What purchase of yours was a waste of money?

[2025isavibe]

I'm ill in bed and bored. Mines a slow cooker. I don't like stew or casserole, I know you can cook lots of things in it but I never use it. What's yours?

Steam mop because the cloths always look dirty. Your not cleaning it like with a mop. So how do you know it's really cleaning your floor?

LG OLED TV for about £1.5k - damn thing is buggier than the Amazon rainforest - channels dropping out, picture breaking up - yes, we've tried every booster going, upgraded our broadband... still have to update it at least once every day, and that doesn't always work. Six months in, we've accepted that it's never going to work and will have to be returned...

Good grips jar opener, rubbish I can hardly lift it with RA hands.

Rice cooker, it's on top of the larder.

Ensuite, no one is allowed in mine so I use it as a wardrobe.

Shoes, I wear sketches but I like looking at my pretty shoes.

I love my Mulberry bags but they are very heavy. I use a Radley cross body everyday.
My airfyer you'd have to prise from my cold dead hands.

Dyson air wrap, maybe it works on fine straight hair but on a thick unruly mop like mine it does not. I swapped my Bayswater for a smaller Bayswater satchel, it’s much lighter and you can still fit loads of stuff in it.

I have dark hair and get the dreaded “shadow” under my arms when I shave, and had fallen out of love with my razor subscription, so I read a few reviews of electric shavers and spent £30 on one…I know we’re not taking major money, but it’s a load of crap. Doesn’t even give me a close shave, and leaves worse red bumps than my razor did!

Oh I was thinking of getting an indoor pizza oven but I don’t do faff 😊

I didn't buy it, but years ago (when my eldest was born), my lovely sister bought me a machine thing that heats/warms baby wipes for when you change nappies. She found it fab for her baby. I never used it as it was a complete faff.

Other expensive things?
My cats: I have four. One MC, three rescue. The MC and one of the rescue cats have to have vet prescribed food (different ones - typical!). Not cheap (but we love them).

I also love the robovacs, slow cooker/IP, air fryer, cordless hoover, Thermomix, gel nail UV lamp set, epilator and IPL machine. Saves me a lot of time and faff.

Things I haven't used much (and perhaps should!): the weird hula hoop waist exerciser thing I bought, and an LED face mask I've only just bought!! Also need to get my arse back on exercise bike and treadmill. Oh and my bicycle (my Reynauds has been really bad this year and I've been too cold to go out cycling).

Same. DD just prefers to play games on an ordinary tablet. Lost interest in Animal Crossing in 10 mins. I don't plan on buying a PS5 or anything if she's just happy playing Roblox games (she's 13 and ND)

I just saw the title of this in active, and immediately my electric Bodum ePEBO suction/vacuum coffee machine I bought a few years ago came to mind. Now, I love my coffee, love trying new beans, new ways of making it, freshly ground beans for every cup…that sort of thing, and at the time I saw it it was almost like love at first sight and so I just had to have it. I have countless ways to make coffee, so didn’t really need anything else, but still! So there’s a few different ways you can use it to make the coffee and it was great fun, finding what worked best, which grind of bean etc. But it became a bit of a pita as far as cleaning goes as its pretty delicate and awkward shape. So it’s been siting on my kitchen worktop alongside all its various coffee making cousins and I just stopped using it. Even more so when I got a new bean to cup machine one Xmas, which has been used daily since it was bought - multiple times most days - and so that is my favourite and easiest method (I NEED caffeine pronto in the morning). I occasionally use other machines/methods, also depending on who is here.

so back to the eBEPO, I looked at it and thought actually I’m going to use it. Almost forgotten how to use it by this point, and every single other booklet is there in the kitchen but obviously I can’t find that one. So I guessed at the bean grind, and put it on how I think is one of the ways and so now I’m drinking coffee from my waste of money purchase and hoping that I continue to do so every so often, so thank you for this thread and for reuniting me with what is actually one of the most fun ways to make and watch the coffee being made, and I swear I won’t ever leave it that long again 😆 (and that I don’t leave it lying around for ages before I clean the bloody things!) 😂

I love my Karcher. Changed my life! And my sellotape dispenser.

Those who cba with their slow cooker, try this cook book. It’s my bible! I love my slow cooker

https://amzn.eu/d/hZQ9etT

So I have similar on today. The knack is to slightly buff your nail to allow for better grip. Then clean all nails with acetone to take off any excess oils. Dot of glue on the false nail and spread a thin layer on your own.
I've had this set on for so long that the pattern is wearing off but I get married next week and don't want to sort them too soon!

Would you buy another of those coffee machines if it broke or for somewhere else? What bean to cup do you use? I have these.

I've got a couple of these around the place and they're excellent - but I need another machine for an apartment and I cannot get another one easily - and I don't want the digital one with the screens etc.

https://www.krups.co.uk/ESPRESSO-MACHINES/BEAN-TO-CUP-MACHINES/KRUPS-Arabica-Manual-Bean-to-Cup-Coffee-Machine--Silver-EA811840-/p/8000036153?superCategoryCode=espresso-machines

You beat me to it - I was about to suggest Nathan Anthony The Healthy Slow cooker book. Pretty much love all of the recipes in this.

