Money down the drain - tell me your tales of misery!

[SomeOtherGirl]

Bad luck comes in threes, and I've had three money ones this week (the second one's not too bad)!

1- DH used a toll bridge that won't let you pay at a toll gate, you have to log on to the website when you get home. Guess what, he forgot - and used it in both directions. £80 fine coming our way! (And he wonders why I'm so neurotic about stuff! :-D )

2 - The toilet broke and needed replacing. I called a plumber and he wanted £160 plus VAT for the first hour. DH is currently redeeming himself for item 1, with a youtube 'how to' video and a toilet from B&Q. Dodged a financial bullet there! And shredded the divorce papers. Phew!

3 - But the most annoying one - I just mucked up an accommodation reservation in a really daft way that has made it cost an extra £130. Nothing I can do to undo the damage - I've tried, it is what it is - basically I lost out on a one-off discount. Urgh. That's a lot of money to me!

When this kind of thing happens, it makes me reflect on how difficult it is to save / earn money, and how easy it is to lose it, if you're daft enough (like us!!) For example, last night I spent three hours on the internet researching baby equipment to save £30 on the price of a baby item for imminent DC2. I was dead chuffed to have saved the money and was all pleased for a bit. That's three hours of an evening to save £30. How have I just thrown away £130 then?! What is wrong with me?

Now I'm wondering what I could have done with that £130, all the lovely things I deny myself in the interest of saving money.

*15 books for DC
*Probably an entire layette (if you still use that word!) for DC2
*10ish reusable nappies
*A total hair makeover including dye, perm and other glitzy stuff
*260 cans of diet coke
*A babysitter and meal and cocktails out on two occasions for me and DH
*A fancy upgrade on the pram I want to get for DC2 but can't justify
*A fancier phone next time I upgrade
*proper leather boots this winter
*A Rymek keyboard (total frivolity!)
*Petrol for four and a half round trips to see my DPs
*Tickets to go and see DPILs
*A lot of cinema tickets
*A lovely(ier) birthday present for DH
*Some clothes that aren't in the sale for once! (And therefore probably fit a little better)

I could go on :-D

Then I was thinking, hmmm, what could I do to make up that money, little by little - and I realised the world doesn't really work that way. I found 18p on the street the other day and felt I'd won !!!

So aibu to ask you to cheer me up and tell me the face palm moments when you realise you'd lost / squandered / wasted a load of money, what would you have done with the money if you hadn't lost it, and whether you managed to do anything to make it up in the end? :-)

@Sussedyouout I’m sorry you lost your jobs

I once left everything that I put in an airplane seat pocket behind - my kindle, noise cancelling headphones, Ray bans (prescription, the lenses alone were £££) and travel wallet with €200. My own stupid fault, excuse is that DS was being a pain.

Luckily I wasn't very organised getting on the plane and had put our passports in my pocket. I called the airline straight away but they didn't find anything 🤔

They never do, even when you've literally left the aircraft

@honeygirlz - I know it’s inexcusable to speed but I think the fact my Mother had just unexpectedly passed away, I was emotionally distracted & I was unaware my speed has crept up, as I was following the flow of the traffic. I’m always super careful of speeding, to the point where other vehicle users start beeping me to get a move on!

On a modest UK holiday our shower didn’t work properly so eventually we got moved to different accommodation and refunded £90. Went for a slap-up meal with the 2 DCs as a treat. Next day forgot to buy a ticket at the beach car park, car was clamped, and to release it cost us - yes, £90

@honeygirlz there is usually a bit of leeway with speeding, to allow for cameras potentially being inaccurate and also the inaccuracy of people's speedometer, so not necessarily.

I booked tickets for School of Rock to surprise my daughter next April. Really chuffed with myself until I noticed I’ve booked them for Milton Keynes - we live in Warrington 🙄

@sqirrelfriends

I once left everything that I put in an airplane seat pocket behind - my kindle, noise cancelling headphones, Ray bans (prescription, the lenses alone were £££) and travel wallet with €200. My own stupid fault, excuse is that DS was being a pain.

Luckily I wasn't very organised getting on the plane and had put our passports in my pocket. I called the airline straight away but they didn't find anything 🤔

They never find anything, even if you've only got one foot on the ground when you remember. Weird that.

