Doesn’t have to be thousands of dollars. Just a thing you spent money on that turned out to be a complete waste.
Not a big one, but surely the worst one. There was a “make your own perfume” stall in our college fest. I didn’t like the fragrance of most of what they had to offer. It took me time to pick one, but I picked one that I thought was the most unique one.
Then when I came home, I realised it smelt exactly like my dad’s car freshner.
Almost every single movie I’ve seen in theaters. At home is just better. Hell, sometimes the bike ride with my partner to and from the place is better than the movie-- could have just hung out at a park, lol.
I was young and dumb and didn’t know how to say no.
Timeshare.
It’s so hard to get rid of. Fuck that thing.
I was married, in my 40’s and listened to my now ex hubby #2 because his family had several. The payment was $600 a month… a second mortgage for a one week vacation? The timeshare, nor our marriage, lasted long after that.
Maybe I’m lucky, but I just stopped paying the maintenance fees. It never showed up on my credit, the phone calls stopped years ago, and all I get is the occasional scam offer in the mail to help me sell it.
alcohol
At ~A$130 a week (2x 1L bottles of scotch and rum, and 2 x 24pk of beer(24x500ml), for 17 years, my math works out to be about $115k over the course of my drinking career.
8pack/day was $20/day or $600/month aka mortgage or car payment.
Today im having shrooms with the equinox.
University
I spent 50 grand and 4 years of my life to be told by prospective employers that I either lacked real world experience, or that I was overqualified. It took me another 3 years to find a job after university - one that doesn’t require training and is barely relevant to my field.
I get to hang a pretty piece of paper up on my wall, I guess.
Yeah that’s rough. I can kind of say the same. The career I chose doesn’t require the degree I have. It absolutely helps but if I could go back, I would have just gotten licensed at 18 and started working in the trade. Degree is mechanical engineering, trade is operations side of stationary engineering.
Leasing a car.
I’d always bought a car and driven it into the ground. Leased an EV once. Hated the experience. Felt ripped off at the end.
Bought a used car after that. Back to normal.
I have never bought a vehicle for more than $5k, and most were 25+ years old when purchased. Most lasted 10+ years with virtually no significant repairs beyond the post-purchase glow-up.
Downside is that I have been hankering to get into an electric for some time now, but I am running into a few blockers:
- 10yo Chevy Bolts are still $20k+ CAD
- I refuse to fund/promote fascism with a Swasticar
- None exist with ease of repairability, and DRM is growing every year
- None exist without significant privacy concerns
- I will never tolerate a subscription - I will gleefully crack the software at the first opportunity
formatted my drive 2010 thinking the bitcoin scam would not last so long.
I knew about bitcoin so early that at the time there was still a “bitcoin faucet” website giving them away for free, but between procrastination and skepticism I never bothered getting any.
I still have almost two coins in a corrupted wallet file I’ve never been able to fix from when I mined them on my crappy little laptop back then :-(
Even though I knew about Bitcoin in 2009, I don’t regret not buying into it at the start. Either I would have sold off at a dollar, because it “couldn’t possibly go any higher than that” and then regret not holding onto it for the rest of my life, or I would be extremely rich and be a much worse person because of it.
An old job where transportation literally cost me half my salary.
Got convinced by someone I very much trusted to join an MLM as a 19 or 20 year old. After my parents learned about it, they were able to talk some sense into me, and I realized I was part of a pyramid scheme. I got out and basically broke even, which was honestly the best possible outcome of that whole scenario. It unfortunately degraded my relationship with the person who convinced me to join, and I never really could fully trust them after that.
Which MLM?
Underestimating the lengths that Trump admin would go to prop up equity markets during COVID
Buying an RV.
elaborate so i can scare my partner out of this lofty distant future idea
They’re worse than boats. If anything breaks on an RV, and it will, it’s really hard to get parts for them, and good luck finding an RV mechanic when it’s “in season.” Back when I had an RV, some kids outside were playing catch and ended up breaking one of my windows, and it took 3 months and countless calls with the manufacturer to get a new window. If you live in colder climates, you have to winterize your RV every year. They leak, and require constant maintenance. And if one of the tires blows out? It could total your RV.
Rent one if you must, but do not buy one.
It only works if you are your own RV mechanic. Windows are easy to swap yourself.
That said I agree; big cost that depreciates and costs you a ton per mile towed. Especially with today’s gas prices.
Yeah thats a good one.
Changed over the ownership of the house I bought with my own money to my now ex because he was the one with the job. Am now house-less and renting an apartment at triple the mortgage payments.
Between a laptop I got fall 2019 or a desktop I got some time around 2023. Both were decently priced, though, so it wasn’t terrible.
The laptop was from a pawnshop. Was a detachable monitor touch screen type that had battery issues and is really underpowered. No matter what, the battery drains like the thing is on. Couldn’t run win10 very well and did a little better using ubuntu. Now it kinda sits doing nothing since I have long since updated to a better laptop a couple years ago.
The desktop was a brand new but was a budget device that is not the greatest. Had 4gb of ram and weak other components other than the 1tb hard drive. Did its job well enough that I cannot complain. Mostly got it for the disk drive and plenty of USB plugs. Worked a little better when I upgraded to 16gb ram, but not anywhere near the level of my current desktop.
My advice is to always avoid laptops unless you absolutely could not do without the portability.
I have also had great success with surplussed business-class machines. Like, the models which are impossible to buy from any brick-and-mortar location, and can even be difficult to buy online because the company typically sells those models through MSPs (Managed Service Providers, outsourced IT provisioning companies for other companies). These models are usually super-robust because they are meant to NOT be disposable, and usually have much higher config ceilings on RAM and storage, and can easily remain relevant for a good 7-15 years while consumer models scream to be replaced at the 5-year mark.
Wait, you found a new desktop in 2023 with only 4 gigs of ram? I didn’t even think they made them with that little. Super budget ewaste tier laptops maybe, but desktops?
My kid’s mom.
Girl is a hole in spacetime that I’ve been throwing money into for eight years now.
Bought a house with my ex and we were instantly house poor. We didn’t account for buying things for the house at all. Ended up selling and moving two years later at a loss even though we sold for a bit more than we bought it for.
