Money you may as well have set on fire

[Snickernoodle]

Like you literally got NOTHING for it.
DD wanted to go to drama club for ages. Loved the first term. Asked if she wanted to do the second term. No sooner had a I sent the money across she came and told me she didn't want to do it and has been moaning and tantruming about it ever since. £90 completely wasted. I'm feeling pretty salty about it atm. Help me feel better about it with your wasted money stories?

Bought one of the very last new MGF's and yes, 2yrs on had the head gasket go.
Fixed under warranty (twice) and luckily by the second attempt they had a "proper" fix in place and it never gave a problem from that day on.😁
BRG with matching hard-top, SS grills, chrome hoops and metallic dash, every time I wanted an upgrade my OH had it done for me.
Loved that little car, right up until it was time to trade it in for my next new car.😉

Not my story but my dad.

He has a friend who is a GP, as well as being an nhs doctor he also takes on a number of private patients. A number of his private patients would send him a bottle of whiskey at Christmas, even though he doesn’t drink. He would then pass these on to his friends. This is where my dad comes in.
He had some friends of his over and they finished off the bottle of whatever dad had open and then just pulled another one out of the cupboard and cracked that open. They all commented what good whisky it was and one of them noted down the details to look it up.
(You can see it coming can’t you).

Turns out that this whisky was distilled exclusively for the Balmoral Estate. It was worth £5k.

This is me 😕

Just about every "attractive garment" I have ever bought.

Oh, and hobby stuff. Hobbies I imagined myself doing and never made time for. Crochet! Watercolour painting! Embroidery!! I don't know who I thought I was, some kind of leisured Edwardian lady?!?!

Oh, and exercise equipment for e.g. aerial yoga. In my dreams, I glide around weightlessly, forming one pretzel shape after another. Not as easy as it looks in videos.

Oh, and perfumes. I went a bit mad during COVID and took a sudden interest in fragrances, maybe because they were the closest we could get during lockdown to a "change of scene" (in the mind's eye). About 10% of my blind buys turned out to be tolerable, luckily I'm a cheapskate so they weren't too expensive, but it does add up!

Oh, and fabrics. A few years ago, inspired by Strictly Come Dancing, I bought all these gorgeous fabrics and imagined myself spending the weekend fashioning a spectacular new wardrobe. My DH found me in despair on the Sunday afternoon trying to insert a lace panel for about the 9th time, and he pointed out that Vicki Gill probably had a bit more experience than me 🤦🏻‍♀️

Bloody Gravitrax. Boxes of the bloody stuff taking up space and DC still won't let me get rid!

@franke are you me?

Found a John Lewis gift card we got for our wedding from registry down the back of a unit, too late to use it, they won't renew. 250£ down 🙈

HAHAHA.

Yeah, a lot of things cat-related. Toys he plays with for ten minutes, any number of igloos and scratching pads . . . let's not get started on the fancy foods that gave him the squits. The final straw was when his monthly insurance premium went up by 250%. I took out a cheaper one.

£6k on lawyers to get absolutely nowhere

Dogs 😂😂

Plants
gym membership
cat food, cat beds, cat toys …
every slimming club membership I’ve ever tried, and I’ve tried them all!

however, I think the money I spent on therapy was worth every penny

One that still rankles, I bought a posh chicken that laid blue eggs, it was £20 at a time when bog-standard hybrid chickens were about £7 each. Bloody thing laid one egg and then keeled over. I still say it’s the most expensive egg I ever bought.

Try 70K on IVF.

All kids do this, mine wanted to do jujitsu or karate or similar ( I forget which) I took them diligently for a term, figured, yes ok they love it, it's time to buy the right kit.
See swimming, horse riding, bowling, tennis, rugby, football, etc for the same.
But you have to buy the kit in advance for some things, knowing that they will stick it out long enough for you to get aaaaalllll the kit and quit or buy the next size kit, then quit. Or pay in full for the next term, then quit.

I've spent a fortune on getting rid of the ivy in my garden, and it still comes back.
Some days I want to sell my garden for a building plot, it's big enough, and I'm no gardener. But no, I carry on pulling and killing ivy out, plant nice pretty things then next week do the same.

Bought a National Trust annual membership in March 2020. We arrived on our first visit and they were shutting due to Covid.
All the properties were totally shut for the next four months and after that you could only visit the grounds for the next six months; no entrance to houses.
No refund from NT and no extension to our annual membership. Yet people who paid monthly were able to suspend their membership.

Dear god.... so much, I wouldn't even want to start listing or cataloguing it!! I have spent way too much of my life thinking - if only we had not spent £X on Y... and how the hell will we survive in the future.. I think these thought processes about money are inherited from my mother... she grew up with an alcoholic father who spent every penny that came into his hands and a fierce and enterprising mother who made the best of everything she had, but probably held on to a huge amount of anger towards the precarious situations. that her husband led them into. I on the other hand, live a good life, but somehow constantly look at our situation with fear. I would like to be able to let that go and live in the knowledge that it will all work out. That is my prayer for today!!

£500 on a tent, we never use.

£3000 on bikes that barely see the light of day.

£300 vr headset no-one uses.

Multiple £s on bags for life that constantly get forgotten

most of the money I paid in taxes for the last 14 years.

money that went to bombing innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan
money spent on awarding ppe contracts to tory donors/mates of mps and ministers
money spent on brexit
money paying mps' ridiculous expenses
the list goes on...

Hi, can any keen eyed fashionistas out there help me find THIS dress? I've tried Google lens and seen so many similar ones that my retinas hurt. But I can't see this exact one. If anyone recognises it I'll love them forever! (it's black with red/gold floral pattern and looks like satin on the body? and there's a split up the leg)

Our current house. We’ve been here 10 years and I don’t think we’ll make a profit on it when we eventually sell and of course we paid thousands in fees to move as well as mortgage increase. I don’t even like the house much 😆 (was dh’s bright idea to buy off plan - never again).
Also uni rent x 2 - daylight robbery

Also driving theory test for DS - failed practical twice, went to uni and no time to have more lessons/take test in summer hols and the two years have elapsed.

Lawyers- never never again.

Years, literally years, of buying rounds at the pub for people drinking anything from beer to double G&Ts when I myself was only ever having a Diet Coke. It was the culture in that particular industry at the time but we must be talking actual thousands of pounds over about ten years before I finally grew a backbone and stopped doing it 🙄

Gym membership. I was a hungover student and was persuaded on the street by someone to sign up for a 3 year gym membership for this crazy fancy gym. £45 a month. For 3 years. Went once and cried. They wouldn't let me cancel it.

Oh my God, I have a gym membership RIGHT NOW that I barely use. Fucksake.