We all make stupid purchases from time to time and so I made one this Christmas. I bought Bombas socks.
Bombas socks advertises itself as the maker of the best socks ever. I first saw the ad on Facebook. And then I saw it again and again, advertising “amazing” socks and “the most comfortable socks ever.” The socks were hideously expensive, $80 for 6 pack, but that’s because they would also donate socks to charity. It was close to Christmas and somehow I decided to buy everyone in the family a pack of these expensive socks.
When Gordon was in the service, they used to do field exercises. One particular field exercise took place in winter, just before Christmas. It was bitterly cold. My husband lived for a month in a tent, cold, tired, hungry, with a coal stove for warmth and only a radio for entertainment during long night watches. The radio played local commercials, specifically one for the jeweler store in town, who advertised that diamond was still a woman’s best friend.
I am not a jewelry person. Don’t get me wrong – I like it and I like to wear it, but aside from my wedding ring and a necklace that was an anniversary present, all of my jewelry is cosmetic. If it says “lab-made gemstone,” I’m so there, because nobody died digging it up. Anyway, so just before Christmas, my husband comes home. I meet him at the door. He is carrying an enormous rucksack filled with like 80 lbs of equipment, his face is covered with dirt and coal dust. He looks me straight in the eye and the first words out of his mouth are, “Honey, would you like a diamond for Christmas?”
Bombas socks were my diamond, except that nobody talked me out of this purchase. The ads brainwashed me into a temporary insanity. Before I knew it, I spent $320 on socks. Why would you even buy socks for Christmas unless the person requested socks or loves them beyond all reason? Christmas is supposed to be about fun gifts.
Predictably, Bombas socks didn’t turn out to be any better than regular socks. There is only so much improvement that can be done to a piece of fabric that fits over your feet. It is now six months later and the thing that always happens with socks happened. I am a proud owner of four Bombas socks. None of them match.
You know what perfect socks are? Plain white socks. Because you can match them easily.
Last night I put the four mismatched socks into the drawer, because they are too damn expensive to just toss. But if their matches don’t magically materialize during the next laundry batch, I am throwing them out and buying normal socks. For a fraction of the price.
As an aside, I told this story to a certain friend who writes vampire novels and she said, “Oh I wasted money on expensive socks before.”
Me: How?
She: Well, you know it gets cold here, so I need soft fuzzy socks.
Me: In Florida? You need fuzzy socks in Florida?
She: It gets cold. I will find it for you. Where is that order? five minutes later, after the order couldn’t be found and it was determined that the socks in question are not labeled. Ha! I found it! The World’s Softest Socks, classic.
Me: Your socks are only $12.49 a pair. How many did you buy?
She: A pair. They were more expensive in winter.
Me: Sure, they were.
She: No, really! I wasted money on these socks!
Despite this fishy story about ravages of freezing winters in Florida and overspending on socks, I still reign supreme. Me and my sock purchase. Argh.
Your turn. What is the stupidest thing you bought recently?
Lol. I love Bombas and I was just musing that I need to bite the bullet and replace all of my other socks with Bombas because it
s so annoying when they’re in the laundry and I have to wear other socks. But for me the big thing are the no show Bombas. Normal no show socks generally slide off and you have to reach into your sneakers to dig them out and adjust but the Bombas stay put great. Also ethically made makes me happy.
I’m impatiently waiting for GMA to have them on again so I can buy more. I like them a whole lot better than the Features brand.
It wasn’t recent, but I knitted my daughter a lovely pair of pink, knee-high socks. In a pretty lace pattern. She was a tween and just as I finished the socks, she decided that she would only wear those short, no-show socks the kids prefer. She never wore the socks. I can’t stand pink and dislike knee-hjghs, so they just sit in my sock drawer. I worked too hard on them to toss them.
I have about three sweaters and two pairs of socks with the same fate. *sigh* kids.
My wool Bombas socks were the best sock purchase ever! But my feet get really cold so they help with that!
I also love my Bombas socks. I don’t actually wear socks all that often – yay California weather and having to wear high heels for work – but when I wear my boots I always reach for the Bombas socks. They last forever and I mismatch the colors cause no one sees them.
Who says socks have to match? As long as they are the same size, material and style, you can recombine them any way you like. Who is going to care? Or is there a dress code for authors I don’t know about? There, problem solved!
“Who says socks have to match?”
Not Dobby, for one. 🙂
My 5 year old daughter wears socks that mismatch as a daily fashion statement. Soon she will get to do it all the time because suddenly I have 8 socks with no matches and no idea where she squirreled them when we weren’t even leaving our house!
My granddaughter does the same thing. She will take 2 pairs of MATCHED socks, separate them and wear 1 of each. The mismatched socks get so bad that I have an XX-Large ziplock storage bag that is the “orphan sock” bag. All unmatched socks get tossed in the bag. Periodically I go through and sort socks. You’d think I had found gold, I get so excited to make matches. Lol Sadly, I have never completely emptied the bag. It just stares at me and mocks me.
I do that. 2 socks same style different collor or pattern. i also wear sneakers different collors ore at least different laces. It looks good, and i am 52 years old!
When Ilona mentioned same style socks different pattern, i was thinking give it to me, i wear them.
My four year old daughter would approve. She announced to her Papa (my dad) that she “doesn’t need socks that match, because matching is silly.” This is a fight I’m not here for; if she’s clothed, her mismatched socks are sufficient. ????
I think it’s in fashion for socks not to match if you’re a tween! However, with boots who cares? In fact, who cares if your socks don’t match! Btw, I love your books!
I care if my socks match because it feels weird to wear two socks in different styles or that are different fabrics, or thicknesses. But I have bought packs of Day-Glo no-shows (how’s that for a contradiction) in different colors, and I don’t care if they match. I now separate my sick draw by bag of socks. There’s a section for one-offs.
Pampered Chef kitchenware. It’s nice kitchenware but there is less expensive kitchenware just as good. I ended up donating unused Pampered Chef after it sat on my shelf for over a year.
I tried to buy a puzzle of of the Earth .. it was round and the website said a portion of proceeds would go to ecological efforts and the photo was taken by NASA etc etc… well, it was a Facebook ad. Turns out it was a scam site, our. S I cancelled the card, froze our account… husband was so mad he had to go to bank in person to fix it during the pandemic.
Never buy stuff from Facebook ads was my moral of the story!
True. I saw one of those FB ads for Brooks Running shoes..clearance sale. I bought three pairs. I then received an alert from my card account that I spent $$$ from a Singapore company. This was around 11pm at night…pandemic web surfing on FB…so I immediately thought… scam!!! I locked the card and put a dispute on the charges. Next will report card lost so I can get a new card.
The purchase wasn’t totally stupid, but I did something stupid in the process. I bought a new wacom drawing tablet because I wanted to get back into design, and I lost the pen to my old 15yr old one. So a new pen for the old one would cost like $59 and the new wacom tablet would be $99, newer, and connect by bluetooth. Cool. I have an old version of photoshop on my old computer (cs5) so I was all set to dust off my design skills. So, I install the new wacom tablet, oh look, I have to update my OS to run the drivers, no worries. Update computer, install tablet, oh look, CS5 isn’t supported on the new OS, so now I’m totally out of luck because the current adobe photoshop is like $20 MONTHLY?? So now I’ve wasted $100, and my plan of brushing off my design skills are on hold as I try to learn new free design programs that are 100% frustrating because that’s what it’s always like learning a new program, all because I always ignore the whole “back up your computer before updating” advice.
I feel for you. Everything went to subscription models and it STINKS. I keep my old computer around so I can still do Adobe Illustrated. I will be out of luck when the computer dies.
Unrelated, I buy wool socks. They are expensive, but not as expensive as Ilona’s socks. If I wanted to spend that much on socks, I’d buy linen socks. I hear they are all the rage, but I’ll likely never know.
Linen SOCKS? I can’t even imagine how many times you’d have to wash them before they’d be comfortable. We bought ourselves fine linen sheets last summer for our 8th anniversary (I wanted high-thread count Egyptian Cotton, but it turns out they aren’t really available in Europe (and when they are, they’re ridiculously expensive) so we followed the local custom and got linen sheets from Minsk, which is supposed to be the best). It took 3 washes before they were tolerable, and after a year of use and washing, they are approaching very soft. But SOCKS. I can feel the blisters already.
Well the linensock that I own are made of fine linin and they’re not 100% linen. I think the mix is 70% linen 30% cotton.
They’re very comfortable and no pre-washing necessary.
That makes more sense.
I LOVE linen sheets. Not that soft but i have 9 dogs snd it’s the only thing that stands up to their claws very well and doesnt hold their fur in the weave.
the photography pack for creative cloud is 9.99 a month (still a pain, but less of a pain) and has photoshop AND lightroom. the difference is storage, and maybe access to adobe fresco or something. but I feel you, my old ancient desktop had to be restarted back to factory and afterwards none of my old programs would install, and the free stuff was a nightmare, so I eventually bought a cheap laptop and a creative cloud sub just to run photoshop so I could access my stuff 😛 fortunately I had all of my files backed up, but geeze it was exhausting getting the old computer updated and the new laptop set up.
Oo thanks for the tip!! I didn’t realize that! I though the photo option was their new photo app. I will have to look closer.
I have the photography pack (which I just use for Photoshop) and I’ve never had a problem with it. Way better than paying the extra $10 a month as long as you have storage capabilities.
Check ebay for older CS versions. Or try freeware versions. GIMP is the one I’ve used a bit for photoshop and Inkscape for illustrator. I’ve done this with other adobe products because no way am I paying monthly for a program I use a few times a year.
Affinity designer is a good alternative to illustrator and its a one time fee
Try photopea.com It’s identical to photoshop and you only have to pay to remove ads.