I'm enjoying this thread so much as I've been fuming I bought Halloween led candles from Amazon for£15 for 3. They've got the exact same ones in B&M for£2

B and M store and Poundland near me are so much cheaper than Amazon these days.
Dh saw the same curtain pole for under £6 : Amazon wanted about twenty odd!
The curtains have been fine and haven't fallen down or anything either.
He was amazed at the prices.
I bet once everything is on line and the high street has shut completely everything will be double the price ( plus p and p!)
We always lose money on cars : cars and houses can be a mugs game ( in our experience anyway )

Some years ago my elderly Dad noticed the lighting in the house was poor, and needed improving.
In fact, it was more likely this was a sign of his needing a cataract operation.
Instead, he got in a 'fly' electrician from the Checkatrade card put through the letterbox and arguably designed to look like it was the Red Card put out by the local authority recommending local traders.
Dad thought it needed 'rewiring' just a word he'd picked up. It didn't, but the chancer electrician wasn't going to tell him that. Nor was the messy house in a fit state to be rewired.
Dad tried to back out, but he wasn't having it. Eventually he did, but charged labour of around £600 for work never done and never needed doing. Can't report it to the electrician's guild or what have you because you can only do that if they went ahead with the work, which we managed to avoid.
Reported to Checkatrade who were rubbish - the penny dropped when I realised that registrants pay them up to a grand a year to be members so back then at least unlikely to be booted off. No negative review ever went on the site.

Dad wouldn't have spent the money on anything else anyway.

Other than that, care homes. Bit of a family bust-up led to Mum being placed in a home eventually having so far fobbed off the local Parkinson's nurse and all the other dodgy characters who buzz around like bees round a lucrative honey pot.
So after Mum's stint in hospital we paid over a grand a week at a fur coat no knickers care home - well, Barchester's Epsom Beaumont actually - to have her sat in her room in front of CBeebies all day but getting her medication in time.
That was in Oct 2011 I think. She died in Oct 2017, and aside from a stint where she was on free NHS Continuing Healthcare at Barchester's Reigate Beaumont in 2014, who had an odd attitude to her fluid intake that called to mind the Liverpool Care Pathway, and who arranged with Social Services to have the police called out on me on Xmas Day after I whistleblew to the local press the previous care home that had nearly killed her, we were paying around a grand a week.

What could we have bought? A vintage Aston Martin, several holidays to Paris or elsewhere with Mum, a deposit for another family home, or even paid ourselves the salary to look after her though of course the corrupt local authorities would prefer self-funders direct that cash to their dodgy local care homes, with whom they appear to have a cosy deal.

And don't think they'll let you have Mum back home when you realise you're being fleeced and the care homes are nearly killing her with no accountability whatsoever. Social Services will step in to prevent that (though they will, in the spirit of 'friendliness' suggest this very idea to you, so they can then fictitiously allege that you're likely to 'abscond' with your parent, and arrange a Court Order to have you barred from seeing them - charming!)

You have been warned, and get your parent to grant you Lasting Power of Attorney in Health and Welfare while they still can.

Dear NewspaperTaxis

I totally agree that Checkatrade is rubbish - yet another toothless moneymaking scheme - and care homes are a rip-off. You saying that your mum was sat in her room in front of CBeebies all day but getting her medication in time sums it up perfectly.

I would never work in a Barchester home as they run on a 'pile them high, staff them low mentality' (this is my experience of a local Barchester). But all care homes are expensive unfortunately, it's the nature of the beast.
This is why we kept my dad at [his own] home and paid a carer to go in twice daily to check on him, wash him & remind him to take his meds. We were fortunate to be able to do this, especially as he refused point blank to go into a home! Your LPA advice is also very sound.

But implying that the local parkinsons nurse is a 'dodgy character' who is buzzing round your mother 'like a bee round a honeypot' is unfair. NHS pay is pretty rubbish and nurses are essentially being screwed over by the system, the same as everyone else. They don't get a bonus if somebody has to go into care!

@doctorsnoddy

Won £25 with my one and only premium bond. Then parked my car, the ticket fell off incurring a fine of £25.

I've done this but appealed it and they let me off.

Justgetthroughtheday

One day our parking ticket was put in the windscreen , but upside down! It moved after the door caught a gust of wind and we didn't notice to change it back as had to get on to work.
We got a fine , but we went to the council offices with it and they let us off ( after a bit of an argument about the parking wardens who could see it was in time and date etc but just not the right way up )
The council took pity on us. If you have proof you bought a ticket they sometimes do back down. Ours was really visible , which made it seem worse that they were so picky about it! It's worth a go.
I take photos of the ticket in the car these days before I leave I go to the shops or work.

I feel your pain about the parking ticket. I have to show a 'parking pass' at the flats where I live. I live quite central to town and the scheme is designed to prevent non-residents from using the car park.
I leave the pass on my dashboard all the time. One day it slipped down under that shaded section at the base of the windscreen. The top half was still showing but the bottom half was 'in the shade', as it were.
I got fined a hundred quid because it was on partial display & not on full display !! A hundred quid for parking in my own car park!
This was presumably logged by some jobsworth who had seen my car many times on his rounds, and knew that I lived there.
Lesson learned and now I've taped it to the inside of the windscreen!

