Regret Blowing A Large Sum of Money
Posted on July 26, 2006 by Him and tagged spending
A few days ago at lunch, a coworker was telling a story on how his parking space to his newly bought condo was less than ideal. He was pretty upset about it all day, so of course we were giving him a hard time. His response:
"You'd be pissed too if you dropped $10,000 on a shitty parking spot."
On the way back to the office, another coworker asked me what was the most money that I spend on something that I completely regretted. Good question...
$200 on a remote control
$200 on a second subwoofer (but the first one died eventually...)
$200 on a blackjack table one night
$34587345897 on beer
Hmmm...there seems to be a pattern here of $200.
I told my coworker of these things and he was a little surprised that I hadn't blown more money. The explanation was easy - as soon as I got out of grad school, I went into debt reduction mode. Also, I haven't even been out of school long enough to amass a large chunk of change to blow on anything. Maybe in ten years the answer to that question will be more interesting.
What is the largest sum of money you regret spending?
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The most I've blown and regretted was $3,000 on a desktop computer. Now I'm happy though because my old desktop kicked the can...
About $400 on a TiVo and a larger hard drive that I installed to add more recording time. I used it for about 3 months, then sold it on Ebay for $150 to pay some bills. Of course that was a long time ago, in my much more fiscally careless years.
J.D. @ Get Rich Slowly | Jul 26, 2006
Regrets? I've had a few. I used to be piss-poor with my money, and I bought a lot of things on credit cards that I'm *still* paying for, more than a decade later.
I've bought several computers that I've regretted. I regret buying my current car. And, in a way, I regret buying our current house. My wife and I had only a few years left on our previous mortgage when we stumbled on our dream house. We bought it, and suddenly we're carrying three or four times the mortgage debt we had before. Yes, this house is fantastic. We love it. And we can certainly afford it. But I can't help using my new personal finance-oriented brain to calculate how much money I'd be saving for retirement every month if we hadn't made this purchase. (Answer: $300 now, $850/month in a year or two.)
By the way, I wrote about something similar today: Want to Save? Give up the big things!
The Travelin' Man | Jul 26, 2006
You guys may not want to hear this (but, I am a little surprised that no one has mentioned it before), but the only sum of money that I truly regret spending was the money for my wedding. While I am divorced now, it is not the marriage that I regret, but spending that kind of money for a one-night party was, in retrospect, flat out insane. My wedding was 15 years ago, and EVERYTHING was a lot less expensive then, but when I hear of the amounts people are spending on their weddings, it almost makes my ears bleed. And, I guess the big question that always comes to mind is "for what?"
I have to agree a bit with Travelin Man. I'm not saying that our wedding wasn't amazing - it was - but there were some things that we paid extra for that were totally unnecessary.
Hello. We had an "intermezzo sorbet course" planned that ended up not even getting eaten because the weather turned nasty and we had to move inside (it melted). Of course, we still had to pay for it!
My first condo. I bought it off of floor plans. Shoddy construction, a dishonest builder who took a year to finish the interior of my unit after I got suckered into closing on the place. The roof leaked in 2 different places. The elevator didn't work for the first 2 months. It was in a lousy neighborhood, and my $600 bicycle, which was stored in a 'secure' locker room, was stolen within the first few weeks. For tax purposes, I waited it out for 2 years and then got the heck out there.
MHL | Jul 26, 2006
10,000 dollars on a time share membership. I still have to pay over $500 a year for dues/etc...
Jen | Jul 26, 2006
I gave my husband a Harmony remote for Christmas and he loves that thing. (He actually slept with it nestled in his hands until New Years.)
I regret spending $500 on a senseless roundtrip ticket when I was 19 when I dropped out of school for a year and didn't know which coast I wanted to live on.
And also the $1k I spent on oral surgery to remove a very impacted wisdom tooth. (I'll spare you the horror story of having it drilled to bits while in my jaw so they could get it out.) If I waited a year, my student insurance would have covered the operation.
And $600 non-refundable to fly to New Mexico to be with my boyfriend for Christmas since he broke up with me hours before I was leaving for the airport.
$2k in regrets ain't bad for 30 years.
Lin | Jul 27, 2006
Several years ago, my then-boyfriend and I bought a couples package vacation to Florida- $3K - the package included 2 round-trip flights, a hotel room and a rental car. Needless to say, he never repaid me for his share. Beware planning vacations with other people!
Catherine | Jul 27, 2006
I regret getting a newer car years ago. I could of spend less than a 1K to get it back to perfection.. but no I was stupid and sold it for a 2-door loaded v6. I had a good paying job.. yada yada yada... well I got laid off, couldn't make the payments and sold it to my father and bought his old 4-door car to avoid a car payment. So now I drive a 13 year old car (older than my original car I sold). It has broken down 4 times.. but darn if I am not going to keep fixing it until the repair becomes more expensive than the car is worth and buy a car with cash. The old car runs great and in less than a year I'll be at my target minimum to buy a newer car outright.. what a lesson in finances that was.
Diana | Jul 27, 2006
$26K on a new Saab ($10K under invoice to move it off the lot which at the time seemed like a good deal) which wound up costing me over $7k in non-warranty covered repairs and upkeep such as multiple headlights, taillights, brakes, wiper motor, etc. Car died at 73K miles due to a recall that the dealer never fixed. Finally traded it in for a new Honda - better value, holds it resale. Saab traded for $6700 - ouch! But I was looking at about another $3K in repairs - and the check engine light came on the day I traded it in . Good riddance!
Kim | Jul 27, 2006
Really? You don't regret much of the credit card debt?
I regret not living more frugally the first four years out of college (having a roommate would have been a much better idea), resulting in about $5,000 of credit card debt. All paid off three years later and I have a positive net worth of $125,000, but still...those few years could have put my in a much better position now.
Much of the credit card debt were for very little purchases that just added up over time. No HUGE sums of money all spent at once.
Kristine | Jul 26, 2006
Wow, I was just thinking about this yesterday (when I found out I have to pay $500 just to be evaluated to see if I can take my boards, which then cost another $1600). I think ultimately I most regret spending $250 for a service in Boston that was supposed to find me an apartment- which I then ended up never using because I found the apartment myself.
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