I saw those same socks advertised on QVC and they kept selling out. Then all of a sudden, they were being advertised on QVC. I wonder if people who bought the socks found out the same thing you did, Ilona. Donating socks is wonderful thing, but to charge that much for 6 pairs of socks, they better outperform my Hanes white socks. 🙂
Stupidest thing I bought? A nonstick fry pan a long time ago at Wal-Mart since that was what my mom and I could afford at the time. Oh my gosh, that stupid pan peeled even when handwashing it. We used non-metal utensils to not scratch it. It was a waste of money to the point I decided no more nonstick for me unless I found something that could take cooking abuse. I did find one eventually but after I cooked with stainless steel for a few years. 😀
By the way, I bought antimicrobial socks for my older brother when he was still alive as a birthday joke. He looked at them, wore them, and told me they were the best birthday present I could have given him. I was shocked.
Whoops, I needed to say “then all of a sudden, they were no longer being advertised on QVC.” This is what happens when my fingers get faster than my brain.
I only own one non stick pan now. I have a cast iron, that one pan, and I dumped all of non stick baking pans and tins, and switched everything to commercial grade aluminium pans, because of the peeling. The non stick coating would degrade and stick to food, which is not the healthiest thing. Heating the pan to high temperature will accelerate this.
Not to mention the fumes from non stick pans can sicken animals, especially birds. The higher end ones are better but still have issues w pets, I know some parrot owners who lost their babies that way (parrot baby,not human).
Loved the story about Gordon out in the field,that training will serve him well when his Alfa breaks down in the middle of nowhere in winter, no heat and the radio only gets some station playing elevator music…..
I had a co-worker try to convince me to buy a set of cookware because cast iron was bad for you. His logic was that the pans expanded and food particles were trapped inside the cast iron. Then the next time they were used, these particles would be released back into the new food. I looked him in the eye and said”my family has been cooking with these pots for 3 generations and no one has died from our cooking”.
We didn’t use high heat with that awful pan. We used low to medium heat and it still peeled. ????
I replaced all my Teflon pans with cast iron and stainless steel. Because we found out after twenty years of using them that the chemicals in the coating causes cancer.
I have one small non stick pan I got from target that I use for making scrambled eggs. That is all I ever make on there and I use wooden or plastic utensils. It is at least 10 years old and still in pretty great condition
On the subject of cooking and pans I love the story of the iron fish. So in Pacific nations like the Solomon Islands iron deficiency is a major issue especially for women and w pregnancy and childbirth. Very little natural iron in their diet. One really practical solution that worked was to add an iron fish to the main cooking pot (no doubt aluminium!). The tiny bits of iron that were released were absorbed by the population, and although this was still an issue the incidence of profound iron deficiency anaemia decreased profoundly.
interesting!
Cast iron adds iron to your food. So it was probably a cast iron pot.
No, it was a smallish cast iron fish used in their cooking pots to add iron to the diets of women and children particularly. The fish was in a style that had cultural significance. I think I saw it in a news article about Cambodia or Laos a few years ago
They are still available. I believe they are called Lucky Iron Fish. They don’t put out a lot of iron but it is enough to make a difference and isn’t priced out of their range like supplements are.
I recently moved into an apartment from a shared living space, and it came to my attention that I didn’t own a slotted spoon. I mentioned this on social media in my aggravated state, then promptly bought myself a cheap slotted spoon to solve the problem. Unfortunately, many people saw my social media post and bought me slotted spoons as a housewarming gift. I now own a ton of slotted spoons instead of none. Not sure if it counts as a stupid purchase, but it is kind of funny.
thanks for the great laugh!
Well, it’s not stupid, but it’s not the most rational purchase either. I had these gift cards from a store I never go to (an overpriced high end store – we’re talking 30 bucks for a potato peeler kind of overpriced) so in the end I got a board game there that has good reviews (and would have cost less anywhere else) for 60 bucks. Had to spend the gift cards, I’d had them for 4 years lying about already.
Now, neither the potato peeler nor the board game itself were the bad buys. But then I set up the board game and it came with this cardboard item you had to set up and even though it wasn’t bad quality, it didn’t really work either. I mean, cardboard, dovetailing, it’s just not a match made in heaven. So after 15 minutes of furgling, snarling, and the application of tweezers and sticky tape, I finally get the darn thing set up. And I was rather fed up with it all, and so one quick Internet search later I get in touch with a friend who owns a 3D printer, plans in hand to have a plastic replacement for the annoying cardboard thingy made. He was amenable to doing so, in exchange for a particular kind of plastic filament for his printer he’d been wanting to try. I went along with this plan because I was still pretty annoyed by the whole set-up and just wanted it sorted.
So now that I’ve calmed down a bit, I can see how spending almost 40 bucks on a plastic replacement for a cardboard thingy from a game that was 60 might not be the most sound financial decision I’ve ever made.
Now I just hope at least it’ll look good. XD
I bought an exercise bike for all the Quarantine exercising. I have a real bike that allows me to get out of this house.
Why did I think I needed a reason to stay in this house more during a quarentine?
It’s possibly too late now, but maybe you can sell the exercise bike and buy a bike trainer. Then you can ride your outside bike inside and have less stuff to store. 🙂
And, not to capitalize on someone else’s misfortune, but keep an eye on the ads. My boyfriend bought an almost new, $2500 trainer for $500 from a gym that closed down.
I wish I hadn’t seen this comment. It is excellent fuel for my “worst thing I ever bought and continue to buy ” obsession. Exercise equipment. Of all sizes, shapes and costs, none of which fit our home, storage or budget. We buy, don’t use, sell or donate and then buy again. Now the wheels are spinning — what incredible deals are out there ….
2020 planner: 40$ of planner (because it’s an american one so P&P cost me one kidney…)
it’s in english (But I knew that)
Week starts on Sunday (WHY?!)
4 month of Lochdown,
job didn’t improve a bit (yet)
But I have my planner (a normal one would cost me 12$) :p
ALL weeks start on Sunday. That’s the first day of the week, which is a good reason “why” your planner shows it that way. Some people do make plans for Sundays. The reason Saturday and Sunday are called the “weekend” days is that one is at the start, one is at the end, and together, they cover both ends of the week.
Not everywhere, in fact Sunday is last day of the week almost everywhere with exception of North America. I looked this up and Sunday is the last day of the week in Slavic and Chinese traditions and is considered an international standard. So yes it is perfectly normal for people to be surprised when they face American system with Sunday being first.
Funny thing is, I work for the US government. I have a patrol assignment and visit up to 5 different job sites a day, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. I have to charge each individual 15 minute segment to the correct time code on my payroll forms. So I always have my boss order me a planner to keep track of my time for payroll.
My official government planner that I got from our distribution center? Has Sunday as the last day of the week. Our pay week starts on Sunday, So I always have to turn back to the previous week to get Sunday to start the new one.
Has anyone here ever wondered why some of the planners sold at Walmart start on Saturday? Those are for the convenience of associates like me since our work week runs Saturday to Friday. I had a customer yell at me while I was ringing her up in January because the cute planner she was buying had a week that made no sense whatsoever. I looked at it and mentioned that was one that associates usually bought since it matched our work week.
My dumbest recent purchase? Not following my instincts on a Marketplace item on Walmart dot com. I didn’t like the outside sellers ads on the website and tried finding another seller or the item from Walmart itself but nobody else had the two pack of C-type connector to headphone jack I wanted so I went with what I now know is a shady company. Didn’t receive the two pack I ordered and they won’t communicate with me so I can either return it or get the missing part of the order. I think the only good part of it is when I complained to the Walmart dot com complaint page mine was the one that got them tossed from the website.
As to socks if I can find socks that fit my different sized feet and legs I don’t care who makes them.
It’s something I had to get used to when I moved to Austria. The EU certainly starts it’s weeks on Monday. It actually makes more sense talking about the weekEND that way.
Huh…
Huh, I’m American and always thought the week started on Monday! Lol
I don’t keep calendars so I never really paid attention to that.
I cannot resist a good planner. I just got a hobonichi from Amazon a few days ago because someone bragged about the Japanese system. I’ll use them for a few months and then decide to buy another one to test. I have yet to find the ABSOLUTE, ULTIMATE planner. Sigh.
Speaking of socks, when I was in Amsterdam this past February I discovered “bamboo” socks … omg. Life changer. Soft, warm enough/cool enough. Very expensive on Amazon tho.
O_O
New York City Public Library Student Planner.
I discovered it my freshman year of college (3rd planner i bought). I still use it 12 years later
I LOVE IT
I have some sort of obsession with finding the perfect planner. I too will buy them and use them for a few months before switching to a new one. I’d hate to actually calculate how much money I’ve spent on planners. Oh, and pens!
All of the “recommended readings” for all my college asses one semester. I was an English major.
ARGH! CLASSES!
A d now I’m giggling uncontrollably, because “asses” isn’t entirely incorrect.
Hehehe.
Your Bombas took the Sock Express To Mars! When we went to visit my husband’s cousins, their grandchildren were all about mismatched socks. This was about 10 years ago, and the stores in Iowa were actually selling them as such.
My diamond was a knitting machine. I am so frustratingly slow at knitting and I had all this yarn I’d been given, so I thought it would be great to be able to whip through it all and make presents for everyone. Nope. Struggling with the machine was more frustrating. That sucker sits in the closet in its case to this day. I even tried to give it away and no one wants it. Some day I’ll recycle it for the metal.
Is it the ultimate sweater one?
No, sorry. It was years ago. It’s a Singer model 151 Chunky Knitting Machine. It did make nice warm scarves and blankets when it wanted to cooperate.
My cousin does that with socks now. There’s some brand that she likes that sells them – socks – in 3 packs and none of them match. It makes me twitch to even think about it.
I’m twitching right along with you. Heck, I can’t even wear mismatched footies that won’t be seen.
But then I’m the only person I know who matches their socks by style, color, fit, thickness and wear.
You are not alone. I’m the same. When I see my kids wearing mismatched socks it makes me twitch.
Who says socks have to match?
