Back in November of last year, I was having some really rough days. One of those evenings, I did a really stupid thing:
I bought a Nintendo DS Lite + Games at Walmart at 1am in the morning.
Why did I do this? I was depressed, I had the money in the bank, and I still hadn’t learned my lesson on budgeting cash flow. Since I had been “working so hard”, I decided to reward myself with this little gift. Nevermind the fact that I couldn’t really afford it, or that I had to use my company bank account to purchase it.
It was a dumb purchase. Since getting the little device, I’ve maybe played it a half dozen times. It’s been sitting on a shelf now for 2 months untouched.
It’s not that it’s not fun. It’s just:
a.) I resent the item and thus subconsciously avoid playing with it
b.) I feel guilty that I bought it
c.) I’d rather play sports in real life than on the DS
d.) I’ve never been a big handheld gamer (consoles and PC gaming is another story)
So here’s the deal. I fessed up about my dumbest purchase of late. And if you want to win my handy DS Lite, you gotta fess up too.
The Rules
This is gonna be kind of like going to confession if you’re catholic. There are two ways to enter this giveaway.
- Have a blog? Write about your dumbest purchase ever. Link back to here. Earn 25 entries.
- Leave a comment, share your dumbest purchase ever, earn 1 entry
You can leave one comment, and do one trackback. Don’t leave more than one, it will get deleted. Don’t leave multiple comments with different e-mails, I will delete them all. It’s really easy to detect. In two weeks, March 18, I’ll close the comments and trackbacks, assign them all numbers and use a random number generator to pick the winner.
Open to US residents only, 18 years or older.
Why This Contest
I’m sick of my perfectly good DS going unused….and I’m really hoping some of the bigger bloggers will join this confession train! (give ‘em a nudge, will ya?)
Don’t Forget
Don’t forget to subscribe to DebtKid…you don’t wanna miss a thing (cue song from “Armageddon”)
update March 19. The giveaway is now closed. Winner to be announced shortly…
{ 29 trackbacks }
{ 70 comments }
I would have to say that, My dumbest purchase ever would have to be Scientology. Over the last ten years I have devoted both time and money to this and I honestly feel dirty about this. I’ve donated a good amount of cash each year to this and feel that it is by far the dumbest purchase ever in total I have paid more then thirty-six thousand into this it started off with a few bucks here and there but soon took up most of my free time buying into more and more events and gatherings.
Dame you Tom Cruse. Dame you and your good looks to hell oh wait it doesn’t exist according to you. never mind.
-Daniel in Texas
@ Daniel – Yep, that’s a dumb purchase. Sorry you got caught up in that. That sucks.
Cheap way to fish for links from ‘the bigger bloggers’
ps. I posted about my dumbest purchase last year (a framed, autographed team shirt from the Aussie football team that I bought online at 3am after watching them win a match in the second round of the world cup — they then got knocked out the next match, and the framed shirt is way too big to hang anywhere on my wall) but I’m too lazy to edit the post and add a trackback to here. I’m not in the US anyhow
Oh many a stupid purchase I have made in the past! My debt record would definitely reflect that! I wouldn’t say any one item is particularly dumb, but made under dumb circumstances. Like paying for my college books with the credit card, signing up for ice skating lessons with the credit card because I HAD to at that very moment, paying for a gym membership that I never went to, compulsive clothing purchases, etc.
If any of those things had any staying power (i.e. like I can show for them today), then they wouldn’t be so dumb. Now I just feel dumb!
A home gym that I used about 3 times. Stupid waste of money.
I don’t know. The purchase I resent the most is definitely a suit I bought last summer. It was winter-weight, but by winter-time I hated the look and wasn’t at my old job anyway. I probably should have thought more about it before buying it, because I might now have. I just doesn’t feel dramatic enough.
I’m not a big spender. Most things that I regret buying are clothes that don’t turn out to be useful. Or that are cheaply made and I was too dumb to think about quality.
Micah and I spent a good 5 minutes going over my big purchases and we couldn’t come up with anything bigger.
I think a DS lite might be fun, especially since I wouldn’t resent it.
I’m too ashamed to do an entire post on it, though I do mention it from time to time on my blog, but my dumbest purchase ever for me was a 1998 BMW Z3 2.8. I even made the down payment with a credit card.
