Stupid/Not-thinking things that wasted money

[phred52]

I bought an annual pass to a local zoo knowing I could use it at reciprocal zoos in other locations. We loaded to kids up to go to a zoo 1 1/2 hours from our house, and didn't realize I forgot the pass until we pulled into the parking lot. So I had to pay $40.00 to get the 4 of us into the zoo, when it should have been free. I got home, and the pass was sitting on my kitchen counter.

HOW frustrating!! This is something I might do!

I once forgot to bring our Disney tickets for DLP. We'd taken the train from Paris to get there. I remembered to bring everything BUT the tickets to get in Disney!!

I was so mad at myself, ended up taking the train all the way back and spending that day wandering around Paris instead. So it ended up costing me the train tickets when I had to buy more the next morning when we went back..

 

[MrsPete]

I am very bad about failing to return library books, and then I end up paying fines! It's not much -- ten cents a day -- but it's still wasted money.

And I'm bad about failing to bring a water bottle or a soda to school, and then what do I do? Plop .65 into the drink machine to buy a drink that would've cost either zero or .20 if I'd remembered to grab it when I walked out of the house.

 

[khowell921]

It's great to save money, buy in bulk and store in the deep freeze. Not so cost saving when your kid doesn't shut the door all the way and you go outside to get something out of the freezer and almost everything is all thawed out!!!! Happened this morning! Cooking up alot of ground deer meat, boiling chicken breasts, etc.. Sadly the ice cream treats didn't survive.

 

[AndreaDM]

I bought an annual pass to a local zoo knowing I could use it at reciprocal zoos in other locations. We loaded to kids up to go to a zoo 1 1/2 hours from our house, and didn't realize I forgot the pass until we pulled into the parking lot. So I had to pay $40.00 to get the 4 of us into the zoo, when it should have been free. I got home, and the pass was sitting on my kitchen counter.

This just happened to me too, but I didn't have the pass because we were several hours away for a wedding and hadn't planned on anything else. We spent the night and decided to go to that city's zoo the next day. We got to the admissions gate and I explained that we were members at another zoo, so she had me call our zoo, look up our info, I handed the phone and my driver's license to the employee there and she verified that we were zoo members and we got in free! It took about 15-20 minutes to deal with all of that, but totally worth it to save the $30 - $40 it would have cost us!

 

[*BTMRR*]

We bought, in advance, discount tickets to an amusement park we were going to visit on vacation.
We were about 6 hours down the road when I realized I had left the tickets at home.
We still went to the amusement park. Luckily this was before we had kids, so there were just two wasted tickets, but

 

[junebugs]

Mine is planning to make a purchase with a coupon but NOT reading the fine print on the coupon until the store clerk points out that the coupon is not good until some day in the future or expired or not good for the item I'm purchasing, etc...

Like this weekend, I told my DD she could by a craft kit a Michael's because we had a 40% off coupon, but of course the coupon didn't go into effect until the next day. The kit only cost $6 w/o the coupon, but still I would have felt better better if I'd paid $3.60 for it.

I don't know why I don't just skip buying w/o the coupon - but I almost never do.

 

[hodgieha]

My waste of money is a gym membership that automatically charges to my creditcard. It is 19.95 a month gym membership that I have not used in a year or so. My boyfriend also has the membership that he hasn't used in even a longer time then me. We keep saying we need to cancel and then we haven't yet (no go reason why that I can think of). I am wasting $240(480 if I include what he is wasting) a year on something I keep saying I will use but know that I won't.

 

[MomtoEmIs&Ow]

I've got a good one.

3 months ago, we paid $350 to repair our 3 year old gas water heater (vs. $650-$700 to purchase a new water heater). We called a local plumbing company for this repair.

This week, I got a notice from Sears that our water heater warranty was expiring and did we want to renew? I had completely forgotten that we had a warranty on the water heater. So, I paid $350 un-necessarily.

How stupid was that?

Ouch!

 

[MomtoEmIs&Ow]

My waste of money is a gym membership that automatically charges to my creditcard. It is 19.95 a month gym membership that I have not used in a year or so. My boyfriend also has the membership that he hasn't used in even a longer time then me. We keep saying we need to cancel and then we haven't yet (no go reason why that I can think of). I am wasting $240(480 if I include what he is wasting) a year on something I keep saying I will use but know that I won't.

CANCEL it tommorrow! Its nice out now you can do stuff outside! I did this too quite a few years back, but I was paying $20 every 2 wks

 

[neatokimmo]

I bought an annual pass to a local zoo knowing I could use it at reciprocal zoos in other locations. We loaded to kids up to go to a zoo 1 1/2 hours from our house, and didn't realize I forgot the pass until we pulled into the parking lot. So I had to pay $40.00 to get the 4 of us into the zoo, when it should have been free. I got home, and the pass was sitting on my kitchen counter.

