What's the stupidest thing you've ever spent money on?

DannyWhoWorks

Hmm, I guess for me it was betting. I prob won and lost equal amounts to start with, but then I got confident/cocky and put £500 on a bet and lost . Then spent a further £1500 "chasing" it back. so in total £2000 to Mr William Hill. Never Again.

always_elan

Hi all - my first post!

Stupidest thing I've bought? When feeling low, and desparate for a solution, I bought a large crystal from a crystal shop. The woman assured me it would give me the energy and the confidence I was missing - funnily enough, it was a dull brown one, the least attractive in the whole shop and probably hard to sell - what a coincidence! I must have 'gullible' written all over me! I'm too embarrassed to say how much it cost...

The lack of energy? Was eventually diagnosed with M.E. If only magic was real!

This is such a helpful thread, sharing our mistakes is so reassuring - I'm not alone!

White_Rose_Tight_ThaKnows

I bought a well known games console for about £275 on the flip of a coin.

But the most disappointing thing I wasted money on - I totted it up a few months ago and I probably spent around a grand - was on my so called best mate. I was the one with money so I'd get the meals out and drinks, some clothes, the odd bill, gifts, the endless taxiing around; I bought and paid for things for about 8-9 years. I was pretty much the second other half without being the other half. But that person is out of my life now for sod all in return.

Also, I'd buy box-set DVDs of tv shows I was watching, not anymore.

craftyali

I could not even list half of what I have wasted my money on over the years. There was alcohol and takeaways, CDs and clothes when I was younger. If I had money, then I spent it .... The main thing as an adult was my first husband - he was lazy and gave up on better paid jobs because they were too much effort, so I worked 3 jobs to help support his magazine habit (he would spend over £100 per month on car magazines), his wish to eat out/go to cinema several times per week, and spent a fortune on the garden/his fish pond. I am glad that I walked away from it all after 8 years - but I ended up going bankrupt 2 years later, with literally nothing to my name. Stress and emotional issues have contributed to my latest round of overspending - a lot of rugs for ponies, a great deal of spending on caring for rescue animals (I had 5 ponies and 40 guinea pigs at one point!), a huge amount of crafty stash (which I am now selling at loss or giving away!!), exercise machines, online courses, expensive gifts for hubby etc, etc, etc. Hopefully this is all under control now and I should be debt free within 2 years.

lumpyspaceprincess

Several things come to mind

- Vivienne Westwood shirt after my 18th. Wore it over a vest, took it off when I got sweaty on the dancefloor, it got nicked.
- Some shoes I bought online, a size too big. Will ebay them eventually, but accidentally bid more than I wanted to (meant to bid 30, bid 300 with a finger spasm. Glad it only went up to £45 tbh!
- Lots of money on alcohol as a young ‘un
- Taking bank to court over unauthorised OD fees. I was due in court on the day they announced the test case, so lost my court fees as well as all the money I would have been due back had they not taken so long to send the SAR
- Lottery scratchcards. I closed the account yesterday after frittering £40, sure I was ‘bound to win soon’ I was right though, I did. £2.
Am sure there’s more!

Powered_By_Pies

This one isn't me (honest) but a mate at work has just spent £7k importing an old Honda Civic type R from Japan - an older model that wasn't sold in the UK.

The car itself cost about £4k, the rest was needed for registration, and then the £2k's worth of repairs it needed when the importers finally got it from Japan and found out it was a complete nail.

He had it a week and more parts needed replacing, and the importer refused to pay citing he'd 'clearly driven it in an aggressive manner...'

I can tell even now it's going to be a financial black hole for him, but he doesn't seem to care....

mwa

Oh wow I love this thread! What great lunchtime reading, some real LOL'ers!

For me it has to be the £1900 we spent on having a family photoshoot done at a well known high-end photographic studio. We thought we'd 'saved' £90 with the free 7x5 they threw in and convinced ourselves that having a portrait of us with our lovely 8 month old baby was worth the cash. People (older and wiser) did enquire about what would happen if we decided to have more children but did we listen?

Our house is like a shrine to the eldest who is 8 now but no sign that we have 2 more little darlings... the real gutting thing is we could have got the same sort of thing from a local photographer for a fraction of the cost!:o

natlie

I am about to spend about £1600 on an Estate Agent who has done F*** all if that counts

stewby

Great thread!! However, made me realise that I am guilty of several things when I read through this thread...

* Buying "slim me" clothes. I have a holdall and a plastic box full of clothes for when I get down to a size 14... the joke of it is that half of it is too revealing for me anyways. I own several dresses which I never wear (as in I never wear dresses not that I don't wear those ones). I also own two bikinis!!!! BIKINIS for crying out loud!!!!
:embarasse

* I am also the main holiday buyer in our relationship. I have paid for nearly every one of them so far including our weekends away. The only one OH has paid for is to Barcelona for our engagement which was only cause I mentioned (a lot) about just paying £2000 on a holiday to Greece for his best friend's wedding.
It was a bit depressing to think that I have probably spent in excess of £5000 on holidays for us and he was complaining about one at £900.


* I also have a love of kitchen gadgets and mini stuff... i bought a mini grater that is about 3cm by 5cm and you can't grate anything with it but it was soooooooo cute.
Also bought an express101 (the joys of watching late night shopping channels) which I used twice.


* Spent about £1000 on xmas one year... did both sides of the family as OH "doesn't do presents" (although he likes to receive them).


I am just a spendaholic. I like the feeling spending money gives me. It's like a wee buzz.
Thankfully my lightbulb moment happened and now I get a buzz out of saving money to spend rather than using the credit card...
... I also get a kick out of forcing OH to join in the saving so that the spending is more equal. Now we have a xmas fund so he pays for half of all the pressies.
:rotfl:

Atomix

£10,000 on smoking -

Smoked from 17-30, gave up 10 years ago - biggest waste of money ever! I noticed the other day in tesco - 8.66 for 20 b&h now :eek:

Think about it - you hand over a tenner - you get £1 change....

May as well set fire to a ten pound note every day -