Cool car. Big financial mistake.
debt kid: Note- I find all those people whom are going about begging and kissing but as if it will help funny. even if I don’t win it was fun to be part of this.
My Blogspace
I’d say it was a $30K new convertible sports car. I would have gone with something cheaper and used if I had it to do over again.
My dumbest puchase ever was a $80 season pass to six flags that I never ended up using. I got a full time job after I bought it and never had the time to go anymore. I miss six flags…
@ Jill ~ That’s the saddest story ever. I think the single greatest day of my life was the one day about 8 years ago I spent at six flags. Only $80 for a season pass? Hmmm…maybe it is time to move…
My dumbest purchase BY FAR was some debt repair program during my sophomore year in college. I was terrified by my financial situation and desperate for help. They claimed to have connections with major credit card companies. They promised to get me lower interest rates, lower monthly payments, and guaranteed to save me thousands of dollars. I don’t even remember the name of the company but they talked me into paying them $400 and then completely disappeared. The phone number was disconnected and everything. I ended up setting their paperwork on fire (well throwing it into a fire) after realizing I had been scammed. Grrrr. I know how to take care of myself now, but then… I needed help and they screwed me. Wish I would have found PF blogs instead of them. Free advice rocks.
The dumbest purchase I ever made was a joint decision by my dh and I: to take out more student loans than we needed to pay for gas for his truck and utilities for our house (my dh was a part time student and had a full time job a 1 hour drive away – we live in a rural area and we thought, at the time, that the job he had would “advance” his career after college. It didn’t.) Now, 10 years after graduation, we are still paying off those loans… and them some.
My dumbest purchase was trading in a car that had $5000 left on it for a new car. I could’ve paid that off within a year and probably gotten out of debt and instead I increased my monthly car payment and insurance and 3 years later… suffering dearly for it.
My stupid purchase? It’s embarrassing, but when I was about 20, I gained a bunch of weight due to illness. When I stepped on the scale one day and saw how much, I immediately hopped in the car, drove to Sears, and bought a $980 treadmill. I paid for an extended warranty. I paid for delivery. I used it about a dozen times and it was the most expensive coat rack that I’ll ever own. It was huge, it was ugly, I had nowhere to put it so it was in my KITCHEN. Yes, stupid purchase doesn’t even begin to describe this gigantic, expensive, ugly, centerpiece of my apartment.
all the food, soda and other crap that made me fat and lazy; I finally took control of my life back and now I’m 82 lbs lighter and my bank account, much heavier!
My dumbest purchase(s) ever would have to be a few years ago. I was at CVS when I saw that Willy Wonka contest (just like in the movie) except if you find a golden ticket, you’ll win a million dollars. Well, I kept buying the candy (Nerds, not chocolate) and I kept getting “Sorry, you’re not an instant winner.” I lost track to how many of those I bought. =D
(P.S. The link to my blog is in my name, and on the site, the post about this contest is all the way at the bottom of my blog page). =)
The stupidest thing I did was go shopping while still pregnant and bought entire wardrobe in prepregnancy size thinking I was going to drop weight as soon as I had baby and I never lost the weight and am pregnant again. The clothes are still there, maybe after this baby I can lose weight and get into clothes if they are still in style.
The stupidest thing I have ever done was buy a house with sub-prime financing for my sister-in-law for a lease-option to buy (who even after 5 years of living there would never qualify to purchase it). After not paying a dime of rent, deposit, moved into it, only to move out after the first month. Needless to say the property is now going to foreclosure on 4/25/08. Yes, I know, never again.
You’re on, kid! And you will never guess…this one is dumb beyond Dumb! If I don’t get the Nintendo, can I have the 25 plenary indulgences for confessing this shenanigan?
If iWeb lets you do a trackback, I have yet to figure out how. So here’s the page that has a link back to your post: http://www.funny-about-money.com/Funny_about_Money/Blog/Entries/2008/3/6_My_dumbest_purchase_ever.html
taking1800 out of a cd i had and was penalized for it and went shopping at a fancy clothes store boutiqe because it said end of season sale and spent all my money their and and bought only 2 outfits and a coat that was to tight she told mr thats how they wear it in europe i was a sucker went home and later thought man that was really stupid because i had overdue bills so i went to take the items back and she said we cannot accept return items that are on sale i was screwed it was a expensive lesson learned
I will have to say that the dumbest purchase I ever made was for a “credit card”. My credit was TERRIBLE, and I thought that by paying a small fee, this company would magically make everything OK. When I went to the PO to pick up the COD package (clue!!!), I found out that all I got was the opportunity to buy “points” to later use for purchases. What a scam. I was so desperate for credit I would do anything. That was almost 20 years ago, and have since built good credit the right way.