My socks haven’t matched in years. I try and buy cream, and the same brand but they are always just a little different each purchase. So last week my husband walked in and I was wearing one cream sock and a completely different style brown one. He said, your socks never quite match but this is going too far LOL
I have done the same with beige sox when I was working. Some have warm undertones, some cool undertones, ARRGH!! The stack of unmatched are eating me alive! At least now I am retired and don’t give a rat’s patootie if my feet match.
I bought jewelry a week ago from a german brand to be their “ambassador”… A day after I clicked order I realized I don’t ever wear jewelry and now I am missing 20 EUR. I feel so stupid, I’m so done with 2020!
Ugh. My sister wanted Feetures socks. They were $15 a pair! She can’t wash them with other socks and underwear because she can’t wash them on hot. Apparently they’re amazing for her feet since she’s constantly standing. I refuse to spend the money.
I fell for an instagram ad about this new toothbrush for $40 that vibrates and supposedly does amazing things. The toothpaste is extra but I bought it and it tastes like soap. The toothbrush is ridiculous and doesn’t work. I’m so pissed.
I bought the same darn toothbrush
Totally useless lol
I buy Oral B electric toothbrushes that vibrate. I like them. Their $4US.
It may well be the thing that is going to be delivered today, a Cricut. It’s a cutting machine. I have ideas … we’ll see how it works out. It may be great, it may be stupid. I’ve talked myself into it and out of it about 1000 times in the past year. It’s expensive, and I’m hoping I can make the money back by selling stuff at the farmers market. We’ll see.
i have an old cricut i bought when i started teaching art 10 years ago. i haul it out every now and then when i have to make letters for bulletin boards. once or twice people at school asked me to help them cut labels or tags for something. still gets used, amazing what it does, but still a huge pain in the butt so i don’t use it for everything. best advice i got for it was make a layer with something small on it to check the cutting depth for paper types and buy reposition-able glue spray. it will make the mats and blades last longer.
If you do scrapbooking the Cricut will help a lot with die cuts and get them done faster. That was the original purpose of the machine.
Use the mismatched as face masks. It is incredibly easy to turn a sick into a face mask and you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that the money was not wasted. There is a YouTube video to give directions if needed. Not socks, but I share your pain. Lol
I’m glad I read this thread just to see your comment, I’ve been thinking about getting an eyemask to deal with early morning light this time or year & hesitating to spend the money. But I have plenty of single socks! Thanks 🙂
In my family, we all use clean single socks (preferably dark) as ‘eye masks’. Haha! We call them “socky friends,” as that is what my eldest sibling called them back in the day.
Marie, eye masks that work can be really cheap. It makes a big difference too.
Between my Homemedics white noise maker + eye mask I’m sleeping much more in the morning (e.g. after 5 a.m.).
I love my bombas socks. The ones I have are better than most of my other ones. Nice thickness, not scratchy. Losing them does suck especially since it was my mom who bought them and she died. Way better than some of the impulse $20 socks I’ve bought at REI and those didn’t send anything to charity. Way comfier than anything I could knit.
Christmas always came with socks in our stocking. I think that is pretty common. It isn’t great only present for a child but definitely good as stocking stuffer.
I bought a pair of avocado pattern Converse. Did I need them? No. Do they match things I own? Also no. Are they the absolute most Millennial thing to ever exist? Yes. https://www.converse.com/shop/p/custom-chuck-taylor-all-star-by-you-unisex-low-top-shoe/152621CSP20Fruits.html?dwvar_152621CSP20Fruits_color=green&styleNo=152621C&cgid=custom-fruit-prints-collection
I did once buy cashmere socks. They are more hole than sock at this point, the moths had a feast, but they do warm my toes in 0 seconds flat (only my toes, there is no heal left on either of them).
Actual toe socks.
I like the avocado Converse shoes… But if I were buying them, I’d probably go with the lemon choice though.
Oh, so many to choose from. I think the worst was a $20 gadget that allegedly attached buttons with a little plastic ‘t’. I purely hate to sew anything. It always results in bloodshed. Mine. Supposedly I would load a strip of plastic dingus’s into sort of punch, stab through hole in button into material, pull out and,lo, the button would be attached. Except it wasn’t. The gadget made the rounds of the office. No one could make it work. I kept it for years hoping for inspiration. Never happened.
Stupidest thing I bought recently… … might be the beard oil I got for my boyfriend. He mentioned that taking care of his goatee would require picking some up. I was at a salon supply store (I work in a spa so I can shop there) and picked him up some hair gel and beard oil. There was a deal for a book bag if I got two products of that brand. I have used the bag twice, which is twice more than he’s used the beard oil.
He doesn’t fuss with his appearance much, so I knew that it might be an unused commodity. At least I got a bag.
Thank you for trying those socks for the rest of us. Your sacrifice is appreciated.
My Achilles heel lately has been (too much) yarn. There’s one company that dyes BEAUTIFUL yarns that I must NOT open the email. But I can’t bring myself to unsubscribe from their ljst.
Oooo, do tell.
With nowhere safe to go in Florida, in forEVA, I’m finding that you don’t have to keep buying new yarn in order for it to work up beautifully. I’ve been using up mu stash. Mu latest project was to take a nearly finished sweater that has sat on the shelf of shame for at least 10 years and reimagine it. When I first completed all but the sleeves, I didn’t like the color or the stitch pattern. So one Covid-frustrated day last month I ripped it out, designed a couple of lace knit stitches and plugged them into my own bottom-up seamless sweater algorithm. Now it’s one of my favorites. I also found a huge sweater with great yarn, in a thrift store, that could betaken apart in peaces, and did the same thing.
$350 for original NoNo. It just uses an electric current to burn the hair off. Smells funny and my legs were nubby. This was decades ago so I don’t know if the product got better.
Hey! I must defend your Vampire writing-Florida living friend. It does get cold down here. We had, like, 3 weeks of winter! It got to almost freezing! There wrre iguanas falling out of trees in South Florida. Those days, you have to wear socks (hopefully while wearing regular shoes and not flip-flops)!
My stupid purchase was also from a Facebook ad, it advertised a wand attachment that fits onto your garden house that would power wash your sidewalks, driveway, house, deck…etc. Since it was less than $20 bucks, I thought, why not…I’ll give it a shot. It took forever to arrive (it came from China), and I can’t get it to fit onto my garden hose! So now I have a shiny aluminum and plastic “fairy” wand. Anyone want to buy it?!!!
Doesn’t Bombas replace missing socks? That’s part of the 100% happiness guarantee, right?
I adore my Bombas and also love that their donations program.
Stupid purchases? RAM to upgrade my 10 year-old computer which is slowly dying before my eyes. Oh, well. At least it will work faster as we slide over that inevitable cliff.
I bought a bunch of Bombas socks last year, too. My husband didn’t notice a difference, my daughter likes hers, and I hate mine (too tight at the ankle). I balled up mine separately into sock balls and the cats think they are the best toys. Really stupidly expensive toys, but at least they are being used.
My purchase was also as a result of incessant Facebook ads. Shapewear. Enough said.
oh man, I fell for those too, the shapermint ads where the ladies just kind of SHOOPED away their muffin tops by effortlessly tugging on their shapers. no. it was not effortless and my fluff didn’t magically SHOOP into sleekness.
ahhh.. Ive been tempted thanks for the warning/info
At least Shapermint took back the bras that were horrible.
I love warm, fuzzy socks! 🙂
My moment of glory wasn’t so much the item I bought, but that I had it shipped to our shop because I didn’t want to stay home all day waiting for it to arrive. I do this all the time and then my husband will then simply bring it home from work.
Only this time it was +13 feet of hard, plastic cable. He called me from work and went, “Are you serious??? How am I supposed to get this in the car?”
Total brain fart on my end.
PS. He managed.
I bought $60 of hand dyed wool yarn. Beautiful colors. I don’t knit. I don’t do crewel embroidery. I was seduced by the mental image of me doing elegant crewel embroidery on my hand sew nightgown (actually a pile of uncut linen in the closet) and knitting a matching night cap. Additionally I bought needles for crewel and for knitting, three different crewel patterns, a cap pattern and stitch counters for another $30. I managed to cast on 8 stitches and hopelessly snarled the wool. It’s now in the cute work bag I also bought.
My most expensive and useless purchases turn out to be installation art pieces depicting “The Me I Wish I Was”. Maybe I need a camera…
I bought a $200 food dehydrator. Prior to that I never dehydrated anything. Since then I have never dehydrated anything. I thought it was cool. I thought I would dehydrate all kinds of fruit and make jerky. I am not that person. So I gave it to my ex-husband, who is really the worst purchase I ever made.
Hahahaha this is brilliant! Didn’t know dehydrators existed but understand the feeling of thinking you’re ‘that person’
Bags. I have enough bags to equip a store. And yet I peruse laptop backpacks online because surely I’ll need a larger bag for the office to carry in everything if the break room is closed. Never mind work hasn’t fully decided when the office will re-open or that I’ll feel safe about going in since I have an open office desk about 4 feet away from others.
Sock wise – I went to merino blend Icebreaker & Darn Toughs. They are pricey but very comfortable. My feet tended to get sweaty (TMI) and merino takes care of that. Of course, I have enough sock yarn to make at least 15 pairs but machine knit ones are so much finer and more comfortable.
An above ground pool. Spent $300 plus $60 ladder, pool brush, net and chemicals. Why is this stupid? Well first the pool came with a ladder which wasn’t listed online so there’s $60 wasted. Then our local pool is up and running, kiddo hasn’t used it in 2 weeks, I cant use it due to cold urticaria, and those things are a stupid amount of work. Giving it/her another week before I drain it and sell it to someone who’s local pool isn’t open. Never again
Hmm, lately I’ve been playing it safe by buying ebooks, but the “stupidest” purchase I’ve made that I can recall would be a brown heavy coat on Modcloth that only had a deep hood, two buttons and a belt you tied closed. The model made it look so pretty, but when I wore it, I looked like a female monk (without the shaved head). My husband tried to dissuade me when I showed him the picture, but I scoffed, “Men know nothing about fashion!” I’m currently waiting for winter to arrive so I can contribute to a used coat donation drive.