I did something similar at Dollywood. I took my BF with my free ticket not realizing that the free window started 2 days later. I felt stupid and it cost $50 - doh

 

[mercydisney]

A couple a yrs ago I bought a Macclaren stroller to take to DW. I figured it would be cheaper to buy a stroller then to rent one for 10 days. Well we packed the car got to Disney and realized we never packed the stroller . I ended renting a stroller for the same amount my MC cost.

 

[Sagginit]

magazines that have my cc number and then automatically renew for higher than what i would have paid if i had not done that and they beg me to come back. i have two that do this and one i meant to cancel. the other is so important i dont care what i pay but i seriously didnt even want another year of the other one and it renewed like two months before it was over. i also have a million mycokerewards i could use for some and never think to b/c i just renew.

 

[jessica52877]

I was just running to the mall tonight to grab a few t's from old navy and return shorts at TCP. Of course I found 2 pairs of new shorts I wanted from TCP and have a darn 15% off coupon sitting here next to the computer! Last week I forgot mine to Old Navy. I am usually really good about this kind of stuff.

And because Target super overcharged me tonight just wanted to throw out there to check your receipt! I was overcharged on the milk, dr pepper in bottles and crush in cans! Last week it was steak sauce and my mom was overcharged on some cleaning product. It is growing old!

I also didn't bring my bag into target to save my $.05. I even thought about it but didn't want to take the few things out of it that were in it.

 

[smokeyblue]

My bf's truck has been riding rough for a year now. I kept telling him to bring it in. Growing up his dad worked for Ford and he always had new vehicles so he never had to do much for maintenance. We are going on a long trip over the holiday weekend so I finally told him to leave the keys so I can take it to the tire shop. It was maybe 3 miles to get to the shop; it was the scariest ride, I didn't realize how bad it was. They take one look at it and said when is the last time you had the tired rotated. I sheepishly had to reply NEVER! The took the front driver's tire off and showed it to me. There was a foot long area where the tread was warn down to steel!

We should had at least had 15,000 more miles on these tires which for us is 3 years of driving. So right before our trip my BF is going to have to pay $600 for a new set of tires. Moral of the story, get your tires rotated not only to save money but for your safety!

 

[mrsklamc]

I do a lot of online purchasing from one particular store. I lost a ton of $ by using rewards site 'A' instead of reward site 'B' which gives double the amount of cash back. I was comfortable with site 'a' and didn't want to be bothered to look into site 'b'.

 

[iwrbnd]

I do this ALL THE TIME and it makes me so mad! I rent a movie but never have time to watch it. Then I return it late, unwatched, and have to pay the fine!

 

[MrandMissVacation]

We bought, in advance, discount tickets to an amusement park we were going to visit on vacation.
We were about 6 hours down the road when I realized I had left the tickets at home.
We still went to the amusement park. Luckily this was before we had kids, so there were just two wasted tickets, but

I did the same thing for Cedar Point a few years back. I was so mad at myself!! I did resell 2 of the tickets to a co worker and actually gave the two children's tickets away. I sucked it up as a pay it forward experience.

 

[HLDisney]

My biggest offense is getting interested in doing some sort of craft (in my case, rubber stamping and paper-making), buying lots of the equipment and materials to do it with and then not getting around to it until a few years later when I end up giving away the stuff or just see it sitting on the shelf and realize how much money I wasted. Or I do get into the craft (in this case, digital scrapbooking) but I spend way too much money on it upfront, even though I know styles and trends will change over time and I should only buy what I'm going to use soon, not what looks nice or that I might like to use someday.

Helen

 

[Pastamom]

I ordered something from amazon for Christmas which qualified for free shipping...accidentally hit express shipping AND sent it to my Dad' house. so not only did I pay for shipping that could have been free, I spent money to have it get to him quicker, then had to pay for him to ship it to me

 

[plummer925]

My biggest offense is getting interested in doing some sort of craft (in my case, rubber stamping and paper-making), buying lots of the equipment and materials to do it with and then not getting around to it until a few years later when I end up giving away the stuff or just see it sitting on the shelf and realize how much money I wasted. Or I do get into the craft (in this case, digital scrapbooking) but I spend way too much money on it upfront, even though I know styles and trends will change over time and I should only buy what I'm going to use soon, not what looks nice or that I might like to use someday.

Helen

Helen - I do this too! You should SEE my fabric stash! I have a BRAND NEW sewing machine that my mom bought me for Christmas that is finally out of the box and on the sewing table I have set up...but I haven't used it yet! Sigh. And what's worse...I just bought even MORE fabric!!!