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? :-)

I had this with Mersey flow, ring them and they should just charge you the toll fee 😊

Holy shit, @TheClawww, that's awful. You must be livid. And gutted.

@Stroller15

I was in in Rome a few years ago with a friend. We needed to buy train tickets to Assisi so looked everywhere for someone to help us. Absolutely everyone only spoke Italian, even the information bureau person! Got on the train and we were fined €500 for not validating our tickets correctly within minutes. I was so upset, the poor passengers on the train were pleading with the conductor - in Italian! - to give us a break, but no luck. I was angry for the rest of the trip!

European train conductors and European ticket validation machines should all be sent into a swirly vortex.

Pulled a note out of my purse to buy a bag of potatoes for £1 and as I pushed it into the box realised it was a £10 😳😳

Back in the day I was skinter then a skint thing, on a skint day. My friend bought me a scratch card for my birthday and I won £20, I was thrilled and myself and my dh decided to treat ourselves to a meal out, we'd not been out in ages. I went to iron a blouse and the iron broke! So no meal out and a new iron - gutted!

Left my Apple Mac in a hotel called as soon as I realised but unfortunately I never got it back.

I once collected a rather large online order (clothes for me) from Marks and Spencer Just for Food and then went to the Lidl opposite the store.
It wasn't until I reached home and unpacked that I realised that my M&S bag was nowhere to be seen.
I had left it dangling from the Lidl trolley.

I went back but, of course, nothing had been handed in.

Not me, but my DH paid for 3 years' worth of audible subscription that he didn't know he had and never used.

He also got a new phone and didn't realise it needed a smaller SIM card, so shoved the big SIM card in and got it stuck. Then had to pay £150 to get it out...

OP I've forgotten to pay a few times on the merseyflow system, I have always rang as soon as I've realised and they've only charged me the original toll, not the fine.

When I was a teenager I had my first trip to London with just a friend and no parents. I bought lots of lovely clothes. Left them on the tube.

Paying cash for a job on our house for 600. Losing my purse with the 600 in it. Purse reappeared miles away chucked, money obvs didn't. That is a LOT of money for us. Was fucking gutted

@radioband

I got a bonus at work for £100, cue a parking ticket for .......... you guessed it £100

When I completed my 3 months probationary at work I got £200 for my week of training courses added on at the end of it. Just in time for Xmas. Went shopping and locked my keys in the boot. £200 gone just like that to join the AA and have my lock drilled out to retrieve them. Worse thing is I still haven't learnt my lesson and I locked them in for a second time. This time I was just down the road from home but my flat keys were also in there and only I have a set

£350 new phone dropped down the loo in a sleep derived/ post newborn baby haze.

I arranged a new mortgage deal at a fixed rate for 2 years. Aha I thought, Fishypants you are being mature and responsible and not sticking with your current deal! Then Interest rates crashed. I ended up losing £2.5k in extra interest payments. Damn you 2008 crash!

Paying over £10,000 on school fees during Covid summer term for 1 child for 11 hours Of on line teaching per week.Could have had a new kitchen.

[quote TDogsInHats]@DuckyMcDuck. No need to pay return postage costs to Amazon.
Tick the box that says item incompatible.[/quote]
You're a superstar, thank you

Paid 250 quid for car insurance online, before going to collect it, using my brothers credit card ( with his permission) to find when I landed the car hire company considered that insurance null and void as it was my brothers credit card, and made me pay 200 euro more to take out the car... ahhh .. after a bumpy flight with 2 kids!

Oh Herky baby that's really messed up and a guilt pill too as we are all trying to do our best for our kids! As were you doing your best sending em to private school..ouch

Went on cheapish cruise where you paid separately for excursions. Decided I could easily get around myself for the day. Got on wrong bus. Ended up halfway across the Italian peninsula. $500 dollar taxi ride back, desperate rush before the cruise ship disembarked, taking my 6 year old away without me (left in childcare, not just abandoned in the cabin).

Wore a brand new pair of shearling Birkenstocks without spraying them with suede protector despite having a bottle handy which I set out to use 'later', cooked dinner and dripped two big plops of chicken fat on them. This thread helped me feel better.

Dh - a very level-headed, capable and detail-orientated person - put petrol in our new (used) diesel car. To make it worse, I thought hmm I should remind him that it's diesel (our previous car took petrol) and then thought no, don't micromanage him.

Our previous car had broken down - for good - with a full tank of petrol, well over £100 worth.

Took the wrong passports (for some reason I had the cancelled ones in the same drawer as the valid ones) and didn't realise until I got to the airport, so the taxi took me home and back again which cost a fortune.

Recently for the first time ever I forgot to renew our parking permit and we got a ticket, but amazingly (due to covid maybe?) they hadn't noticed for five months so the fine cost slightly less than what we would have paid for the permit over that period. They sent an email reminder, I don't know what I was thinking. Still cross with myself about it.

Around 1981 (I bear a grudge), I was out with friends and got a taxi home. I always tip, and I handed over [what I thought] was a £5 note and said 'keep the change'. When I was home I realised that, in the gloom of the taxi, I must have handed over a £20 note instead. At that time I was temping and my husband was self-employed as a sound engineer, so some days we'd have no money at all between us, and I knew what I should have had left in my purse on that evening.

I was so annoyed, because I believed the taxi driver must have known I'd made a mistake with the note. I was around 21, and he was dropping me off at a terrace in one of the poorer parts of our city; so I got my husband to walk back into town with me and walk around the city (luckily it's a small one :-)), trying to find the taxi to claim the extra money back. So the result was: I lost £15 and walked the journey back into town, and then recreated the journey back on foot that I'd just lost £15 on.

@Leaannb because I expect Timpsons to know what will and won’t be accepted since it’s a popular service they offer He should have told me i was smiling too much

I so hope you're right about things coming in threes OP! Then DH and I would have completed our set for the time being.

1 - Accidentally booked a day trip for the wrong date. I didn't think it would be booked up so far in advance so assumed 08.11 was an american date in August rather than a british one in November. We were going to be nowhere near by in November so had to pay £20 to not have the experience.

2 - Drove through a toll tunnel with a pay later option. Went to pay it on my phone straight away (DH driving) and it said it could take 15 mins to come through. Turned to DH and said "bet that catches a lot of people out".........£60

3 - DH bought a bed last year and was convinced by the sales man to do a buy now, pay later situation (even though he could have afforded a one off payment at the time...) The sales man assured him he would receive a phone call to remind him to pay before the 12 month period was up. This month we get a call to say its been 13 months so owe arrears of £250!!

£330 of money just lost We're generally quite a thrifty couple but obviously we need to be if we're going to carry on like this!

Fitted wardrobes that were so ugly and the doors kept falling off. Took them down two weeks later.

My parents had a light grey stone fireplace fitted. Turned out larger than expected. Then they had it varnished and it turned dark grey.it was like an enormous cliff looming darkly over the room. Took years before they could afford to get it removed.