My purchase was a jungle gym for my kid’s birthday. My husband is very talented with his hands and likes to help out other people with any building, fixing, cleaning, cutting down trees, etc. they might need. However, this list does not always translate over into doing things at our house.
Back to the purchase…When I was researching the product there was an option to have a crew come out and put together the jungle gym or we could do it ourselves. I asked my husband which he would prefer. He pointed out that we could get a bigger set if we built it ourselves so to do it that way. I asked if he was okay building it and would he do it? He said yes.
I bought the swing set when my child was about 3. He just turned 18. The jungle gym only got half built in that time. I couldn’t look at it without my blood pressure rising. I had several friends even offer to come over and finish it because they knew how furious I was it wasn’t complete.
A few months ago I told him I wanted it gone. I was tired of it taking up space and both kids are way too old to want to play with it. I was also tired of being mad when I looked in my backyard. I now know that I will never do this again. Next time I’m paying extra to have someone come do it.
I know the feeling of being upset every time you look at something.. smart to get rid of it
Don’t tell that to my wife. 😀
An LED light facemask. I should send you pics or a video. It has provided much quarantine entertainment and is hopefully making my skin better. But I can’t really tell. (And yes I got the FDA approved one because let me throw more money at it.) ????
Pro tip: if you wear sneakers and long pants, nobody can tell if your socks match.
I also regularly wear mis-matched socks because it makes me think of my Grandpa, so people have gotten used to it. I do stick to different colors of the same style, but you’ll never catch me with a green marl and a black-and-white patterned sock together.
I’ve kind of become a sock snob. I haven’t bought Bombas – in fact, I buy almost all of my socks from the clearance rack because they’re still socks, for goodness sake! but I buy wool socks and I wear them year round. I have thin ones and short ones for warm days and thick ones for winter days and tall ones for when it’s just extra cold. I did buy a pair of bison socks from United By Blue, and those are my top choice for cold days even if I do feel dumb for spending so much money on them.
Among the dumbest things I’ve ever spent money on are probably my collection of board games. My taste in games runs very different from my family, so my games have never been picked for family game night, and most of them are designed for 2-4 players, so when my 10 best friends get together, they don’t play mine either. I also have three chess sets and I don’t know how to play chess, I just find the sets cool.
I love those socks lol mostly because I’m super sensitive and can feel the seam in other socks. So if I feel the seam in my socks I can’t stop thinking about it then they start to hurt my feet. Bombas have no seam and I never match my socks. I might have a problem but I don’t mind.
“I might have a problem, but I don’t mind.” I love this unreasonably. I think I’m going to print it out and stick it up on my fridge and mirror…
Me, too! Plus I’m allergic to wool, so my options for good winter socks are limited. Bombas calf socks are too tight for me, but I love the ankle and no-show versions. I will totally wear non-matching ones. I also LOVE my bamboo socks, which I bought at a craft fair and have not been able to find since. The guy gave me three socks, so when I lost one (and of course I did) I would still have a pair.
Ilona, I bet you didn’t expect the BDH to turn this blog post into a sockapalooza…I guess we’re a SDH too, or we just have finicky feet to go with our good taste in books.
Hey I saw the seams in socks bother you… I used dto have that problem too, then one of my teachers from high school told us his daughter will only wear her socks inside out so the seams doesn’t rub. Works like a charm ????
Cookbooks, any and almost all cookbooks, but OLD COOKBOOKS are my Achilles Hill. I have friends who go to auctions and estate sales with me to tell me NO and slap my hands. Works on most things, but not the cookbooks.
Why cookbooks you ask. After al,l everyone needs to eat, everyone should know how to cook new and different things.
1 – I had VSG surgery several years ago, and I work pretty hard at trying to keep the amount I eat very small (problem is I eat often when stressed, and life has been nothing but stress the last 4 years).
2 – I am single. I have no one to cook for, my Mom was living with me but she eats even less than I do and she is EXTREMELY PICKY. If it isn’t costly, and sweet, she isn’t going to eat it. I have caught her too many times pouring ridiculously expensive food down her toilet, without having taken a bite, just because I cooked it. Dementia and passive aggression, the joy of it all.
So yes, I waste money, time, space and energy on cookbooks, but they made me happy.
So there, if it made you happy at the time to buy them; if you could still pay the bills and feed everyone that needed to be fed; if they keep/kept your feet warm; then enjoy them.
Also, don’t stress about the missing socks. Wear mismatched pairs. Made buckwheat microwavable neck/shoulder/hand/back/knee/ankle and feet warmers. Make microwavable baby animal warmers. If you don’t want to keep them, do something with them that again makes you happy.
Oh, the puppy/baby warmers you could donate to animal rescue than raises baby animals.
Psst, you can also use uncooked rice to fill them up. I’ve made a ton of them for care packages for family and friends when they got sick. Best thing in the world when you’re chilled. Love the idea of donating to shelters!
Cookbooks = food porn. I am a fellow addict. Just wish that I had access to Terry Pratchett’s L-space as all my shelves are double stacked.
Ohhhhh! Yes to old cookbooks!
I finally managed to get my days off of work moved to Friday/Saturdays so I could hit up garage sales and estate sales to feed my old cookbook habit, but then the whole pandemic thing happened (although they are beginning to slowly start up again).
My collection may have outgrown my storage capabilities, but it makes me happy. Unlike the $400+ I paid to frame up a huge ugly print my ex-husband purchased for me as a gift. He wanted it hung up in the bedroom and I spent the money trying to make it look tolerable. It didn’t. I also insisted he keep it when we divorced.
I have an old 1976 edition Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook I got at a garage sale for 50 cents before I got married nearly 30 years ago. It is still one of my go-to books for when I just want something different to fix, and it contains the ONLY pancake recipe I ever use.
I do collect cookbooks too. I have a 1904 version of Fannie Farmer’s (year my grandmother was born) and an 1892 that I need translated because it is in German. Lots of facsimile and reprints of Medieval cooking manuscripts (Scappi is good, so is Take a Thousand Eggs and More). I’m in the SCA and have been a head feast cook for 20+ years. What I don’t need is another loom or drop spindle–but they are so shiny!
For me, it was my air fryer oven combo. I kept seeing those commercials and my trusty toaster oven was old so I went for it. It has not worked out well for my way of cooking.
Honestly, those make me angry every time I see them. Frying by definition requires oil. Otherwise it’s roasting, no matter what temperature it’s at.
I can’t seem to stop myself from buying juicers. Every year there is at least one juicer in the “Goodwill box” because NOBODY in the house drinks juice. Eventually I hope to outgrow this oddity.
It’s the mark of a true friend to tell you about fuzzy socks. Those ROCK!
An exercise bike. Who was I kidding?
I have bought expensive socks. That were totally worth it. I was doing field work in Antarctica. You need nice good socks, especially when you have poor circulation inherited from your mother. So EVERYONE bought me expensive wool socks. Guess where the best place to find awesome wool socks is? The mens’ camping section of walmart. Found that out the hard way after $500+ spent at REI (not all on socks, most of that was on long underwear, buy the REI brand, it’s the best cost/quality ratio).
Recently the big things I’m regretting are things on my house. The gutter guards that were way too expensive and don’t seem to help much, I’m worried I overpaid for my new roof, overpaid for my repointing, etc. I also had my treadmill that is only 4 years old I was gifted that I haven’t used nearly as much as I thought I would decide to stop working so I’m feeling guilty and wondering how much that repair bill will be. And don’t get me started on all the online orders during lockdown. Let’s just say I’m $70+ on the no-rush shipping rewards on amazon (not all me, I’m my aunt’s personal amazon shopper as well).
LMAO this reminds me of the advertising bombas socks did on a certain popular podcast. Literally, every break, they would advertise it, for like an entire season (or two? I forget). It got to the point where so many reviewers were complaining that they wanted to sell socks more than continue the story.
It was funny because it was a horror fiction podcast, so the characters would be like creeping around an empty room or watching a creepy demon video and suddenly, they’re talking about socks.
I work on my feet a lot so socks are important to me. I’ve never bought bombas, so I don’t know how they are, but more expensive socks do make a difference. And them matching doesn’t matter! My favorite ones are double-lined at the sole for more comfort when walking or running, and preferably made of bamboo (because bamboo socks are so soft!).
I know I have a lot more that I can’t remember, but I think some of my worst purchases were these dresses from eBay. They looked amazing on the girl, but I’ve since learned not to trust Asian models online. What looks like a dress on her is indecently high or a shirt on me. And worse, if it’s a long-sleeved shirt, then it goes to the elbows, at most. They’re all sitting in my to-be-stitched-into-something-decent-pile now xD
Well… stupid thing before Covid-19 hit.
Nephew cleaned out my garage because he thought he would be helpful and make it more spiffy. I have a couple of corn-hole boards and 4 sets of bags ( think horseshoes with bean bags and trying to land the bags in the elevated board with holes). Went to take the boards out of the garage because of a get together with friends and needless to say couldn’t find anything because everything was put away the way the nephew thought was logical.(I wasn’t home when this occurred)
To hasten the story… no bags found but boards were stacked behind stand up freezer (why??)- thankfully it was off. Ordered 4 more sets of bags at 3x the price and one month later the bags were found in a sealed container. Nephew says he doesn’t know how the bags got in there.
I bit my tongue and said stuff happens and its okay. (wanted to yell but didn’t want to hurt his feelings).
So … I am glad you bought the Bombas socks because the ads have been intense and I was sorely tempted to get some. Okay I will stick with box store winter socks and good old Hanes for summer.
Flowhives! These hives will revolutionise bee keeping, you’ll never have to scrape frames, spin honey ever again etc etc. My husband loved them.
