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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

To ask what is the worst money you have ever spent?

315 replies

millythepink · 12/03/2019 08:44

I'm really enjoying the thread in here about what is the best money you have ever spent, so thought we could do a reverse one?

Mine is spending ££££ on genuine Jo Malone perfume, smelt heavenly for all of 20 minutes then just totally faded away to nothing Angry

OP posts:
AllInADay · 12/03/2019 11:54

When I ran a business, £1,000 on a recruitment advertising deal with Monster. It was like throwing the money in a bin. They're a terrible company. I can't believe it now, when large companies outsource their recruitment to them.

Also, when I ran a business. The early days of websites. The website designer somehow managed to not pass on all the webenquiries I received. I accidentally found them after six months fiddling round with the site myself - hundreds of them, that had all been unacknowledged. All that potential business down the tube just when I was in start-up mode. The designers made some weak excuse about "cookies."

A brand new Citroen car. It was truly defective. I got rid of it after six months.

NCKitten · 12/03/2019 11:55

30k on my Oxbridge master's degree.

VoyageInTheDark · 12/03/2019 11:55

Spending a few grand on a wedding that had to be cancelled last minute due to my severe illness. I was so adamant when originally planning the wedding that I didn't want to spend too much money as I thought it was very wasteful for just one day and then I ended up paying for a wedding that didn't happen 🤦

(Fortunately we were in a position to get married six months later and it's all fine)

MissCharleyP · 12/03/2019 11:58

A course I really wanted to do at the time....not at all what I thought and marking often came down to opinions (or so it seemed to me).One piece I submitted was something I’d actually previously won a national award for, but failed the assignment on. Really fed up of the whole thing but feel like I have to finish it as I’ve spent so much already 🙁.

ciderhouserules · 12/03/2019 11:58

I got talking into a 'hot water system' that worked by heat-exchanging the heat in the air to the water. They came and fitted a 200ltr cylinder in the loft and a panel on my roof, and a compressor which worked the Heat-Exchanger. Great - didn't need the Gas boiler on at all in summer.

£5000.

When it stopped working properly after 5 years, I contacted the company (gone bust, obvs) and tried to find someone who would come to service it. No dice.

i got rid, and my bills went down! The compressor was electric, and as it was on all the time, used more that I would have used in Gas to heat the water. Angry

ginghamtablecloths · 12/03/2019 12:10

When I was young and daft I bought a small motor scooter which I never really got the hang of so it hung around in the garage until I sold it at a loss.

A couple of years back I bought what I considered to be a beautiful dark turquoise jacket with a double waterfall collar and a tie fastening, thinking it would be smart for evenings out. The fabric was itchy even with two layers beneath and I eventually gave it to charity.

FemalePersonator · 12/03/2019 12:10

£500 having my CV re-written. Useless.

Loseitandkeepitlost · 12/03/2019 12:11

£1200 on a limited edition Rolf Harris picture for my husband.

He won't have it up on the wall now.

Jsmith99 · 12/03/2019 12:19

£1200 on a limited edition Rolf Harris picture for my husband.

Ouch Shock.

Is it now completely worthless?

Didiusfalco · 12/03/2019 12:20

Cranial osteopathy for ds when he was a baby. We were completely desperate and it did fuck all aside from part us from some money when we didn’t have much. Was recommended by a midwife too, which I think was quite questionable given we were first time parents and highly suggestible to anything that might help.

ShannonRockallMalin · 12/03/2019 12:22

£100,000 on a buy to let flat just before the housing market crashed. Had to sell at a ridiculous loss because we were losing money on it every month.

JenniferJareau · 12/03/2019 12:22

£35 on a spiraliser. I've never used it Blush

Joebloggswazere · 12/03/2019 12:24

hennypenny how does bluestocking sound nuts? I thought her posts were quite reasonable.

DaisyYellow · 12/03/2019 12:26

A car for my partner, just before we broke up.

PillBug · 12/03/2019 12:33

£4500 family holiday to Alcudia, Majorca. Fancied a change from Cyprus. What a fucking dump, like Blackpool in the sun, full of kids running round everywhere, scenic view on the beach of a power station and the whole place smelt like a swamp sewer and it rained, in August, uuurrrgh

WhoWasIt · 12/03/2019 12:35

£450 on a HIP package that you had to have done back then when you put your house on the market, only for HIP to be scrapped a couple of months later!
At the same time losing almost 3K on land searches and solicitors etc when the seller decided to pull out the day before the contracts were due to be exchanged.

I think divorce was mentioned at some point.

Nannewnannew · 12/03/2019 12:43

I spent £400 on a diet plan that delivers a box to your door once a month. After the first month I realised that I had made a dreadful mistake as the main meals all tasted the same and I got to the point of dreading eating them! I phoned the firm and they still insisted on sending the final months box, even though I was happy to forgo the money, but no, they HAD to deliver it! 🤨 . My own fault but it still stings.

FuckertyBoo · 12/03/2019 12:47

Ugh how annoying nam.

If it’s Jane Plan, I changed my mind before I got my first box and refused delivery. They refunded me, no question.

MNHQ
HebeMumsnet · 12/03/2019 12:48

Spent much more than I could afford on late 90s gadgetry. The late 90s must have been host to some of the shortest-lived crap tech in the history of mankind.

Lifeonmars77 · 12/03/2019 13:00

£750 on new wardrobes. We moved house 6 months later and they didn't fit in the new house (too tall for the lower ceilings) so had to be taken apart and stored in a friend's garage... they're still there 2 years later.

Lifeonmars77 · 12/03/2019 13:02

Oh and £140 on Juice Plus shakes and pills... still annoyed at myself for getting taken in my this MLM bullshit.

ILoveBray · 12/03/2019 13:03

millythepink

Ahh thanks, that thread was one I started! Glad you're enjoying it!

The worst money I ever spent was £950 on having a sofa custom made. I got the dimensions wrong and it won't actually fit in the room it was meant to go in.

It's now stuffed in the spare room and you can barely get in there.

I can't bear to sell it as I would only get about £50 for it!

Sarahlou63 · 12/03/2019 13:04

€5,500 on a total thyroidectomy, which turned out to be a partial thyroidectomy (good) and a permanently paralysed vocal cord (very, very bad).

gwenneh · 12/03/2019 13:06

The worst money we ever spent was in purchasing a house, which was too much of a compromise for DH and purchased at a time when we should not have been making ANY financial decisions (MIL had just died, DS1 on the way, no one was thinking clearly.)

We were able to buy it outright and wound up taking a big loss when we eventually sold. I will be kicking myself for eternity over that.

TedAndLola · 12/03/2019 13:12

My degree. I would've been better off working and figuring out what I really wanted to do rather than pick a degree that sounded interesting.

I've just paid it off but I could've had thousands in my pocket over the years.