To ask what's your stupidity tax?

[autienotnaughty]

Stupidity tax - something you have done that's ended up costing you financially or emotionally.

I'll go first.

I'm in the house one Friday night with dh and the kids. Eldest has a friend over who I offer to drive home. Can't find the car keys anywhere. I nip out to the car (I have form for leaving the car unlocked) discover that not only is the car unlocked but the keys are in the ignition switch on (as in lights and radio should be on but engine is not running). Probably been like that around five hours so the battery is completely dead.
Dh cannot revive the dead battery so end up paying ££ To increase our emergency cover to include home start and £££ for a new battery.
All in all a pretty expensive mistake. This sort of thing happen to anyone else?

Driving the last few yards of the bus lane. I wasn't driving a bus...

When my ex and I went on holiday one of us booked and paid for the flights and one paid for hotels.

I booked the hotel for Prague and I was working and he had a day off. He booked the flights and forwarded the email. He booked for Paris!!! As the drop down menu Paris is before Prague as listed alphabetically. Texted him that he's a muppet for booking Paris, not Prague.

Got home and couldn't book the flight to Prague as fully booked. Changed it to 2 days later. That was about £160 more for admin and that the flights (both ways) two days later were more expensive. Tried to rebook the hotel and full on the last two days. So ended up with a hotel that cost about another £20 more a night. Could have booked cheaper hotels but they were well out of the city centre. Don't want to be wasting 45 mins going into central Prague and back each time.

So our bargain break to Prague cost us another £240, about two thirds more than if he bloody checked which flight he originally booked.

Buying food every 1 or 2 days from Co-op instead of meal planning and doing a big shop from Aldi or Lidl.

Couldn’t find my passport before a holiday. Had to book an overnight trip to get a new emergency passport - cost a fortune. When I got back, found the old passport tucked into the side pocket of the carry on luggage.

We lost the car keys to our hire car in Spain. We had to pay £50 but as this was 1998 it was a lot more back then. We paid on credit card but it was still the machines with paper that you signed. They never ever cashed in that piece of paper assumed they lost it so they paid stupidity tax on our stupidity tax.

Saying over and over "we must get breakdown cover" and not, then getting a puncture and having to pay nearly £200 on emergency call out to patch it and then also buy new tires.

Was so pissed off with myself

A family friend decided to take the old washer or fridge to the tip as refused to pay £20 for the old one taken away by the retailer and £25 for bulky waste from the council.

On unloading the item at the tip, he damaged the boot lock. Cost to repair that - £120.

Letting my DP who is a classic "champagne lifestyle" but in his case zero income, almost 20 years now and I'm broke.

My husband.

Oh god that's awful

Same!

A good deed at least !

We order dog food online and and at least 3 times I've thought I paid and after a few days waiting for delivery discover I haven't! Cue paying £6 for next day delivery and a trip to the shop to spend £12 on a 2kg bag

I've done this. In my defence it was my 1st day back from maternity leave & I was frazzled 😂

I booked a weekend away a few years ago couldn't find my car keys and didn't have a spare. Couldn't go and lost the caravan cost. They turned up a few days later in a umbrella 😩

Forgot to set up insurance for the new cat as she came with temporary cover and I forgot to renew it after it expired. Cat got hit by a car (we assume). Fortunately, the injuries were not too severe, but the emergency vet trip and the treatment needed was £££.

Good thing she's cute.

In hospital a lot for my current pregnancy and keep forgetting to pay for parking. Somehow have only been fined once so far but it wouldn't surprise me if I get more. This post just reminded me to go on and pay for today's parking as I completely forgot again so thank you

Dog got into teens room and ate 1kg of chocolate 🍫 Cost £275 for emergency vet

Took bike rack off back of car as we were told that there was a spate of them being nicked whilst people were cycling. Put it in the boot, slammed the boot, broke the rear windscreen.
Idiot tax indeed

The time I was a supervisor of a large team and the vast majority of us went out for a team meal.

Bill came at the end of the evening and I said I'd put it all on my credit card and everyone could just pass me their cash. Which they did along with a bit extra for the tip.

I looked at the total on the bill, thought about the wonderful service we'd had and added 15% to what I paid. Didn't spot the bit about them automatically adding a service charge for a group like ours so I effectively tipped them 35%.

I unwittingly clicked repeat order on Ocado when I bought a large monthly shop. The following month I made a new order which came but the following day the repeat order also turned up so we had 2 large shops in 2 days. The really embarrassing thing is that I didn’t realise what the issue was so I made the same mistake again in the third month.

Travelling with 2 year old DS and 6 months old DD. No other adults. Went to the airport for long haul flight to visit family. Totally forgot about visas and had to pay for overnight luggage storage at Heathrow, emergency 24 hour visa service x3 and new flights as original ones were non transferable non refundable. I got once a year so know but just totally forgot. I did something similar again 5 years later, I just don't learn.

Stupid travel tax, repeat offender.

I have innatentive ADHD so I am a high rate stupidity tax payer.

I have spent twenty years paying for driving lessons and still can’t pass my test. I recently flooded my house because I left a tap running and did £6000 worth of damage (the insurance covered it but I still had to take annual leave to sort everything). I have travelled to appointments and events in the wrong day - a complete waste of time and money! I impulse buy. In my younger days I was always late handing in my time sheets or paying my bills so would I cure charges/ not get paid on time. Then there are the many, many items I have lost (usually glasses, keys, phones and bank cards).

My sisters was, when coming to the end of a long stay here from Australia she decided to wash her cream kipling style bag. But her passport was in it. So unscheduled rush trip to London, cheaper if I came with dd on railcard, a day and a half sitting around Australia house, new photos new pp and overnight stay.

Yes it was…