Dumbest purchase – A Vera Bradley Bag…what was I thinking??
Ever tried to make a car go faster?
I did. As if paying for a full tank of gas wasn’t putting enough in a car, try putting tons of money into an almost dead 84 Firebird. Everything on that car had to be replaced. The brakes would fail, and it would get a new brake booster. The carb would stick wide open (yes full throttle) in traffic, new carb. The car would overheat on the interstate for some reason, new radiator (even though on that occasion a $3 piece of plastic solved the problem). Car won’t start? Needs a new battery. New battery dies? Get another one and an alternator. Let’s replace the clutch. Broke my finger on that one, can’t get a new one of those (legally) so off to the doctor. Finger still snaps when I bend it 6 years later (I’m only 26).
I even had a windfall of $1500 coming my way. Guess what happened with that? Upgraded to a larger new engine. I convinced myself that a new engine would be more reliable (and secretly that it would produce more power). Well, it made enough power that the transmission only lasted a month. Then the entire car sat in the driveway for 3 years.
The worst part? I bought the car for $750 and sold it for $800 5 years later and sunk easily over $4,000 into it. Now I drive an ugly A to B car that gets 30 mpg and starts every time I tell it to. Other than oil changes, I’m never touching anything underneath the hood.
Okay, you got me to admit my dumbest purchase ever (or at least the dumbest one that comes to mind): a fur hat. Keep in mind that I live in Southern California. It was 80 degrees today. We haven’t used the heater in at least two months. Why on earth did I buy a fur hat, you ask? Because it was cute, of course!
Read about some of my other dumbest purchase contenders and see a picture of the hat here.
Ha ha – I love my DS Lite! My boyfriend bought it for me as a Christmas gift – it’s fun to play on the Metro.
Anyway, my dumbest purchase was a $300 Coach messenger bag. It looks like a diaper bag. I should probably sell it on eBay or something.
I just may write an article about this, because there is a great story and lesson behind this, but my dumbest purchase ever was buying a Mercedes CLK 430 convertible. The price? $65,000. Let me repeat that to confirm that there are no typos in this comment–$65,000. I will say that I plan to keep that car forever. I figure if I can get 1.6 million miles out of it, I just might get my money’s worth.
My dumbest purchase had to be flying lessons. Not because flying lessons are bad or that I didn’t enjoy them… but I let life get in the way and never used all the hours I paid for. That was $350 lesson!
I paid about $250/month into an investment policy for about 6 years before leaving South Africa, where I grew up. The promise was that it would be worth something after 10 years. My Dad encouraged me to start the policy, but he wasn’t able to keep up the payments in my absence, and nor was I able to continue them from overseas. Of course, it wasn’t worth anything at all by the time I stopped paying! So that was roughly $18,000 down the drain. I had no idea at all about investing or saving money back then – I was in my early 20s and very naive about money. How I would like to have that money now – I could buy myself a lovely, shiny red Nintendo DS lite!
Dumbest purchase ever…
New front quarter panel for my in-laws’ nearly-junked 16 year old car. The $500 purchase was good for family relations but a lousy investment, as the valueless car is going to be traded in, shortly.
…And to the fabulous set of legs that distracted me as I backed out of the parking stall and rubbed the quarter panel into a concrete pole…keep walking.
Careful boys, just looking can be costly.
So many good ones to choose from…all in college.
The start of my downward spiral was a pair of huge Cerwin Vega floorstanding speakers…I lived in the dorms!
Then there was the $1000+ mountain bike. I did get good use out of it, but still.
But the dumbest purchase, was my brand new car. I paid for that mistake (literally and figuratively) for years. It is still running well (106K miles) and all paid off, but my credit card debt reminds me of the five years of spending more than I earned.
Wow do I hope I win this contest! I’ve been itching to buy a DS LITE for months now.
Here’s mine:
Back in summer of 2001, I started a new job that was in the same building as this fitness centre. The fitness club would give a “great!” discount to people who worked at this place, and a free week trial period. I was young and stupid, so of course thought the deal was very good, too good to pass up on.
