A thread for everyone who’s made an expensive mistake recently

[Forgottenmyphone]

Just mucked up with our holiday booking, and it’s cost us a few hundred. I’m so annoyed with myself as we were literally scraping the top end of our budget without this mistake.

please share your recent expensive mistakes to help make me feel better! Or at least help me get things in perspective!

I've lost my premium bonds certificate. My email account I used to open them got closed down so I have no proof I ever had them, apart from bank statements which they say can't be used to trace them. I'm going round and round in circles with them as they say they can't trace them without the numbers. If I had the numbers I wouldn't need to trace them!

It's £1000.

Once a year i re-paint it

I normally get it on the walls,hate it as I'm slapping it on,live with it and then think 'fuck it' and head off to b&q

If anyone knows of the perfect duck egg blue (not too green,not too blue,not too pale,not too dark but the colour i have in my head (dp calls it 'stately house duck egg') let me know and I'll buy you the biggest drink ever while hero worshiping you for the rest of my life

Ive had grey,green,blue,grey/green,blue/grey,white/cream and a not a green not a blue but something in-between with a hint of grey for good measure

Duck egg will go on those walls and I WILL sodding like it as I refuse to do it again

8th time will be lucky and a charm

I was stupidly chewing on a toffee which broke my veneer. 1k that toffee cost me - gutted!!!

Now that really is "ouch".

Broke my main garage door and decided to use the back door until we get back from hols and can arrange for a new one. But, couldn’t find the back door key anywhere. Looked in every drawer in the house. Eventually got a locksmith to change the lock. As I paid him and he left, I went to put the new key onto the garage keys bundle…..and there of course was the key I had been looking for. £140!!

Not recently but I bought a 'secondhand' field shelter for my horse via Preloved a few years ago.
Lady said her husband had passed away but friends of hers could dismantle and deliver it.
It was a pile of shit. Old fence panels and off cuts all held together with pins. Cost a fair few hundred pounds that had taken me ages to save. It was only once they left that I realised their offer to help unload wasn't them being chivalrous, it was to avoid me spotting how awful it was.
The reality is I think they were members of a certain community, the lady and dead husband were a cover up story and I was well and truly had. I felt like a right idiot.

Had to go on a work trip a couple of months ago which was about a 3 1/2, maybe 4 hour drive and started at 9am so my company told me to book myself a hotel for the night before. Arrived at about 9pm the evening before to find that they had no booking in my name. Argued (politely) that they must have as I'd done it myself. Showed them my confirmation..... booked for the following night. Luckily they had one room left which i had to pay for out of my own pocket (they wouldn't transfer it at such late notice) Never told a soul until now.

Missed flight to long haul destination because DP had assured me we had booked in online so I thought we had more time to get to airport. Took longer than expected to get to airport as bus broke down. We were in the airport 2 hours before takeoff. Stood in very long queue for 45 minutes after we realised we hadn’t checked in online only to be told that they had closed the gate early (with over an hour till the flight time).

Since the airline we had booked with were code sharing with BA, BA refused to help get us onto the next flight and told us to go back to the airline we booked with. The airline we had booked with had cancelled both outgoing and incoming flights as we were “no shows” (all still before the gate was showing as closed) so we had to pay £1700 to get to the destination.

Since then, DP has to show me proof that he’s checked us in online 🤨

I bet whenever you see toffee, you’re instantly reminded of it! Nasty!

My car broke down and I was quoted £3500 to fix it, which I can't afford. The garage said that there was an outstanding recall and that they'd try their best to appeal but it was unlikely to be successful. They had it for 3 weeks at this point and I needed a car.
So I bought a new car. Immediately realised I didn't like it but whatever, a car is a car.
Then last week I got a phone call to say the appeal had been successful and my original car is fixed. 7 weeks after it broke down.
So now I have 2 SUVs. 1 that I hate and 1 that I'm not entirely trusting of its reliability.
Had to decide what to do.
If I sell the new one, it won't achieve the amount I paid, so I'll still have outstanding finance.
After thinking over the weekend, I've traded in both cars which cleared the finance on the new car and a deposit on a new one. If I'm paying finance, I might as well have something newer and reliable.

Cost me about £2500.
The way I'm getting through it is by telling myself that a hire car was quoted at £1200 a month, so the difference is basically what I would have spent.