I was heading for an interview and wanted to look my best and fell for 'Orogold' face mask, in a gold tub and cost 50euros. It was a lot of money for me at the time and a complete scam.
They used to have shops around 2012/2013 where some sales assistant grabbed you in (warning sign right there ) but I was naive at the time. I should have spent the money on some nice make up instead. But I think the sales person saw me coming !
I saw a store in Florida and had a flashback but a moment of gratefulness that I know a little better now !

You have nothing to be embarrassed about; they’re bloody complicated! There are a million courses to get you familiar with your machine, so it’s obviously not that simple of a thing to do. Hobbycraft do sessions, as do most independent fabric shops where they’ve got the space.

To answer the question, probably anything Dyson related (they bloody do lose suction, you lying fuckers) or Shark related. I borrow my mum’s Henry to pick up all the bits my Shark pretends it can’t see and will get one to replace the Shark when it goes.

Thanks to this thread, I have made a decision to take my used once, masticating juicer to the tip.
Cost a lot years ago, now modern ones are under £50.
Grinding flax seed, wheatgrass? What was I thinking.

They’re brilliant, two slices of soft, whole meal bread, grated cheese, bits of ham, chopped spring onion and a light spread of pickle…press together tightly, discard the crusts(to the birds)then into a toaster bag.
Done… crispy squishy quick lunch.

Samsung watch. Bought only to track swimming. Never charge it so it sits in the drawer while I track my swimming in my head!

Ipad. Pointless gadget! Again sits in the drawer doing nothing. Has been on occasional holidays with other people.

Rice cooker is mine. Recommended on here and as yet unboxed. For just two, it’s quicker and cheaper given electric costs, to do a micro packet rice

Am I the only person who loves my Ninja Creami?

my worst purchase was a Bobbin Birdie bike. It was beautiful, but it turned out that I had, in defiance of the saying, forgotten how to ride a bike.

Any of the 10+ exercise machines I've bought over the years.
Expensive home laser hair removal machine - Did nothing.
Popcorn maker - at least it was cheap.
Mr. Frosty - cheap, but the disappoint after decades-long expectation was intense.
Professional laser hair removal for about six long sessions. Been told since that it doesn't work on darker hair that has red in it 😬

All the white goods in my kitchen - brand new 3 years ago replacing my ancient, shabby appliances that, with hindsight, were so much better. I have such nostalgia for the days when you could turn a knob, and it worked.

The induction hob should be instantly responsive but nine times out of ten I can’t get the right section to react and I’ve turned another pan up or down and forgotten what it was originally set to.

The oven fan hums loudly so it looks and sounds like it’s working but actually needs an ever changing sequence of morse code to actually turn on. I’ve had to throw away food, when I’ve come back to check a chicken and realised it’s been sitting in a cooling oven for the last 40 minutes instead of cooking.

The washing machine and dryer seem to think it’s optional whether they’ll do laundry. It can take the dryer up to 20 seconds to start and you just have to stand there waiting to see if it’s decided to cooperate today.

Everything beeps identically and at the start I wouldn’t know if the dishwasher was finished or the fridge was open or the pasta pot had over boiled a tiny bit and the hob was shutting itself down for safety concerns. The freezer goes berserk if you take longer than 15 seconds to put the shopping in, but remains smugly mute if the door is left oven a centimetre, which happens when the dc don’t shut the ice cream drawer fully. On the microwave setting, the oven beeps blue murder if it isn’t attended to at once, but limits itself to just two discreet beeps for the oven timer and then merrily burns the dinner if you were out of the room for those two seconds.

The washing machine has a countdown timer that bears no relationship to reality. You might think you should hang on for two minutes to switch the wash over, but you could be there for twenty minutes or 30 seconds.

Everything does unnecessary high tech stuff with Bluetooth and WiFi: the nespresso machine tells tales to dh about my coffee habit and robot hoover sends pathetic SOS messages from the living room on the rare occasions it gets that far, not that you’d know it looking at the carpet.

Spent a bloody fortune, and was grateful to be able to, but I really miss my 1990s appliances.

You are probably putting far too much water in I read this on here, you only really need about half a cup.

It makes steak cooking so simple. I have the single drawer Philips 4l so not a very big one, and can fit two steaks in at a time.

I preheat it 200 degrees but will have prepped the steak a bit beforehand, just with some seasoning and olive oil then let it rest.

When the AF is to temp, put the steaks in for around 6 minutes or so, and then turn them and another 6 minutes. Obvs you can adjust this if you like it rarer or more well done.

And that is it! If I have a good edge of fat I do face it up a bit so that it crisps up. The result is nice tender inside and a crispier outside.

I leave then to rest for a short while before eating.

The only downside is that as I have a single basket I can't do chips at the same time. So I just cook them 3/4 way beforehand and pop them in the oven to finish off. Or back in the airfryer when the steaks are resting.

I used to faf about with cast iron pans and getting the heat just so, then having to clean the hob of splatter after. So this way is my go to now.