£1000 later and we have hives the bees aren’t very keen on so take forever to fill and then when you do crack them to run the honey off 200,000 bees try to scavenge it and you get 70%bee carcasses 30% honey….
Needless to say husband still hasn’t admitted they aren’t the bee’s knees (lol couldn’t resist the pun)!
Thank you for this because I’ve been tempted. It makes harvesting look so easy on the advert….
My husband has to spend ages cocooning the tube and jar in cellophane and if you miss the tiniest gap the bees get in and you have beesoup…
Yuck! Thank you so much for sharing. I am planning to get my first ever hive next spring (couldn’t this year since I am full-time finishing my degree). My partner had encouraged new to try a flow hive even saying he’ll be happy to pay for it for the ease. Nope nope nope. Will be starting out with a good old regular hive box.
Thanks so much for sharing. I’ve been very tempted by those ads. Now I know better…
Hiya, try taking the face off your dryer you may find those missing matches as well as some other mia things ❤
A friend of mine was trying to figure out why their dryer wouldn’t run. She tested the setting, cleaned out the exhaust tubing… When her sweetie removed the back to look deeper, he found a 5 foot long snake wrapped around the insides. Snake wrangling ensued. Apparently the snake had a rank smell and it took a lot of Febreeze to reduce the odor. I fully expected that she would find the dryer on the curb when she got back home.
My 35y/o daughter not only wears mismatched socks, but sneakers and flipflops too. She has done that since she was a teen and it’s now just part of her look. I always point out when she has an outfit on that matches, it’s so seldom.
There are so many stupid things I buy, but I have to admit to having a huge Vera Bradley collection. Way more than I need. I should have a sale.
So I’m not the only one? LOL
Stupidest purchase was $25 for an supposedly undamageable dog rope toy – I should have known better – it was in 3 pieces before we made it home from the store.
Basenji??
My 9 year old son will only wear mismatched socks. Drives me nuts.
My most recent mistake was buying a box of bobby pins of amazon instead of just asking Hubby to stop at the CVS and pick up a few. I wanted the one off amazon as the pins are contained in a metal tin and they won’t get lost. I ordered them last week. Then the ETA was two days.
Today I check the order and amazon says “There’s a problem with this order.” Then I go to the order itself and it says “This item has shipped” I can’t find out which one is true. And I refuse to chat or wait for hours on a call for a tin of bobby pins.
Meanwhile, the bangs my hair dresser convinced me would be cute now hang down past my lips and drive me nuts. I have one bobby pin to corral it all with and it’s not working.
Moral of the story–no matter how cute my hair dresser says bangs look, I’m sticking to a buzz cut.
Thank you for the review – I see those socks advertised all the time and wonder…
Heh. You could fill a warehouse full of my stupid purchases. Most recently, I’m trying to lose weight and I bought this doohickey that screws onto your salad dressing bottle with the intent of measuring out one serving size of dressing. It turns out, my normal serving is less than what it thinks is a serving and it drips and makes a mess. Total fail.
Recently… hmmm… well, it is not a purchase (they state over and over that Kickstarter and Indiegogo are not stores) it was an investment whose dividend is a prototype product of the fledgling company’s inaugural production run… I invested in a multitude of new ventures – portable ultrasonic cleaners, stress relieving devices, meditation/relaxation/awareness inducing headband, stainless steel lunchboxes, jar openers, cheese cutters, haptic sound devices, low temperature vacuum tumbler dryer and planters for my orchids. Did I need all of these? Definitely not. But most of them had good research, well thought out product design, and were to bring about products that I would buy in the store, if I found them. So I invested (crowdfunded). The least needed were the cheese cutter, haptic device and the planters. I love cheese, and the design was quite well thought out. I love the shiver-me-liver feel of big speakers at a live concert – so the haptic device was pure indulgence. And while my orchids appear to be thriving (new leaves and roots), the planter was very nice, clean, and simply beautiful, so i hope the Chids will like them and maybe bloom… the ultrasonic cleaner is simply a brilliant useful tool. The two stress relieving devices – who doesn’t need stress relief right now. The lunchboxes are much needed, superbly designed. The jar opener is ingenious and doesn’t require the premium real estate of my counter top space. And the dryer is for my non synthetic fiber knitted items – if I take the time to spin yak and silk yarn, I don’t want to wait 3 days in high humidity for it to dry (risking mildew and moths)…
The headband works as advertised, BTW. Received it last week.
Can you please share the link for the planters? Or the name of the product? Mine need help.
Terraplanter…
https://www.terraplanter.club/collections/all
Or you can look them up on Kickstarter, I think they are accepting pre-orders.
Would love info on the orchid planter! I really need to re-pot mine once they finish losing their current blooms.
Terraplanter…
https://www.terraplanter.club/collections/all
Or you can look them up on Kickstarter, I think they are accepting pre-orders.
Telling on my partner, not me. (I’m sure he could think of one of mine. . . ) Anyway, he has a syringe thingy that you are supposed to stick down a trouts throat and suction up the stomach contents. That’s so that you can see what it ate and “match the hatch.” Things wrong with this – 1) catching the first fish and 2) figuring out what a fragile insect looked like before a trout ate it and 3) torturing the poor fish.
This made me laugh out loud and scare the cats! Good thing I wasn’t drinking coffee.
I started to crochet after a 30 year hiatus, in January. Since January I have bought more yarn then I will probably ever use. I blame the Internet. When I was crocheting before, we had Murphy’s and Woolworth’s to buy yarn at. Now I have access to yarn from all over the world and it’s all beautiful.
I think I finally got a grip on myself and my yarn obsession, but I’m not sure, there’s a store on Etsy with a beautiful hand dyed yarn I have to go check out. Bye
I get my kids and husband socks, underwear, and a sweater every Christmas. Those aren’t their only gifts, but they get them every year. Encourages them to throw out the worn ones, plus they love sweaters. My youngest even wears sweaters indoors during the summer.
Stupidest purchase? Basically any expensive present that I ever bought my husband. It didn’t matter if was something I know he liked, it ended up stored in the basement or in our closet. These days I just get him a good bottle of wine or some old scotch.
On socks: I buy myself toe socks that are between $13-$18 a pair. That would add up to $78-$108 for 6, if they even sold them in packs. I don’t like socks in general, but toe socks make my feet feel freer somehow and good quality, non novelty toe socks are hard to come by.
It is a running joke in my family that every time I buy my husband something for Christmas that is not on his list, he says what a great idea, I love it!… and then 6 month later sells it on ebay LOL
Don’t throw the socks out. Stuff all of them into another used sock and put a knot in it and you have a cheap toy for your dogs to chew on. You end up with little bits of socks around once they make a whole in it, but my dog used to love playing with them. Athletic socks were the best for the outer sock and we’d stuff it with all the socks with holes in the toes.
That would be a $300 vet bill after they eats them. 🙁
I am not an impulsive buyer, but my mom bought a sleeveless jacket (vest?) that apparently has special bags of medicinal clay in its collar, and ….”when you wear it, the clay gets warmer in touch with skin and you don’t have pains, something, something, better circulation in her neck, something.”
It’s a complicated explanation.
It was so damn heavy and I don’t think she wore it once.
How do you even wash something like that? I imagine they would have to be removable or that they would make a terrible mess in the washer. ????????♀️
My mom got them for my sisters and me for Christmas and I was not impressed. I didn’t realize how expensive they were!
I have heard those ads for socks and wondered about them. Where DID they put that annoying toe seam? It has to seam somewhere!! I will learn from your experience. Stupidest thing I bought recently was a $60 weeding tool…which turned out to be a thick dowel with a “V” end The packaging was very fancy, but that was a lot of money for a stick
I almost fell for that one. It was supposed to be an easy way to weed and save your back. Luckily, I saw some reviews and passed on it. Maybe you can use it as a garden stake to tie up a plant.
I have something like that that I looked everywhere for (my mom showed me how to use hers and I neeeded one). Assuming it has either a sturdy bend or a rocker on it, anyway. You use it to lever up tap root style weeds – like dandelions. Get the prongs around the root right at ground level and then pry the sucker out of the ground (push down on the handle to lever it up & out). It works particularly well for me because we’re prone to a couple of really thorny and persistent weeds that are really hard to pull, even with good gloves.
If it’s a completely straight dowel, though, I’m stumped.
Kitchener stitch. It attaches the top and the bottom of the sock without a seam.
There’s also a “toes up” sock method that starts with a tricky double cast-on at the toe and proceeds to the top of the sock, where you cast off.
You can knit thing with out seams, it’s easier than knitting them with seams to my mind because I hate sewing up. If you look at a piece of kniting you can’t tell which is the top and which the bottom, so to make a seamless sock you start at the bottom, knit into a crochetted throw-away, then go back and knit into your first row of knitting going the other way. That is a lousy explanation, but look on line, there are plenty of good tutorials
A designer pocketbook. It was gorgeous! Lusted after it for months before it went on sale (and I had coupons, too) which brought it down to about $80. Dern thing is too big to fit in the locker at work & is too heavy to carry comfortably. No shoulder straps. It has been sitting in my closet, in the dark, alone & abandoned for 3 years. I took it to a consignment store a couple of weeks ago but they said that they didn’t want it, either. Sigh.
A piano. In my defense, I hadn’t had any coffee and my mother made this impassioned plea about how I “needed more music in my life.” I don’t play piano. Now it holds up about half of my liquor collection and takes up space in my living room.
Also, there were these FB ads for awhile about a universal lens cap that could fit over any lens. I’m always losing lens caps. So, I thought, “Sure! Why not?” $40 for 3 lems caps. About two months later they show up. As collapsible 6″ bowls (I had one already for my dogs, so recognized them). With a quarter sized hole in the bottom. So I couldn’t even use them for dog hiking bowls. Complaining through PayPal said they’d give me a full refund *if I shipped them back to China*. I looked into this and it would have cost me $35 to do so. I’m still mad about this.
