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? :-)

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

Covered a shift for a girl at work who mis-timed how long it would take to come down from a massive ket bender. We sold two wines by the bottle that had very similar labels but a price difference of about 25 quid. They were usually kept far apart in the fridge to avoid mistakes, but someone had cleaned the fridge and restocked and put them side by side. It was hella busy and I served the wrong one. Had to pay the difference, obviously, which was most of my tips for the night :(

Same friend split from her bloke a month or two later and asked if I'd come to the pub with her while she cried. I uncharacteristically gave up my shift (I usually took them on to buy stuff for the kids) and found out the following day that Pfizer's had been in and tipped all the severs a hundred quid. She got back with him two days later.

I was quite pleased when they moved to Spain.

£800 for a vet to tell me my dog is fine... just banged her leg...

I bought tickets to see Gorillas in Birmingham. We went to the christmas market beforehand and had a few beers. Then we checked into the hotel and my girlfriend, now ex, said she couldn’t find the tickets. I pulled her bag apart looking and couldn’t find them either. We got on the train home, sat in our seats and girlfriend looked in her coat pocket for something, and found the tickets.

So that was about £130 for tickets, £50 for the train, about £20 on taxis to the hotel and £75 for the hotel, all down the drain.

I was very understanding about it, didn’t have a go at her or anything. I just laughed it off as there was no point getting upset about it, then she bloody had a go at me and blamed me for making her get too pissed to remember where she’d put the tickets. As if I could make a 43 year old woman get pissed, I’d even told her not to have the third pint but she insisted she wanted it.

That is one of the reasons why she is now an ex.

Dropped my 3 year old iPhone today and totally smashed the screen! I’m out of contract but have to do a sim only until I return to work from maternity and can afford a new contract / purchase a new phone.
It’s insured thankfully but £75 on an old phone that was going to be replaced in three months 🤬.
DH is furious with me as he’ll be shelling out for it as I’m currently on zero pay (outside on stat)
Oops!

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!

I have to say, I would lose all respect for an organisation that is unable to accommodate human error, and deliberately prevents any ability (either through human intervention to over-ride the error, or by the customer having the ability to cancel and start again, so that the discount can be applied) to retrieve the situation. Anything less is unacceptable torture!

I wouldn't take it lying down, once the bit is between my teeth I'd be writing to the Telegraph or the Times consumer watchdog page and expose the company for such inhumane treatment, especially at a time when people are short of money and consumer spending is in the doldrums.

I bought DS and his DP a washing machine when they were moving into their first home together. DH measured the "hole" under the worktop for the washer and pronounced it standard size.
DH dented the machine trying to get the washer into a space that was 5cms smaller at the back than the front (very old property) £300 odd of washing machine sitting in our garage unused but badly scratched.
Couldn't put in a narrow top loader as the worktop was supporting the butler sink and spent £400 for a special small sized front loader!

I managed to leave all my underwear, (apart from what I was wearing) in the drawer in a hotel room in New York it was all new and expensive including a bra I had specially fitted,

DH has just painted the ceiling in our lounge diner with the wrong paint, he didn't look at the label properly and only realised it was the wrong finish the next day. And he'd bought a huge tub of it as we intend doing a fair bit of decorating!

I once missed a flight because I can't read a 24 hour clock. €40 for a new flight. Not terrible. Then my bag was overweight. €280

@Plussizejumpsuit we can drown our sorrows together. Cheers!

The best part of £2000 for plans and planning permission for an extension that we never built because of problems with the drains ( long complicated story which I won’t go in to now but gutting).

Falling asleep on the last train home from London, ending up at the end of the line and having to pay £60 for a taxi home. I did that a few times.

@DiscombobulatedAf

I once left 300 euros on my flight when I was visiting Spain. I was miserable for the whole holiday.

€300, I am still fuming about a giant Toblerone I left about 10 years ago, hard cash would have sent me over the edge.

£12 for thinking i had cancelled a scribd membership.

£16 something for Rosetta stone- didn't notice the sneaky monthly charge after joining. Should have gone with duolingo from the start.

