for months on end, for a treat booked a dinner, bed & breakfast in Blackpool with a evening show.

They arrived late afternoon so decided to have a pre-dinner nap. They slept right through dinner, the show, and the whole night. They woke up in the morning, promptly fell out over it, and drove back to Scotland in silence.
£100’s for a long drive and a sleep.

Leaving my nervous German Shepherd in the cab of a hired van for 10 mins whilst I nipped to the loo at a service station. She did over £1000 worth of damage. Chewed the steering wheel, both seat belts, upholstery ... even the rubber mats.

Sorry to be all Yorkshire, but 'Ow bloody much?!