To ask what the most ridiculous thing you have ever spent money on is?

[AveAtqueVale]

Mostly to make me feel better. I'm currently up and about because I have a hacking cough and can't sleep, and have just spent £6.50 on a baby lego crocodile on eBay.

Backstory: DS(6) has a Lego set which includes a family of crocodiles. Today a friend's toddler was over and took a shine to the baby crocodile, so he gave it to her to take home. He is totally unbothered, and knowing him will remain so, but I've felt sorry for the parent crocodiles all day, and have now spent actual real money to assuage my upset that two small pieces of plastic might be missing a third smaller piece of plastic. I even caught myself (briefly) worrying that the new baby crocodile isn't quite the right shade of green, and that they might know it's not really theirs.

My only defence is that I am quite pregnant and hormonal, and due to aforementioned cough have had very little sleep for the last few days. I'm honestly not usually this batshit...

Has anyone else spent money on anything so completely ridiculous?

I've done exactly that too. Plus the little bugger bite me hard as I held him steady for his injection.

Stupid toys for my dog, knowing full well he will dance around the garden with them for 2 minutes then settle down to destroy them in even less time. Some have cost £15 and have been called 'indestructible'.

Im with you on the dog toys..
The ladybirds and ebay one are hilarious 😂

I love that you did all that. Has the crocodile settled in okay?

Hi-vis vest for a chicken (I don't have chickens) but it seeemed like a good idea (wine was involved).

I bought a custom made suit of armour for over three grand to display in my living room once I bought my house. I've worn it to Warwick Castle.

3 grand for a bit of display metal...

£200 for a new tv aerial for the house. Useful you say, not a waste at all. Until my oh pointed out that we had just signed up for a 2 year contract with cable and don’t use the aerial.

£60 on an inflatable furry 6ft giraffe called Mrs Melman. She dresses as Santa at Christmas time. I may have put her in my bosses office for a laugh. She's just a good egg all round.

Hot water bottles with faux fur covers. The colours were all so nice I didn't know which one to choose - so I bought loads, including hot water bottles (also different colours). I bet I've got more than a dozen - all hidden around the house so people don't know how absolutely bonkers I am.

I have a Smurf money box. When I spotted there was a Smurfette one on eBay, I bought her to keep him company. It seemed only fair.

This happened to me a couple of years ago. I know I didn’t leave the house and we got new carpets so had to empty the bedroom and take everything out.
We looked for hours checking every area in the house but after 2 years I’m guessing I’ll never find it.

In the end I bought a replacement for a reasonable price on eBay. I noticed a lot of people sell single ones so maybe this is a weird phenomenon or there is an AirPod fairy who sneaks in during the night and takes them?

You could sell the other AirPod you have and case so it’s not a total waste of money? Or buy a replacement?

It still bugs me after all this time wondering where it disappeared to. The only explanation me and DP can think of is that I got up to go to the toilet half asleep and it fell out and got flushed away.

If you ever find it please update!

I spent 1k on a retro video full size arcade machine, was a moment of madness and boredom in lockdown. We played in it loads for a few months but not anymore.

I love blasting aphids off plants with the hose. Not sure it would work on a balcony tho.

I did once spend £10 on playmobil guinea pigs coz they were cute abd we have guinea pigs. I also spent £500 on vets bills in the final year of my favourite guinea pigs life.

A sleep consultant. I thought she would help us with getting DD to sleep better. She turned out to be a charlatan who did nothing but criticise and belittle and basically told us to do controlled crying/CIO. The woman had a dreadful toll on my mental health.

I've wanted my own suit of armour since I first saw one on holiday when I was about 5. DW knows that if we win the lottery, its going to be my first purchase before even paying the mortgage off 🤣

Oh, I have one of these.

DD1 has red hair. Bright, glowing, spun with gold and orange and blonde hair (except for her eyebrows, which are transparent, and her lashes, which are palest blonde). At the time she was little, all dolls were either blonde or brunette, with the very, very occasional concession to equality with a single black or dual heritage doll in some ranges.

When she was four, there was a special edition Barbie mermaid produced in limited numbers in the US. And it had red hair. (NB, this was years before The Little Mermaid).

Bearing in mind I was on about £125/week with £84/week in rent and council tax costs alone (no top ups for working parents at the time), I took a day off work and travelled into London, as the only shops that had them was Selfridges or Hamleys. I fought my way through the crowds because, naturally, DD's birthday was at the end of November and she only announced two days before her birthday that she'd heard of this from a friend at school who had seen them there.

The crowds were awful. The heat, the noise, the confusion, the QUEUES and I searched the racks, but couldn't find one. I nearly burst into tears when an absolutely lovely, very young sales assistant asked me was I OK and what I was looking for and, after keeping me waiting for another 35 minutes, disappeared out of sight. Then her head popped up from under another till and she had one in her hand. I then had to stump up fifty fucking quid for this thing when the standard ones were about a tenner - without crying too much out of sheer gratitude. If anybody so much as glanced at my yellow bag in the tube crush, I gave them a Death Glare.

DD was over the moon when she opened it, played with it loads - but she'll never know the ridiculous lengths I went to so she could have a doll that looked like her.

These days, you just type it into Google/Amazon/whatever and you'll find any type of Barbie you want. But all that time, effort and shitload of money went on one Mermaid Barbie that spent its time without her tail (because it was usually sat on the stupid cat's back) as she played with it until she was eight.

Totally ridiculous. But totally worth it.

Cigarettes. I used to smoke 20 a day.

I bought a seagull a pasty from Greggs a few weeks ago. I'd watched it fly down to pick up a paper bag believing it had food in. It was so disappointed when it discovered the bag was empty, so I dodged into the shop and bought it one to make up for the disappointment. It was well happy 😂

£25 on a hotwheels size character from Blaze and the Monster Machines. My little one asked for the set from Santa but they only came individually and one eluded me despite weeks of trawling toy shops. That one cost as much as the rest of the team together. He loved it though.

You've missed a trick here. You should rotate them regularly so that they get equal amounts of wear and tear. Then if one gets lost, the replacement can slide into position with no questions asked.

Yes, I have found this out the hard way.

I love this!

@AveAtqueVale

far too many things to mention!!

Coukd you ask the toddlers Mum to swap crocodiles? I would, get the REAL baby back!

Got mine from Armstreet, custom made, but the business is in Ukraine, so ive no idea how reliable they are anymore, but the customer support was top notch when i had mine made in 2017.

I went with the full "King's guard" set.

That looks amazing! What a great purchase.

This is very wrong.
I almost feel like it should be illegal, but that's probably bit authoritarian.
But it is preying on people at a very vulnerable part of their life.
So sorry you went through this.