What expensive purchase do you regret spending money on?

[Teadrinker11]

Or purchases, whatever it was you spent money on and was so expensive, why do you regret it? Impulse purchase in the heat of the moment? I think the most expensive things I regret spending money on are expensive beauty products which I didn't need. I enjoy using them, but regret spending precious money on them. What expensive things do you regret spending money on?

@godmum56

My kitchen. We had it properly designed as its a small space and bought decent quality but we went "safe" on the basis that we would be selling the house shortly afterwards. DH died so moving had to be taken off the table and here I am 12 years later with an expensive ish kitchen that I look at and go "meh" Ok its a first world problem but never again would I renovate in the expectation of selling.

I agree. I would never renovate with the hope of making the value go up. We did buy a house in the early 1990s for £37K and spent £15K on it (in about 2 years,) as it needed so much doing to it. (Probably about £30K-35K in today's money...)

It sold for almost £60K some 8 years later, but then most peoples homes went up the same % over that time. Including homes that had had very little (or nothing ) done to them!

Then in the early noughties we bought a home for £65K. Similar to our old one but with an extra bedroom, and we spent £12K (probably £25K in today's money,) on replacing the kitchen and bathroom to try and 'up' the value. (and they were out of date anyway.)

When we went to sell it, two houses in our cul de sac (that were the same) sold for the same money!

@Thewiseoneincognito

Am I the only one who goes hmmmm at all the Dyson hate on MN? Dyson products are far superior to most of their cheaper competitors. Yes they’re expensive but if you can afford it why settle for anything less?

I just imagine anti-Dyson bot farms churning out the hate on behalf of Babyliss and Hoover 😂😉🤣🤭

😉😉

I have to echo those posters. Only ever had 2 Dyson vacuum cleaners and they were both shit. We had one off a relative who let us have it for £75. She had laminate flooring and didn't want it anymore. She never mentioned how useless it was though! It left 50% of the stuff on the carpets! So we scrapped it. Waste of £75!

Then we bought another one, (£200 I think it was!) and it was just as bad! We assumed the one our relative had sold us was just a bit shit. Didn't realise it was a common thing for Dysons to be shit!!!

ANYWAY, DH bought a Henry from work some 10 years ago (for £30) as they were replacing all their vacuum cleaners, and were selling off the old ones to staff. Still got it! and it works as well as the day we bought it. So we gave our Dyson - the second one that we paid £200 for - to a new neighbour who had no hoover.

I guess that's another item we regretted spending on! The shitty Dyson. (Well, 2 of them actually!) Fortunately, DH got the Henry a year or so after our second Dyson, so we could get rid of it. And as I say, Henry has served us well for 10 years, and is still working well!

And no, I am NOT a bot. You can't just assume anyone saying things you disagree with is a bot.

@EndersGame

Bought a house once, only had it 6 months. Only lived in it for 3 of those. That was rather expensive and lost a fair bit on it as well, which left me in debt for a few years. My regret was buying it in the first place.

Yeah, me too. We live and learn.

@Fiftysixthnamechange

Dyson hairdryer, I don't get it, am I missing something?! It's crap, leaves my hair Crispy too.

I regret my husband buying me one for Christmas. Didn't ask for it, didn't want it. There was nothing wrong with the 15 year old bog standard one I had been using. Now I too have the crispy flyaway hair and a tired arm from holding the dumbbell weight of the stupid thing.

Just spent £185 on a haircut at Tony and Guy. The cut is my worst one ever; she cut about 8 inches off without asking or checking… I’d just gone for a trim!
The main expense was lowlights. They’re quite dark, I don’t particularly like them. And they will wash out within 6 weeks.
I was shocked at the price but too shy to say anything.

@BearOfEasttown I didn't reply to the pp. However, my last specs Jan 2020 were nearly £700. The frames were about £160 I think. (My optician recommends a good quality frame for a complex prescription). The cost arises from thinning 7.5 diopter lenses, adding a correction for astigmatism and includes varifocals (not cutting edge) but varifocals that are perfect from day one.

Also my specs sit on my face during all the hours I am awake and need to blend with my entire wardrobe. I try to get a minimum of two years out if my specs and actually due to competition and technological improvements the cost over the last 6/7 years has actually come down.

The British are rather unusual in tending only to own one pair of specs. DH, DD and DS who have simple prescriptions of probably less than two diopter either way do have multiple pairs because yes, the buy one get one free at the chains works for them.

Complex prescriptions are very expensive. I really feel for those on low incomes with very poor eyesight.

@NutellaEllaElla

Pretty much all kitchen gadgets. Air fryer, slow cooker, rice cooker. They're all a faff to use, clean and take up to much space.

How funny! We’re the complete opposite…each of the things you’ve mentioned get an absolute thrashing in our house!

@BrennieGirl

Dustin cordless vacuum. Expensive piece of shit.

Christian Louboutin shoes. Most uncomfortable shoes ever.

Got scammed into buying an expensive ring in Bangkok years ago. Still feel really stupid about it.

Ugh, I got scammed/pressured into buying 2 rings in Egypt when I was 20. Never worn them since, but they cost most of my spending money out there! To this day they sit in a bag in my jewellery box. I never wear gold - what was I thinking?!