When our rice cooker died my husband and I decided to buy an InstaPot – $90 then. I grew up with a pressure cooker and had several family recipes plus it could cook rice, roasts and other items – a kitchen multitasker. The problem? My husband learned to cook in a professional kitchen and doesn’t use a pressure cooker. I don’t cook (unless he is sick). AND the Instapot ALWAYS overcooks the bottom of the rice so it sticks to the pan! So now we are waiting for restrictions to ease so we can go to the ethnic store to get a real rice cooker. I’m Filipina so am particular about my rice.
Amazon sometimes has sales on the Zojirushi ones. I bought a backup last time they went on sale bc I’m neurotic about my rice texture. I have an instant pot, but only use it for cooking beans and oatmeal for my chickens in the winter.
I bought a Zojirushi rice cooker in 2011 from Amazon (the 3-cup one since that’s plenty big for us) and it still works great and gets used several times a week, a true kitchen workhorse.
Old School Tatungs are “retro looking” but they hold up well, are easy to clean (even compared to fuzzy logic nonstick machines), and can also steam foods without ruining the pot.
I’m picky about my rice and lean towards Japanese style which isn’t too loose, still fluffy, and mid grain.
Try your local hardware store. Mine ( independant/ ace hardware) has carried rice cookers for years.
A set of encyclopedia. The salesman sat on the floor of our unfurnished apartment, gazed into our gullible starry eyes and pitched it as the perfect educational tool for our future (because we didn’t have any current) offspring. Newlyweds and stupidly naive.
That happened to my parents in…1969. They still have the set.
Was this recently, like in the years of 2020 and the internet? ????
Just an FYI- I wear the mismatched socks and if anyone asks I tell them it’s s fashion statement lol!
I bought a bread machine. I love bread, but I could never get the machine to work. The bread wouldn’t rise, or there would be unmixed flour in the corners of the loaves, or something else would go wrong. Then I discovered no – knead bread and now make it all the time in my regular oven, no special machine required, no disastrous loaves. I gave the bread machine away to friends. Complete waste of $150.
My husband convinced me to leave my bread machine in the US when I moved to Europe with him. He said there was nothing more redundant than a bread maker in Europe, where there are bakeries in every corner. I don’t know about other countries, but Austrian bakeries are full of this very dense, dark, and heavy bread, which is great for eating, but is terrible for sandwiches — either too much tooth, so everything squirts out the other end, or no tooth at all and it crumbles to pieces while trying to spread on it. Plus, sometimes I miss white bread. So he ended up getting me a bread maker for Christmas three years ago. Why couldn’t I have just brought my old one??
To be fair, the 110/230 Volts thing probably would have fried it had you taken it along…
I think we are currently on our 4th (or 5th maybe?) bread maker. We buy them at Goodwill or garage sales and use them until we wear them out! Covid is making it very difficult to find yeast, so we’re actually buying more store-bought bread than ever!
My silly purchase was a used Tiganello bag on Ebay. I thought I had just looked at it…nope! It’s one I will never use. At least it was only 13 bucks. I have also purchased Bombas socks. I love them, but they are too tight for my tree trunk legs. I gave them to sister who is still swooning over them.
I wear different socks. I have two, one green one blue…they lost their colored companions but we’re still perfectly fine socks. I even sometimes wear them when I know I’ll have to take off my shoes ????
A dress. A girlie empire-waist knee-length dress suitable for an anime character. I´m tall. Like basketball-player tall. I have wide shoulders, wide hips, big …everything. And I´m 46. I just couldn´t help it. I really loved the dress.
I have done this more than once. I even had a collection of BEAUTIFUL shoes with 4” heels, none of which had been worn more than once. I KNEW I couldn’t walk in 4” heels. I can’t walk in 2” heels! I fall over. But they would be just. so. pretty. When I moved, I posted my shoes on FB and offered them to my friends, because they were too pretty to throw out. Some (mostly) complete strangers lucked out. I ended up spending almost $100 to safely home my beautiful shoes.
I deliberately did not learn any shoe websites in my new home.
The $12 pimple. I am sure there are other purchases that qualify as more stupid but this is what came to mind first. I don’t really wear makeup or do much else to my face. I am lucky if I remember to use the moisturizers or the expensive eye cream to hide my under eye bags more than a few times a year. The same bags that would go away for free if I got more sleep or covered them with makeup ????. So I can’t say what possessed me to spend $12 on a “blackhead removal tool.” But, I fell for the ads. My mom told me how cool it was so I bought one. It came with very few instructions, but really how hard could it be? Well either it is not easy or I couldn’t figure it out. It removed a couple blackheads but hardly seemed worth the money and I shoved it in the drawer feeling I had been duped. The next day a giant pimple was brewing. The kind that would rival what you would see on a teenage boy in a 80s prom movie. It was big and ugly and I paid $12 for that stupid pimple, but I remembered to put some acne spot removal creme on….
Presents are so hard and weird sometimes. My son loves Stance socks and it is a surefire win to get him a pair even if they are $15. I felt like a present champion when I bought my husband an obscure rock hound book . His reaction “huh? where’d ya get this?” but I knew it was a winner because he didnt put it down just started reading. Now frivilous was a present I bought for myself – 1 paid alot of money on kickstarter to be written into a book as a minor character by an author I used to like. It was good experience in that I had felt like I was supporting a fringe author (this was before patreon) and I got to be involved in the process a bit. my assigned character was kind of a baddie and I think the author felt bad about that so she gave me another (a sibling or cousin in the book) who was heroic in a secondary kind of way. The character also got”shipped” with another symapthetic character (rejected by the heroine for her true love) – I still have mixed feelings on this. ON one hand… I can’t believe I.. or the Other… I always imagine myself in favorite books and I was =priceless really… Glad my husband was ok with it since SFF is not his thing…
It isn’t a bad purchase but I just figured something out that would have made my life easier years ago and especially a month ago. Years ago I was given a rotary cutter for sewing. I never could get the hang of using it figuring it was my uncoordinated skills. Well I saw a you-tube video and realized the reason people could cut such nice straight lines with it is because they ran the cutter along the edge of a thick plastic ruler. It was like a lightbulb went off. I have been cutting masks so much easier with the rotary cutter now versus my scissors. So I am frustrated At myself and excited For future projects.
The hubs and I play computer games. A TON of computer games but we really love RPGs. We played a game some years ago by the name of RUNE and had the best time. They came out with RUNE II recently. We were so excited by it that we simply bought 2 sets of premium level game content without even looking…we were SO disappointed. It was BAAAAAD. They did an extensive update since so many people were upset. Hubs tried to play it again yesterday (I’ve washed my hands of it) and within a few minutes exited out and said “yeah, still sucks.”
$350 on makeup and lotion. I never used the lotion and used the makeup maybe ten times. ????????♀️
A milk frother. I had visions of cappuccinos and my children with frothy hot chocolates, forgetting that first thing in the morning I am fully focused on getting coffee in my mouth and delays to do fun things like froth milk are not contemplated.
That was the day I learned that playing on Amazon while drinking wine is a bad idea.
My idiot purchases are always things that fall under “office supplies.” I have more pens than I could ever write with before they dry out, multiple varieties of notebooks, fancy paper that then I don’t want to use because it cost too much $, etc. I have a storage tub under my bed for all the assorted items that I rarely ever pull from because there are always more recent purchased items to pull from. I can never go into Staples or Office Depot much less open my emails again from places like Erin Condren, Levenger, Happy Planner and the like.
Oh and another type of item – clipart, graphics and pretty fonts. I have so many fonts to choose from and end up using the same ones over and over. Wasted money!
I bought $50 worth of fudge in March. I kept seeing facebook ads for it. It became an obsession. So I bought it. It was terrible, really bad. I threw away most of it. So sad. It serves me right. What was I thinking?
We have a local place that ships their fudge, if you still want good fudge. ????
https://www.harvestbarnmarketplace.com/shop?page=2
My personal favorite is Cookie Dough, but the others that I’ve had are good too (and I’m not really a fudge person).
A television. Can’t remember when I last turned it on, but it’s been months ago and the only things I have ever used it for is dads, YouTube and a handful of movies off Amazon. In 3 years I don’t think I’ve averaged having it on once a month.
probably this magnificent pair of violet purple velvet over the knee boots. they were spendy, but my gosh, so beautiful, like the spirit of Prince came back to earth as a pair of boots. since I have weird wide feet and high insteps that never fit boots I sized up like I always do online, but when they arrived they were too big, like, 2 sizes too big. By that time they had sold out of every size, but again, SO PRETTY! so I tried to make them work with insoles and stuffing the toes, but they’re just too big. So I have an expensive pair of boots that I just put on and admire from time to time, while also obsessively searching ebay to see if anyone is selling them in a smaller size.
Have your tried a shoe cobbler? maybe they can fix them.
Maybe you can sell yours there, for find someone who can sell them for you.
Alpaca wool socks. Also hideously expensive. They are fuzzy and warm but they don’t stretch, making them incredibly hard to put on or take off. They also shrink when laundered, cause, well, wool. Seemed like a good idea at the time. My husband keeps his pair in the back of his sock drawer where the 3 legged nylons he got as a joke in his teen years still resides…
A beautiful bicycle – only one gear, mudguards, a chain guard, green with flower decals and a wicker basket – and I am too short! I can’t ride my gorgeous bicycle…
I fell into the Fabletics scam from seeing them on IG and FB. I actually do yoga several times a week, and they are terrible!!
I bought bulk makeup with the idea of reselling. The price was great and the profit margin would have been excellent. What I got was 40lbs of half expired, half destroyed makeup in various unwearable shades that you couldn’t even give away. This happened a few months ago but holy cow do I still get mad when I think about how I was taken for a ride.
Just spent $4K extracting baby teeth and installing spacers.
Should have been easily preventable.
Not a good price.
We feel like morons.
I bought fabric masks from an expensive French fabric house at the start of lockdown. In fact they are not practical and much too hot for the season … never put.
