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?

DH booked a trip to visit family on another continent in March next year. Except he didn't, he booked it for the same dates in February (days of the week are the same, as February has 28 days in 2025). Good thing he realized - the change fee was steep, but much better than showing up at the airport in March having long missed the flights.

I need to hear more!

Applying for planning permission. Getting the " right" windows is gonna cost twice as much as the visually indistinguishable ones we wanted.

I've turned up a day late for a donestic flight scheduled at 00:30. Thankfully I narrowly avoided making the same mistake on a long haul international trip thanks to the prior mistake so an expensive lesson rather than stupidity tax.

I'm a champion at losing small items so now have tiles on everything I care about and a smart watch that finds my phone.

My daughter had to catch a train earlier this week and I accidentally booked it for a day early, only realised when I got a notification that the train was going to be on time. Cost £25 to change to the correct day.

I booked to take my daughter to see high school musical at the theatre and forgot until the day after.

Booked premier inn for two short breaks but got the wrong dates for both and they were non transferable so I needed to pay again.

Thought I had lost my car keys so arranged to buy new ones. Paid £50 for the key and was going to arrange to have it programmed when I found the key in the desk drawer at work.

I'm currently paying Microsoft £25 a month for Minecraft and can't figure out how to cancel it 🤦🏻‍♀️

I'm sure there are many more!

Sorry but your stupidity tax is actually getting a new battery when all you needed to do was get jump leads to start from another car and drive it so the alternator charges your battery up again ;-)

Another car key one… I was in the loo on the way out to the car park to go home from work. Car keys stashed in my very shallow trouser pocket. You can guess what happened, they fell out of my pocket and into the toilet bowl as I stood up and got automatically and violently sucked down the drain. Expensive Uber ride home & back and even more expensive to replace the key at the dealership!!

Lending £1000 to someone I’d been close friends with for more than 20 years….

I bought a flat in 2008 for £100k. A 3 bed house would have been £125k. I could have afforded it but didn't want to pay the extra.

The flat is now worth £180k, but the houses are now worth £350k.

Booked pricy train tickets on the right day but in the wrong direction (Edinburgh to London rather than London to Edinburgh).

Bought a new car and was offered insurance at a bargain price, so ditched the lovely brokers I had been with forever, and took the bargain insurance. Fast forward 12m, and the 'bargain' insurance renewal was stupidly expensive.

'Sod that', I thought, 'I'll go back to plan A.' Except I forgot. I forgot so thoroughly that even when the unmarked spy van stopped me, I insisted I was insured. Only while I was ringing the brokers did the horrible realisation flood my body.

Fortunately the lovely brokers talked the man out of actually arresting me and persuaded him it was a genuine mistake. Still had to pay megabucks for un-impounding the car, more megabucks for a hiked insurance premium, and points (my first ever!) on licence for years and years.

I try to be grateful that my lack of insurance was discovered before I actually had an accident. It probably wouldn't have occurred to me to insure the car, without a reminder, for several years....(Nowadays I insure the second I receive the first reminder, about 3m before it's actually due).

This! I’ve bought lovely stuff for a fraction of the price on Vinted and I look there first if me or the kids need something!

Booked an airport transfer in Sicily for that day instead of the actual day of arrival. £100. Bloody annoyed me a lot

That is annoying

I read that as fiat at first 😂

We did that the battery did not restart!!

Not realising a restaurant car park had changed so you had to enter your details at the bar so got fined, plus buying too many clothes online and thinking that they’ll do when I’m not really happy with them.

Glad it’s not just me, finally looking into cancelling 2 years later

I closed my shop and a good, paying business to move 250m to care for DP's elderly parent, who was 'so looking forward to seeing more of him.' DP is autistic and chronic depressive and I thought the change would help him. Bought a shared ownership place so absolutely no capital left. I'd planned to start up again doing the same work I'd done before.
Ten days after we arrived to her gushing welcome she changed her mind and told us she didn't want us and to f* off.
That's the most stupidity tax I've ever paid. It took five years to be able to save enough extricate us, once I'd found work.
You pay to learn, don't you?

Not me, but was a poor guy on a Police Interceptors type program. He was stopped by the police for having no insurance, he was adamant he did, having just taken it out. Checked and the start date was the 1st March, it was the 29th February.

Charged for driving without insurance, but it seems it was going to court so not sure on the full conclusion.

Bought expensive front row seats for DS’s favourite show for Christmas. When the big day finally came we were halfway to the theatre in the evening when I realised they were matinee tickets. Then had to pay through the nose for replacement tickets for the evening performance. It was a good show though.

DH not me thankfully, relying on parking sensors to reverse into a parking space, didn't turn round to check and promptly reversed in to a low hanging, very thick, tree branch which shattered the back car window 🤦‍♀️

Speaking to Local Authority staff and the school SENCO as though they were decent human beings and expecting them to respond rationally and have a shred of empathy for the children they have a duty of care towards, or even the slightest regard for the law.

So much wasted time and energy and so much abusive gaslighting endured before I realised that they will only do their jobs when forced to by legal action.

Thanks to this thread I've just cancelled my Amazon Subscribe and Save order for September which contains loads of stuff I didn't need including supplements for my dog who is very sadly no longer with us.

I had a flat tire caused by a huge pothole. Not only did I forget to take a photo of the flat tyre, I didn't get a receipt for the Sunday call out tyre replacement company. So no claim to the council 😭