So I went into the Gym to enquire about the memberships and free trial… Before I knew it, I had signed up for a 2 year minimum membership with a monthly fee of 29 bucks!
Thinking back I still can’t believe how those recruitment people over there manipulated me so quickly to signing up for so long. It was a good learning experience, that’s for sure, but an expensive one.
I don’t want the DS, I just want to complain. My dumbest purchase was a 2002 Volkswagen Golf GL. Small, stripped-down car that’s fun to drive, has gas mileage of a mid-size car, and has a tendency to have expensive repairs and replacements. Thinking it was a “deal” at 16k, I promptly leased it and followed up with a car loan, extending payments (if the car lasted that long) to 10 years. Of course, the thing fell apart early in the loan period and I end up owing more than the trade-in value. Paid off the remaining 6k and traded it in a day later at a value of about 5k (which admittedly is better than most cars). Not having any money, used it to get a lease for a (much much more reliable) 22k car. So… It’s been two years and now the car’s buyout value is just over 16k. Feel like I’m back where I started…
I bought a white pants and jacket suit. What the hell was I thinking? At least I didn’t wear it with a black shirt. (staying alive, staying alive) Do you *know* what happens to white things in Beijing? My grey suit is now just hanging there in the closet, a grim reminder of “having to get it cause it’s on sale for half off.” AGH!
My dumbest purchase was a suv on a LEASE. Boy I got hosed.
A Toyota Sienna, which is a beastly gas-guzzling minivan that I DID NOT NEED WHATSOEVER since I had one child. That was about 8 years ago. Will somebody please shoot me and get it over with? I still wake up at night from a nightmare that goes alone these lines: “I am at the gas pump and, after pumping $300 into the Sienna tank, the gas pump explodes.”
I lost thousands because I ended up returning the leased disaster to the dealer and they ripped me off.
Carlos.
My dumbest purchase ever was recent. I let my husband talk me into getting rid of my 93 Towncar and bought a 2006 Nissan. Now, the Nissan does get better gas mileage and has A LOT less fewer miles… but my Towncar was reliable and had NO PAYMENT!! I owned it! Now I have a 400$/month car payment, higher insurance, and it will take me longer to actually get out of debt. So… yeah… stupid.
My dumbest purchase ever was solar energy heating for my hot water. My brother-in-law and my sister gave my name as a referral to a salesperson for solar panels for my hot water heater. It cost $ 8,000. I said no, no, no, no, no, no, no so many times to the presentation, but when the salesperson said you get a 50% tax credit on your purchase, I finally said yes. It seemed to me that getting the money back from Uncle Sam was only paying half-price for the solar heat.
I financed the $ 8K and by the time that I got the money back from Uncle Sam, then I was in debt (largely due to the need to make monthly payments on my solar purchase), so I used the tax refund money to pay off my debts. I wound up refinancing my house and rolled the $ 8K for the solar into the refinancing. I figure over the last 20 years, those solar panels cost me over 20,000 dollars. The pump broke and the panel connections at the roof leaked, so I had the solar panels removed when I had to have my roof re-done. My brother-in-law received a $ 50.00 kickback from the salesperson. I think that I saved $ 200.00 total on my hot water bills. What a dummy!
I posted about my dumbest purchase today:
http://www.familyandfinances.com/2008/03/our-dumbest-purchase-ever.html
Sorry about the link. I don’t think I can do trackbacks on Blogger???
Dumbest purchase: A barn that was being demolished for a subdivision to go in. We were going to tear it down and use the wood for our barn. Now, this barn was oak, and have you tried to take nails out of 100 year old oak planks? It’s impossible. By the time it was over with, I spied a backhoe operator working on the site and begged him to demolish it and burn it along with the tree stumps they were burning in a pit.
I’ve bought things I never used, but this was by far the DUMBEST one. Didn’t do any homework, or even try to take one board off to see if it was feasible.