I put the ones I made myself with old sheets or shirts. -_-
I am laughing so hard. Thank you for the Monday giggle. I have been SO tempted to buy those dang Bombas Socks because I do have a passion for socks but honestly I prefer funny socks (Blue Q on Amazon) or wool socks for winter (I live in Oregon now and winter while not crazy cold is still pretty cold to my SoCal raised feet). My husband, correctly, accuses me of buying any kind of gadget…because gadgets are COOL. Now this is the dumb thing I convinced a friend to buy and then he went and bought one for me as a going away gift when we moved to Oregon. It’s the Suvie cooking robot. I’ll let y’all look it up if you want…and in truth it’s only sort of dumb. If I would just use it a bit more so I could get the hang of it I think it would be pretty cool. But well you know, life is busy and learning something new when my work life in lockdown has been busier than ever isn’t super easy. It DOES work but it’s like anything gadgety, if you don’t use it you won’t figure out how to make it work well for you. Hope your socks show up.
Consider it that you took one for the team! After a long conversation with my friend about the best anti-slip socks for kids she sends me a link for bombas socks. They’re so expensive I close the site. A few falls and busted lips later I go to the site and have $250 worth of socks because I have a coupon code and it’ll be worth it. Before I place the order I text her asking how much she recommends these again as they are FIVE times more expensive than the other anti slip socks on Amazon. Her reply is “oh I just saw an Ad on Facebook and thought of you. How are they? Do you recommend?!” Closed that website right away!
You have saved countless others from wasting their money!! Kudos for your review!
I have a habit of impulse buying sock yarn and not knitting it, which translates to hundreds of dollars in socks that can’t even be worn yet. ????
Everyone at sometime has waisted money on socks. I happen to love socks.
Remember shabby chic. I bought a bunch of furniture and knickknacks. Just too cute. I hate clutter and am a minimalist. What was I thinking?
look under your machines before you throw out the socks.when i moved i found a few socks under the washer and behind the dryer…idk
I kept seeing ads for a puking kitty gravy boat on Facebook. I mentioned online that I thought they were awesome. I got two of them for my birthday! Now I have to make something with gravy to try them out…
$80 UV sanitizer for my cell phone – the lights inside don’t even come on.
I’ve also bought Bombas before – both for myself and as gifts. Their hiking socks were hands down the best when I did a trip last fall through Glacier/Yellowstone/Grand Teton, though.
I have not lost any of my Bombas to the dryer gremlins, but when that day comes I will have a meltdown.
Speaking of that hiking trip, all 4 women who came brought a different ridiculously expensive first aid kit so there was that stupid purchase and then I bought both bug spray and bear spray that I couldn’t even take in a checked bag. So there was a lot of stupid before that trip.
I was thinking of buying a UV sanitizer for my phone! Thanks for letting me know how they are ????
I guess I’ll just stick to wiping my phone with Lysol
Put rice in them with some essential oil. Microwave hot water bottle!
Don’t have much money to spare at the moment so everything is a very considered purchase these days.
I did recently contemplate getting the new waterproof kindle… I like reading in the bath and toddlemonster broke my last one. Then decided it was just so much cheaper to buy sandwich bags and put the Kindle in that if I want to read in the bath. £70quid saved!
I love my Waterfi kindle. I bought it a couple of years ago when my 1st gen nook died. I did the sandwich bag thing with my Nook but the humidity does build up in it. I don’t buy many gadgets but that one was worth it ????
I read in the bathtub all the time with my normal Kindle.
Key: Don’t drop it, don’t get droplets on it, but if you do the latter, just immediately dry it. I haven’t dropped one ever in the four years I’ve had them.
My aunt bought probably 8 pairs of those ‘world’s softest’ socks. She ended up not being able to wear them comfortably and they were passed to me. They’re very fuzzy and warm…but for >$10/pair, I’ll get some nice wool hikers that I can actually wear with outdoor shoes. Or something with grippy bottoms so I don’t wipe out down the stairs. Again.
As for dumb recent purchases- I haven’t done it yet, but I’m contemplating a Roomba. Working from home has made me realize how much dust and lint etc. there is and how fast it builds up. And I am so not about sweeping or vacuuming every day. So if I make it through the upcoming layoffs, that’ll be my stupid money dump.
I had a Roomba and liked it a lot. It is a good interim cleaner but won’t do a deep cleaning. Sold it when I moved in with my hubby as he I brought cats with me and he said it stirred up the dander. So sold it and bought an air filter for his allergy.
Thanks for the vote of confidence! I don’t need a deep clean- I’m willing to do that once a month or so. I just need something to stay on top of the dust. And maybe crawl beneath the beds….. xD
I was recently seduced by some kind of eco-friendly, super nontoxic shellac nail polish remover – ads were on Facebook and featured all that polish just floating away.
I adore a good manicure and shellac is gorgeous but the removal process is arduous (soaking 20 min in acetone followed by scraping and then soaking some more) and/or destroys my nails (thank you nail lady with the dremmel thingie at the salon!).
Anyway it was cheap, came directly from China after several weeks and had leaked all over the package. Having come to my senses that either the contents were not going to work or would burn my hands in fiery torment to be that efficient…I threw it away. Lesson learned.
At least it was cheap!
I have a contribution! I recently bought a new toilet. My old toilet was over 18 years old. I’m not sure that is very old in toilet world, but I just couldn’t seem to get it sparkly clean and now dark stuff was growing and it just kept coming back. Okay, I digress. So, I bought a new toilet and hubby slapped it in. It’s so pretty! But, uh oh, my bidet seat almost didn’t fit on it. That would have been a disaster of epic proportions. Then I discovered it was about three inches higher than my old toilet. I sit there on my tippy toes. Not comfortable. I am a fan of the lowboy toilets. What was I thinking?
Maybe try a sqatty potty. I don’t have one but I loved their YouTube ads so much I went looking for them and the whole family watched. Or some equivalent product so you don’t end up needing a new toilet
Thanks! Squatty Potty! I was trying to think of the name of it. It just seems whenever I try to make things better around my house, I’m worse off. I should have just cleaned the darned thing.
I had 2. I like mine, but 6’4 hubby is too tall for his. It went to a thrift shop.
I bought a set of Zoomba DVDs from an infomercial. It seemed like a great idea. I had just had a kid and it looked like a fun way to drop the baby weight. Sadly I had forgotten one minor detail about myself. My foot/hand/eye coordination is ZERO. That is why I don’t play sports. It is for the safety of myself and others. My husband walked into the room as I tried to do a basic beginning move and about faceplanted. ???? He then proceeded to tell and SHOW me exactly what I did wrong with perfect grace and rythm. ???????? I figure I will just stick to reading books. Dancing is just not my thing.
On a side note: Walmart sells mismatched socks. My husband got me a set of 8 knee highs for Christmas. So wear your mismatched socks. Life is too short to waste time matching socks anyway. ????
Umbrellas. Zoo themed umbrellas. For my whole family. (Because I worked at the zoo in the guest services department.)
Said to the gift shop manager, “Could I get 15 of these?” “Of course!” He sent them over before end of shift via his assistant manager. Wrapping them was really awkward….
My mother loved hers. She was the only one….
I get the 10 pair multi-packs of white crew socks for the local library’s Sock Tree project at Christmas. (My only stress free shopping trip in December – go to store, buy socks, deliver to library.)
I’m a quilter and I make weird quilts with unusual fabric combinations, and I always bite off more than I can chew. I’d been looking at this really cool Charley Harper collection with raccoons and a barbecue in the moonlight. I’d been looking at it for months and wondering why no one had bought it all yet, so I bit the bullet and ordered it for my quilt backing. And I love it, but it’s a lot of raccoons. So now I’m trying to figure out what to do with 5 yards of cool raccoon fabric
Fabric masks. My niece teaches daycare and they were looking for cute fabric for masks so the kids wouldn’t be scared. I sent some fabric over. They liked the penguins making cookies, but SIL thought they were turkeys!
Way back in time when I was a newlywed and in college, my husband and I looked around the world at all things we wanted or needed, and we decided we’d buy each other socks and underwear for Christmas, because that’s what we both needed and wanted and that’s how much money we didn’t have. Throughout their childhoods, our children got socks and underwear for Christmas, along with all the rest of what they wanted and didn’t need. Turns out, after you have spent 20 years buying new socks and underwear every year, you don’t really need many more. But I still look in that direction every Christmas.
The trick to not buying things you’ll never use is to wait after you find something that looks or seems great and checking back every two days for a couple of weeks to see if it still seems like such a good idea. Impulse purchases are a bad idea, and if you stopped looking at ads online, you’d never be tempted to pay that much for something nobody needs or wants.
Incidentally, nobody asked me, but I agree with you, Ilona, on the idea that nobody has to die mining jewels so we can wear them and try to look pretty.
I bought six pairs of matching Bombas socks, because I liked the pattern and the color. It was wonderful, because I always had a matching pair. My mom (who lives with us) saw that I liked the Bombas, and bought me six more pairs. All different colors. You are so right – the best socks are the ones that are all the same, because you always have a pair!
I used to buy my husband black socks – only ever black. Made life a lot easier. Most stupid buy – a camper van. Sat in the drive for 11 years and I managed to get 12000 miles on the clock. We called it the White Elephant.
I love Bombas too! Ditto on the no-show version, especially the Merino wool. Try a bag for washing your expensive socks. That’s what I do since they do tend to the inside of other pieces of clothing and get lost.
A couple of years ago I decided it would be fun to try archery, so I bought a bow, some arrows, a quiver, a target etc. Of course I completely ignored the fact that I’m blind in one eye and have no depth perception as a result, meaning that actually hitting a target with an arrow is not gonna happen. To top it off, it’s my right eye that’s blind so I have to shoot left-handed and yup, I’m normally right-handed.
I set up the target in my backyard and even standing just a few yards away, it was a disaster. I even managed to lose some arrows — never did figure out where they went. It’s possible they just left in disgust.