What makes it all the more annoying is that people who don't live here do use the car park all the time. Sometimes there isn't a space left when I get home, so I have to find somewhere to park streets away... and yet they never seem to get caught!

@MsEllany

Not sure if reading these makes me feel better or worse?!

Over the last year, some particular ones from me:

• stayed in a hotel for work and left my beloved Kindle Voyage. Not made anymore, replaced it but it’s not the same
• oven broke. Replacement £400
• dishwasher hose broke. Luckily drains outside so no damage but it took two weeks to get the replacement! God I hate washing up
• backed into a car in the car park - I was parking so going so slowly I couldn’t feel I was backing into him, and he just sat there. £180 to buff out the scuff from my bumper
• long weekend booked at fancy Airbnb for two weeks time. 14 of us going. Hopefully no money lost but I’m gutted. Haven’t seen some of my family for a year and was really looking forward to it
• boiler has been only intermittently working, we’ve had no hot water for the best part of six weeks. The novelty of cold showers has thoroughly worn off!

In general I’m the sort of person who impulse buys and spends money when feeling down. I’ve been much much better this year, almost got on top of debt payments and then these unexpected things to pay for have happened.

Ugh I can sympathise on the backing into a car one. I went up to meet my OH last year. He's a Truck driver and was delivering not too far from where I live first then to the shop just up the road from me. Only the tail lift on the Truck seized onto the floor so he was unable to move from where he was parked in the delivery area. Said I'd go up and see him there instead. I wanted to see him because I was having my Scan done then following day to check our Baby had grown. Got there and went to pull in between the Truck and a car that was stupidly parked in front of him. Car park for customers and he still parks down the side of road instead. Clipped the passenger side bumper of his car with the drivers side back wheel arch/door of mine. Barely felt a thing. If I'd thought it was bad enough I would have gone straight to hospital to get checked out and make sure Baby was ok. His car had a scuff and my paint work on it but no dents he insisted on exchanging insurance details. Got a phone call a couple of weeks later from the insurance company to say he was claiming £1500 for damages to the bumper. Then he said I'd injured him and caused whiplash and muscular damage to legs. Haven't heard back about that one and it's nearly a year so I'm guessing they realised he was trying it on oh and to add insult to all this. I went into early labour that night and lost my Baby the following morning

Got 800 quid robbed from my car, forgot to lock it.

Got car towed in London-300 release fee.

Got a parking ticket and didn't pay it- 500 fine.

I've had terrible luck with cash.

Not physical money as such but lost my purse which only had a few pounds cash in it. I cancelled the cards but when I applied for new club card and advantage card all the points had been spend on both.. and quite a bit too as it was mod Novem and I save them all year for Christmas shopping

^^ and nectar card

Hurt my jaw biting into a large apple and it didn’t get better so I made an appointment at the dentist. She xrayed me and told me my jaw had problems that only a nightly mouth guard would fix. At a cost of £400. The jaw pain cleared up before the bloody mouth guard was even ready to pick up. And 6 years later I’ve never had any other issues.

£1000 of shares in the next hot thing at 15p each. They're currently worth 3.5p each

£23.5k of my pension pot invested in Cape Verde property development. The investment company apparently got conned by the lawyers and lost all the money

2 bottles of expensive champagne and a haul of Clarins bought at duty free left on the plane when I got off in Guernsey. Strangely not to be found when the same plane arrived in Jersey

In all fairness I have received my purse back with all my holiday money in when I flew an interval Oz flight. I did the 'pocket in front' trick but I did get it returned.

Just found out that a bottle of wine I like is £60 a bottle in a restaurant I like and frequent and last time I was there we shared 3 bottles then the next time I was in I saw the price!! So annoyed I’ve spent that on wine, serves me right for not checking the price or the bill!

Wakemeupwhenthisisover
Can't believe you didn't realize that 180 pounds of your bill was on wine alone! Was this split with lots of other people?
I often look at the bottles for sale and I can't believe the mark up in restaurants for a bottle you could get for £10 or £20 in a supermarket or wine merchants ( for example) and even a small glass of 'house 'red or white is nearly a fiver in a normal pub.
No wonder people have a drink before they go out. It is a rip off.

@The80sweregreat
I know it’s ridiculous. There was only 2 of us, it was (is) a fancy restaurant, we were there for hours, had starters, mains, desserts, cocktails the lot! We just split the bill in the end I had no reason to look at it and didn’t check my bank afterwards. I was expecting the meal to be expensive anyway. It was only when I went back to the restaurant with other friends and had the same wine when I said let’s get another one pointed out the price I was horrified and switched to the house!!! This wine I was drinking is expensive in shops (£20) but they mark it up massively in this restaurant! Very foolish of me.