I'm so over it. New car being collected on Thursday

Ordered made to measure curtains for our newly decorated bedroom. The window is very awkward (5 bend bay) hence why they needed to be made (Dunelm). Spent at least 30 minutes choosing the fabric armed with swatches. DH hung curtains when they arrived and the colour just looks horrendous. I don't know what I was thinking. All I can think is that the lights on the shop meant I wasn't viewing colours properly. The room is green with beiges and creams and the curtains are a really cold silvery grey. I feel cross every time I draw them or walk into the room. Approx £600 so we'll be living with them

I’ve just been reminded that a few years ago, DM asked for a croquet set for her birthday. I bought her a rather deluxe one since it was a big birthday. And has it been out of its box? Nope. It’s not really my mistake though as she asked for it and I would have spent that amount on her whatever present it was, and it’s her loss not mine, but still annoying.

Your last point about the company having difficulty processing the return rings alarm bells with me. I bought something online, started a return immediately it arrived, then had this same difficulty. Then we were outside the 30- day returns window and their computer couldn't refund it, much to their regret (!). I am persuing a refund with my bank. Not sure how this can help you except to say keep on at them.

Not sure this makes you feel better but we had the same roof scammers. We had a leak and it was torrential raining into our kids room. We ended up £15,000 out of pocket for one days work. I could cry thinking about it.

I imagine the poster thinks it was a huge mistake! I think it’s fair to say that ‘mistake’ covers bad decisions as well as unwitting errors.

Yes - in July I booked flights for December for 3 people - only I'd accidentally booked them for late July. I maintain that the website defaulted to the current month when I was trying different date combos but Tui didn't care and I lost £1000. It's been a bitter pill to swallow. I haven't booked any more holidays or flights since and even booking a uk hotel for 3 nights I got someone to sit with my and clarify I was booking the correct dates.

There is a premium bond thread that is long running on MN and im fairly certain the topic of finding lost bonds has come up. I’m sure if you post on there someone might be able to point you in the right direction.

Take them out of school for the holiday?!

I’ve just had a patio laid but don’t think I like it. The stones looked different at the builders yard. £4.5K. Going to get lots of pots and a table out there so I don’t see too much of it!

Husband has ADHD - he is main driver of car so all mail related to it goes to him and the other week when he finally opened his mail we found a parking fine from a time when the app didn't seem to be charging and it was a bank holiday so we assumed it must not be operating (it was) and another from me driving through an occasionally restricted route (around school times) that I've nee through a zillion times out of hours but one time I went through it at that time on autopilot (DH didn't blame me as the sign is really hard to see from the direction I came). So those mistakes were expensive but then we had to pay an extra £100 between them because DH hadn't opened the post until weeks after we got the notices. Next car is so getting registered to me.

Turned up at the airport with my super excited 5 year old (for his first flight ever) for a day trip to Dublin from Manchester. Booked the wrong month! I swear it had defaulted to the month I booked rather than the month we wanted to fly, but it was still my mistake. It was about £50 so not crazy, but my little boy was so deflated and sad, it broke my heart. Managed to get another flight for the next half term for around the same price and we had a lovely day.

Sorry I meant I’ve booked annual leave, not an actual holiday. At least I’ll have a lovely quiet week at home while everyone else is at school / work

A couple of months ago I used the wrong card to pay for flights and ended up with a $200AUD (100 quid) international transaction fee 😩

DH will feel better reading this thread as it seems booking the wrong dates for a holiday isn't uncommon.

Fortunately for us, he booked it and told me before midnight and I realised straight away - there was a clause to change the dates for just a small fee if you do this. He was also able to change the accommodation dates. Unfortunately it wasn't possible to book for the dates we wanted, so we booked for a long weekend instead and took DS out of school for half a day (which I wouldn't normally have dreamt of doing deliberately).

So if you do get the wrong dates and you realise quickly, check the TS and C's.

Our flights were either Ryanair or easyJet (I forget which) so yes a budget airline and we did avoid disaster and it worked out better for us overall for a variety of reasons. It cost us a little extra but overall we made a negative into a positive.

Have you tried and rejected Dulux Tranquil Dawn already? I have it in my north-facing bathroom and I love it. It might be a little pale for you, but IME it's a bit darker IRL.

A lot of these are what a friend of mine calls The Stupid Tax. I find rather than beat myself up it's better to tell myself it's my latest contribution to the Stupid Tax falling due. But I did make a New Year resolution to try to pay a bit less after, in the course of a single day, getting a parking ticket, a speeding ticket and a stopping in a box junction ticket....