So here it is; the most compulsive, uneducated purchase I’ve ever made. My wife came up with the brilliant idea to start a salt water reef after having no experience with one whatsoever. The only fish we had ever had were beta, and since they were bought at a large retail chain, they were lucky to last a week. We started to investigate further the responsibility required to care for such intricate creatures, so we went to a local dealer and were astonished at how amazing the setup looked. We started small, 46 gal. tank, appropriate filtration system, salt / distilled water, and nearly $1000 worth of live rock! We had to wait it out for 6 months before we could actually put any fish into the environment so that everything could acclimate. After the waiting period ended, we bought several fish, anemone’s, toadstool leathers, pulsating hands, shrimps, tube worms, you name it we had it. Approximately $5,000 dollars of “we had it”. Upon cleaning the tank one day, and forgetting to put gloves one, the nail polish from my wife’s fingers polluted the water to a point were subtly things started to dye. Even though the water tests came back correct each week, it eventually got to a point where I was looking at a bunch of dead rock sitting in some smelly water. Suffice to say, the reef is no longer, and the fish tank is sitting in my basement, lucky to go to a new home for $300 if anyone is interested!
While on vacation in Hawaii I bought a monkey in a hula skirt, made entirely of coconuts. It wasn’t a big purchase, but by the time I had to pack it into my bag, I was definitely wondering what motivated me to buy it.
I went to a home show and for some reason there was NO FOOD! You would expect a concession stand or something! Well- I smelled hamburgers cooking a few aisles away- so I go over and they are selling food programs. I signed my life away and scheduled an appt for a small taste of that juicy burger! When the sales rep comes out to my house, all seems like a great cause- they deliver food right to my door every 6 months (mind you I totally have 6 grocery stores in a 3 mile radius) So I’m sold- I get the “lease” freezer delivered and it’s stocked full of food- Well when the food ran out 6 mths down the road I decide I dont want any more of the food or the freezer that goes with it! Turns out now I’m stuck paying for this freezer as I didnt read the fine print in my ding-dang contract. After payoff I spent about 2500.00 on a 300.00 freezer!!
Still a very touchy subject and all my friends use it to their advantage when they are ragging on me!
I bought a $2,000 vacation club membership. I was taken by the cheap rates on airfare and hotels. They also gave you $500 in “gifts” you could purchase from their online catalog.
I used it a couple of times to try and book airfare and hotels. Each one was straight from expedia.com. My credit card bill for the items even had expedia on the credit card bill. The gifts were cheap garbage that you paid for through the shipping fee.
You can call be stupid for that purchase.
I was 21 years-old and a friend asked me to go with her to a country music club/bar. I hated country music, but she said she’d buy the drinks if I went with her, so I quickly agreed. A couple of hours and SEVERAL cocktails later, and without so much as a glance at my checkbook which showed that I had $15 left to my name until payday, I decided it would be a great idea to buy a $125 bright purple suede cowboy hat from the vendor who wisely set up a table to sell goods right next to the bar. I woke up the next morning with a horrible hangover, a negative checking account and a purple cowboy hat. Oh, and I still hated country music,
One of the worst purchases I made was signing up for a 3 year contract with 24 hour fitness. At the time I was motivated to get in shape, etc and I went there straight for about two months but after that I can’t find time to go to the gym or anything. I wish I would have just signed up month to month so I didn’t have this commitment!
Now I have to keep my membership until Dec 2010. Definite worst waste of my money and I usually try to research things before jumping in.
Tickets to a Green Day concert in St. Louis on ebay. I live in New Jersey. Blah.
One of the dumbest purchases I ever made was a Dusky Conure (this would be a parrot). I love animals and happened to walk into a pet shop just to look around. This charming little bird got the best of me so I purchased him for $600. I also spent about $120 on a cage, bird toys, and accessories. Oh, I did buy a book to educate myself about this creature, and the book was probably the least expensive thing….I read in this book that the bird was too mature to train, and I realized also he had a commanding and dominant personality. Also, since birds like to hang out in flocks, every time a human would leave the room, the thing started squawking and, well…SCREECHING, trying to get the “flock” back together again. I didn’t sleep for days, I was about ready to kill the bird, my cats were nervous and WERE ready to kill the bird, and my boyfriend at the time was ready to kill me. Sadly, I had my boyfriend take the bird back to the pet shop later that week. Don’t make ill-informed purchases based on emotion!!!
My dumbest purchase is video 30 GB IPOD in last ThanksGiving. I have used it only twice or thrice since purcahsed. I have to pay for every download from iTunes which i avoid to keep the cost low. hence I am not going to buy whatever my friends are buying.
My husband and I purchased a program that said we’d never have to pay taxes again 5,000… only three years later we lost our house and had to claim bankruptcy to stop the interest and penalties on….. you guessed it back taxes. It almost ruined our marriage and our lives.
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