I'm cringing to say but I got carried away in day trading and lost £700. Stupid af.

I also once (once!) went to a very expensive salon with my sister-in-law. We were getting ready for an event and she loved this salon so I was sort of bonding with her. I have straight hair which I usually wear in a low ponytail. So I'm given a latte and the guy blowdries my hair straight, then with a lot of ceremony puts it in a low ponytail. I must have looked blank because he bought out a mirror to show me back and side, exclaiming, "Now you look like Gweneth Paltrow!"

Purple dr martens, faulty left one squeaks as you walk. Love them but it sounds like I'm farting. Could return but need to video me walking and farting then send to dr marten and wait for return label plus now purple sold out. So will just put up with the fart.

I loved my black Mulberry Bayswater so much that I bought a second one in Oak.

Unfortunately I didn't buy the ordinary one, I bought one which had a very unusual and delicate almost fringed leather. It's a show stopper but the finish is too delicate for daily use and it must never ever get rained on.

I've used it twice in 15 years. Actually I've never seen another one and there are no pictures on line so I assume it's now very rare which makes me even less likely to actually use it!

Fellow non-bot Dyson hater here.

Nothing has ever been as good as our (albeit seriously ugly) Henry!

Fucking Ryan fucking Air fucking flights when DH hadn’t checked his work calendar properly. No option but to move flights at huge extra cost - felt like being robbed. The flights were around a year ahead so not like it cost Ryanair anything.

@BearOfEasttown
"I agree. I would never renovate with the hope of making the value go up. We did buy a house in the early 1990s for £37K and spent £15K on it (in about 2 years,) as it needed so much doing to it. (Probably about £30K-35K in today's money...)

It sold for almost £60K some 8 years later, but then most peoples homes went up the same % over that time. Including homes that had had very little (or nothing ) done to them!

Then in the early noughties we bought a home for £65K. Similar to our old one but with an extra bedroom, and we spent £12K (probably £25K in today's money,) on replacing the kitchen and bathroom to try and 'up' the value. (and they were out of date anyway.)

When we went to sell it, two houses in our cul de sac (that were the same) sold for the same money! hmm"

oh it wasn't done to increase the value, it was done because the existing kitchen was falling apart....One night I opened the wall cupboard with the china in and it have a lurch and started to fall off the wall!! I shoved it back and held it up while screaming for DH to come quick. I held it up while he emptied the cupboard then we pulled it off the wall and at that moment went "new kitchen" but I should have either had exactly what I wanted or gone cheap so I could have changed it out when circs changed...heigh ho.....

@Suzi69

Just spent £185 on a haircut at Tony and Guy. The cut is my worst one ever; she cut about 8 inches off without asking or checking… I’d just gone for a trim! The main expense was lowlights. They’re quite dark, I don’t particularly like them. And they will wash out within 6 weeks. I was shocked at the price but too shy to say anything.

Big name hairdressing chains can be surprisingly poor. I think they get so much passing trade that they don’t care whether they keep the custom or not.

I wonder how many others feel that way? A young relative of mine was getting divorced and they were still paying off the wedding!

My wedding was 20 years ago and cost less around £1000 - registry office, dress from Monsoon's sale rack, meal in the conservatory of a local pub for 20 of us and an evening reception in a club for another 40 with a basic buffet. It was great, everyone had a good time and a catch-up and nobody worried about money.

@pictish

I’ve always wondered if our wedding was a bit crap as we were never tempted to spend big money on it. We didn’t have money, big or little back then anyway.

We married at the registers on lovely Victoria Street in Edinburgh which was inexpensive but great for photos. Then it was pizza and champagne all round at a rustic Italian place we’d hired out. The evening do was in the function cellar of a nearby pub. Dh’s brother, who was a dj at the time, kept us all on the dance floor till 1am.
I wore an evening dress from Monsoon and dh hired a kilt. I think the whole thing came in at just under £1000.

It was an informal party sort of wedding. I sometimes regret not taking the opportunity to make a bigger deal…but having read some of the posts here I have remembered our ‘big day’ with fondness. So ta. X

That actually sounds really nice.

I have noticed a LOT of 'wedding money' regret on here, and also 'house' regret, and 'Dyson' regret!

My wedding was £30k and I don’t regret a single penny of it

Fair enough @godmum56

@ShallWeTalkAboutBruno

My wedding was £30k and I don’t regret a single penny of it

That's great to know.

I've renovated two houses for sale - and benefitted hugely.

A cat feeder I bought from a "major nationwide pet store" that broke after 3 days. I took it back.

My bathroom. Spent a lot of money gutting it and redoing it, still paying for it, and it's looking so tired 3 years on.

And many, many other things. Could be here all day.

Aubergine I should set up a cordless Dyson sanctuary 🤣

I have wedding regret occasionally too (to the tune of £10k) 😬

In our last house we bought a beautiful Smeg freestanding range cooker. Utter shite. One of the back burners never worked properly, despite being 'fixed' twice. The cast iron rack that you place over the burners was uneven so the pots always wobbled. And you only had to wipe the dials with a soapy cloth and the temperature indicators came off.

We had it for 4 years and were so happy to leave it in the house when we left. The new owner couldn't believe their luck ... and for that I apologise.