£250 at the hair salon 4 months ago. I didn't know it would be that expensive and he added lots of extras I wasn't even asked about. Still trying to get over it but I see the place every time Ii go to the gym!

Omg I have lost and wasted thousands.

A couple of K keeping an old rustbucket going.

Sold a house at a loss and then tons on the furniture was lost.

Got pushed into buying one of those stupid picture album things...750 quid I think that was 20 years ago

300 quid on a holiday I couldn't attend.

Clothes and shoes I've never worn.

Thousands on drinks and drugs and bandits out in my youth.

I HATE myself now.

@Ugzbugz

Omg I have lost and wasted thousands.

A couple of K keeping an old rustbucket going.

Sold a house at a loss and then tons on the furniture was lost.

Got pushed into buying one of those stupid picture album things...750 quid I think that was 20 years ago

300 quid on a holiday I couldn't attend.

Clothes and shoes I've never worn.

Thousands on drinks and drugs and bandits out in my youth.

I HATE myself now.

Nights out in the youth even

Buying a house in Scotland with the offers over system (blind sealed bids on a closing date so you don't know what others are offering)...at the height of the market a while back. Bid likely tens of thousands over next nearest bid .

We'd lost out on other properties because of under offering and just completely over-egged it. Worked this out at the time but felt obligated to go through with the purchase. House is still worth nothing like what we paid for it, even in these bubble times.

Finished school, started work, scrimpted and saved for years for a travel fund, finally had a few thousand. My mum saw my bank statement and said you should invest it so it grows. I said no, I'm happy just having it safe. She said her financial adviser had an investment with a major international company that is 100% guaranteed! Relunctanly I agreed. Guess what, the major company went bankrupt so it wasn't guaranteed......all vanished.......

However - to make up for the lost money, I went on a massive 'offset' project - so everytime I wanted to buy something, eat out, get a takeaway, coffee, etc etc I would think again, and if I didn't spend, I'd mentally 'bank' that amount, to try to make back the lost money. The good thing is, over the years I 'made back' that original amount, and kept this habit up, and I've probably saved loads more due to this habit than if I hadn't been originally burned by 'investing'.

Paid £200 for a new something or other on daughters car. She crashed it the next day and wrote it off. Thankfully she was ok.

£600 for a builder to dig a small hole in the garden to establish how deep the foundations were. Fuming, but organised by our architect, who it turned out had a loose grip on reality where costs were concerned.

The same ex girlfriend made me miss half a gig I’d been desperate to see because she’d lost her phone. We had to retrace our steps in the dark using the torch on my phone looking for it. It was in her coat pocket all the time, wedged in the fold of her purse. She was a clumsy cow.

Oh, and I dropped an brand new iphone6, paid for outright, down the toilet. It was actually the second iphone I’d dropped down the toilet but the first was right before my upgrade was due so it wasn’t as bad.

When I was in my early twenties I qualified for a market research interview paying £35- bloody delighted, I drove to the city it was held in, couldn't find anywhere to park and was running out of time, so stuck it in a permit holders only bay (I know, I was young and impulsive) thinking I'd only be 30 minutes, small chance of being fined. Got back to the car and had a ticket for £70, £35 if you pay up quickly. Karma at its finest.

@doctorsnoddy

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

Urgh.

I won £4 on a lottery scratchcard. We parked in town outside my old school and walked down to the shop to redeem it. I was so pleased because it was Valentine's Day and the card had little red hearts on it :-)

Got back to the car and it had been broken into and my entire CD collection stolen. Who steals CDs in this day and age?!

I've been fined for forgetting to log online to pay that bastard Mersey crossing toll. Anyone would think it was designed that way on purpose...

Dropped my phone and smashed the screen. Paid to have a new screen fitted. A few hours later my toddler picked it up and dropped it on the tiled floor in kitchen and shattered the screen so badly the phone went black.

Four £100 speeding fines in five years. All for 36 in a 30 zone, snapped by the cunningly hidden camera van. And the government claims these vans are not a form of taxation...