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!

This is a problem with the plague that is drop shippers (aka shitifixation of online shopping). I now always ask AI “is x a drop shipping site” as some of them are extremely convincing and it’s easier than digging through their t&cs to find out if their “customer service” is a Gmail acccount.

for those that don’t know, drop shippers are fancy- ass websites that are basically selling Tenu shite at grossly inflated prices and it’s almost impossible to return stuff as often have to ship back to China at your own cost, including customs charges.

Bought a large whole salmon for the freezer to reduce the amount of red meat my protein obsessed gym-rat teenager was eating. Whilst he was cutting it into fillets I thought I should maybe defrost the freezer to be sure the door closed properly, and the salmon didn’t get ruined. So I switched it off, decided that on inspection it didn’t really need defrosting and yes, forgot to switch it back on. Didn’t notice for 5 days so lost the WHOLE freezer full of food.

Teenager was a bit teary about the salmon and had paid a third of it himself, which I offered to refund. He was so good about it all I feel obliged to buy another one, and I hate salmon and the stink of fish in my kitchen. I’m about £200 down.

Bought my house 2.5 years ago with a bridging loan to break the chain as the sale of my old house was going through slowly and I didn't want to risk loosing my dream home. So far its cost me around £60K as the sale fell through and now its not selling. Despite reducing the price multiple times, the market in the area is dead. Not even getting viewings.

Has my whole house repainted in Farrow and Ball. Hate every single room (different colours) Must have cost me £2k in decorating costs plus paint.

Laura Ashley Eau de Nil maybe?

yep
theater bookings for 5 people. we mixed up dates and turned up a day late... £££

Years ago I bought a horse for £3.5K that was sold to me as safe as houses, bombproof etc. I'd taken up references, tried the horse twice, it seemed completely fine and relaxed.

Got the horse back to the yard and it was like a different horse. Absolutely terrified of everything, couldn't catch it, it bronked me off every time I got on its back. I spent a fortune having everything checked and getting trainers to ride it to find out what was wrong. Nobody could find anything, it was just nuts. I gave it away as a field companion for another lady's horse before it killed me. I was novicey when I bought it and with the benefit of hindsight, it had clearly been drugged when I tried it and collected it. An expensive and painful lesson!

I’ve kept mine in my cupboard for weeks and it’s been fine.

My 2 children are off to uni this month. After hearing all the news about meningitis outbreaks, I booked them both vaccinations at Boots. As soon as all the jabs had been done (2 jabs per child at £110 per jab), the Govt announced a free vaccination program for their age group. £440 lost because I was caring and proactive🤦‍♀️

I was bidding on a pink diamond at an auction house. Pressed next bid from the previous $89 (Australian) didn't property see the amount when I submitted my bid (was 1am and I was working/bidding) 3 days later a "congratulations you won" $3500!!! ($4500 all up with taxes). Ouch

Booked and paid for a roofer to redo parts of a roof in our new house, had loads of great reviews online. The house is not local to us so couldn't use word by mouth.
Over £4k and all of the work he did do was shoddy and needs doing again and he never finished what he was paid to do.

I did tell my better half that you never pay all the money til job done, he thought it would be ok. Lesson learned. The man blocked our number and has since folded his company and come back with another one. Gutted.

Gift card for Clark’s had £25 on and I let it expire

£24 on a holiday club I forgot to take my child to

£25 on a dress from Vinted which is horrible

£80 on PCN

Not big ones but still annoying

@Optimisticdramalarma- b&q keep calm is a lovely duck egg colour & not too expensive!

What mistake did you make with the holiday @Forgottenmyphone ?

Have you tried an open house and changing estate agents, update photo's too? We were in the same boat a few years back, house was in a kind of no mans land. Ended up with a bidding war. Highly recommend trying.

Coming out of Piccadily station late one night this week whilst they'd closed off our usual road to go home, so DH drove right as he assumed we'd get under Store street that way, but no, we ended up going towards the city centre and potentially went in a bus lane briefly as he turned in an empty road. Urgh.

Waited all morning at the wrong train station - no one spoke english and my Spanish is poor too, we realised at 30 min before departure - took a taxi across town and missed it by one min. Lost a full day and had to pay for a coach that evening as all transport options were full.

I had this problem with Saxenda. Stuck it out for a couple of months and gave up.

Oh, and I paid £2,000! At the time I could afford it but I still get angry when I think about it. The private doctor I got it from offered all kinds of support and therapy included, none of which materialised.

I accidentally broke one of my son's PC components. £1.5K 🤮

I did worse. I made a bad decision that was costly to my poor elderly father.

We normally take them on holiday each year - usually visiting a European destination and then driving them around, with some trips home - 12 hours away. When we take them home, we normally do a side trip to another country nearby. It has worked for years, but my mum now has dementia. Last year, we realised that the European trips had to stop as she couldn’t cope with the unfamiliarity of it all.

We therefore organised a final trip home - the plan was for us to take them out, and then my siblings to come in turn to support them, and my brother to finally bring them home again.

My mistake was organising the side trip to a nearby country. My mum couldn’t cope with it. She was extremely distressed. She knew that my family were leaving earlier than her, and every day she thought it was the day we were leaving, and if she couldn’t see me, she thought we had already left.

She kept telling my dad that they had to come home with us “at any price”. It was so bad, that they ended up doing just that. My dad had to sacrifice seeing a lot of friends and family for the final time…and ended up having to pay over £1000 to change the flights home.

In hindsight, I do wonder, had I just not organised the side trip with all the moving around, perhaps she would have had time to orientate herself at my uncle’s house and they would have been fine.

Could she have just come back with you?m
definitely not your fault
no one’s fault

I’m embarrassed to say I have a few

Spare tent anyone -£300
Green Walls - it’s too dark and now I am stuck with the sofa sorry saga of a room that is never finished

£450 on flights, got the train to the airport rather than a cab.

Train had to stop due to earlier train breaking down in New Forest, missed flight. No refund.

But your travel insurance would have covered!!

I had a Laura Ashley duck egg years ago and it was perfect reminds me to look at their paint again.