At least I didn’t shoot my eye out.
I think I love this and you !
+1
Hahaha!
There is something so romantic about this.
Stupid purchases? Let me count the ways. Lol. I bought a “sun visor” for my windshield. Nope. Nope. I bought a special cushion for my I pad. Supposedly it keeps it in the correct position. Nope Nope. SMDH
I am thankful for this post as I have thought about buying these socks off and on for about 6 months. Purchase averted!
anything I have bought recently was stupid. why? cause one I have too much of everything and two because income is down. I have stuff! My kids have their own stuff and only want a few thing they feel is nostalgic. Small things. I have massive furniture, antiques, books, dishes and the crap only a mother loves. I have a pier mirror and table,table is 3 ft tall and the mirroor is 8 ft tall gilt jesso with grape leaves and phoenix carvings mid 1700’s French can’t sell it. Kids will just have to buck up when I kick it.
A while ago I was walking in the mall and got sucked in by one of those pushy beauty kiosk salesmen from a free sample give out. Somehow, he convinced me to spend $200 dollars on this skin refining peeling whatever. I found out later that the product is complete garbage, and so I tossed it. I was so embarrassed.
I’ve definitely bought clothes in a store and realized months later what the hell was I thinking, I’m never going to wear this. I’ve gotten better about that though.
I don’t know if you’d call this stupid but my sister got so bored in quarantine while she was with us that she decided to go and buy a tent from REI. We have never been camping as a family and know nothing about it. To her credit, she did test it out in my parents’ backyard during a night it rained to make sure it was okay. She also bought a sleeping bag, mattress pad, a light, and some kind of stove (?) and some other camping paraphernalia. I ended up buying her a camping chair for her birthday since she seemed to be on a camping buying spree and figured if she really was going to go camping, she should be comfortable. I agonized for hours on the REI website trying to pick the most perfect chair haha.
I think she realized though she should have splurged on a slightly bigger tent. When it tells you it’s a 2+ person tent, that is really a one person tent. You put two people in there and you have no room to store your gear (unless you put it in your car parked nearby). She wants to try to go camping at some point this summer with her very non-outdoorsy new boyfriend who has barely ever left NYC.
I’m a knitter and crocheter, and since I’m fifteen I don’t have much of a budget and yarn can be SUPER expensive. Also, I have an extreme compulsion to only buy things in blue, so I’ll take out my yarn stash and realize that all the yarn I have is blue, and then I’ll realize that there are only so many useful things one can crochet if you don’t possess infinite patience. But buying yarn is incredibly fun, so I keep doing it.
Ha! Except that I don’t toss stray socks. I wear them to bed on cold winter nights. I find that I sleep better with warm feet. Besides. Getting up to go to the bathroom isn’t such a shock in the dark.
Masks ???? wie bought 10 masks for 100€. It’s normal price around here but this things are so hideous ???? they look like groin guards…we bought more prettier one shortly after ????
I bought a Harry Potter themed face mask at the beginning of May. With a promise of 14-21 days for delivery (it said “muggles stay 6ft back” and was super cute. 6 weeks later I email the company to say “hey, where is it?” 6 back and forth emails from bots later saying the order is in process I get the mask the next day. Meanwhile during that 6 weeks JK Rowling makes another anti-trans tweet and my lbgtq 15 year old son is up in arms so now I have a mask from a fandom I’ve been following since before he was born and I can’t wear it.
Dw the entire fandom is still going strong ????
We just acknowledge that JK Rowling died in a tragic accident before she could ever create an account on Twitter. It’s really sad ????
I just got out my last set of summer sheets to put on the bed and … a sock I haven’t seen for six months. Now if I can just remember where I put its mate, in case it ever shows up again ….
Ha ha ha — oh yes, I have had that happen several times
So many things. Had to buy Apple laptop in the90’s it was$ 1400. It was for a job. They said I had to have it. Then, they said I had to use their computers. So laptop never came out of box. It’s now vintage.
Bought lots of watches, expensive, cheap , I was a watch hoarder.
And socks, I love bombas. Bought some on sale. Have tons of socks. Always on sale.
I recommend wool socks for winter.
I live in NYC and in winter, I love my smart wool socks.
My whole family are extreme shoppers. The shopping gene is strong ???? in our family.Like the Force.Except Debbie, she hates shopping . And she only buys white socks, twice a year on Amazon.
I bought a food mill, specifically to make mashed potatoes with, because doing 5 lbs of them with a ricer is so time consuming. I don’t make them often, but I was convinced that I would be able to pile this ricer full of cooked potatoes, spin it like a salad spinner, and voila! Have perfectly riced potatoes.
Not only was it not easier, it was also messier, and took almost as much time as a handheld ricer. Any time I could possibly have saved was negated by how long it took to clean the damn thing and surrounding areas. To add insult to injury, my children decided that mashed is the only way they will NOT eat a potato. And, since I bought it in store right before schools closed and life outside our house came to a screeching halt, I am still the unhappy owner of a big, bulky food mill that I have no place for in my kitchen.
Thanks for the bombas story, I was also feeling pressured to buy fancy socks. I will resist!
You don’t need a ricer. 🙂 Cut potatoes into chunks slightly bigger than an egg prior to cooking. Boils them for awhile and check for doneness. They are done when you poke one of them with a fork and the fork goes in without resistance. Bonus if potato splits. Then drain and mash them with a handheld masher. 30 seconds tops.
+1
I’ve always followed my Grandma’s recipe for mash:
Just stick the potatoes in the microwave and turn it on for about 3 minutes. Check for doneness as you said. Cut them into chunks and put them in a bowl with butter, milk, salt, pepper and whisk/blend it all into mash I usually use either a stick blender or my grandma’s stand mixer.
Hanes socks, white, 6 pairs in a pack. Usually around $10. Best socks ever, and they always match.
An organ. An upright-piano-sized organ, foot pedals and all. My father-in-law was entranced by an organ-playing demonstrator at a mall. He loved music. He bought the organ. He couldn’t read music, never played an instrument, but he wanted that organ. And then he asked me to show him how to play it, because I was a teacher. I never took piano lessons, and the only thing I could play was a tape recorder. He thought that all he had to do was learn how to operate all the buttons and pedals and he would fill the house with music. The organ sat in their living room for twenty years. The grandkids goofed around on it. Nobody ever played a song on it. Dad was very disappointed in me because I failed to show him how to make music on it. The salesman made it look so easy!
I once bought an accordion and two boxes of “teach yourself accordion” books and beginner sheet music (I got them at a friend’s estate sale). Fortunately, I only spent $50, because my Austrian fiancé threatened to break off the marriage if I considered bringing it with me. Apparently he doesn’t like his native traditional music.
Squirrel-proof bird feeder for suet. No bird feeder for suet is squirrel-proof.
The trick to squirrel-proofing your suet is getting the correct suet: you need the hot pepper kind. It is suet with powdered cayenne pepper mixed into it. Your local bird store probably has several kinds.
Mammals won’t eat it, so no squirrels, raccoons, opossums, skunks, etc.
But the hot pepper doesn’t bother birds so they’ll yum it up. We regularly attract woodpeckers, nuthatches, blue jays, and wrens.
I used to rarely buy things off of ads on social media, but during the Covid “everything’s on sale for deep discounts” time period, I got suckered in by one of the social media and did an $100 impulse buy of the Zip Top containers. I do think the Zip Top containers areprobably good and worth buying, but I realized after I clicked purchase that the site I was purchasing probably just used the same video / images as the Zip Top brand but wasn’t actually the official brand, and immediately tried to cancel the purchase because you don’t want to mess with food safety (who knows what materials they used). A lot of those deals (70% off!!) seem like a great deal but I am now much more careful and saavy about doing some research before hitting purchase. Oftentimes the discount is fake and you can get similar brands at the “discounted” price, or it’s a misleading site that offers discounts on brands that don’t typically do discounts (e.g. could be knock offs). I felt like a noob at social media purchases lol.
I should never shop when I am bored. Seeing as I live alone and am under restrictions because of the pandemic I am bored a lot. I’ve bought new towels in yellow and turquoise along with tons of duck themed things to redo my guest bath in rubber ducks. I bought all new furniture and art for the dinning room including a buffet, china cabinet, and new table and chairs. It was needed but not necessarily at this precise moment. I ordered a silk ficus for the corner of the living-room and then bought color changing fairy lights to go on it so I can decorate it for various holidays. The two biggest “I can’t believe I bought that” situations are recent purchases of picture frames and Sketcher sneakers. I had a number of photos that I wanted to hang up and ended up somehow buying 30 different pictures frames from a couple of different stores on-line and Amazon. Ooops. I think I only needed 8 or 9 frames. So now I have a bunch of frames that I need to fill. I love the Sketcher slip on sneakers and have owned 5 pairs in different colors for several years. I decided that they were getting a little worn so I was going to order a new pair. By the time I was done I had bought 6 new pairs. They are all super cute and in different colors that match things I own but really who needs 11 different pairs of sneakers. That’s not including the Nikes and Converse All Stars I own too. Now I try to walk away from the computer and do something else before I finalize my purchase so I can have a cooling off period. The one thing I can say is that I am able to afford all of my purchases, at least I’m not going into debt to alleviate my boredom.
Two summer dresses from an Instagram site that a friend and I had checked into and found they were in CA. Free shipping. Cute dresses. BUT nope! It’s all shipping from China and they are a child company of a bigger import company. You only find that out when they charge your PayPal and the name comes across differently. I may see it next year. Certainly not in time this year for summer. I’ve requested a refund via PayPal after repeated attempts to contact. All they do is send me a USPS tracking number and it doesn’t have any label associated. Grr. I saw it coming. I just didn’t duck.
NoraCora. I was lucky my bank declined the purchase because it was Hong Kong. I was so lucky. It makes me so mad because those ads are everywhere and seem to be Google ‘s bread and butter, but it’s a scam. The photos of their “cool” clothes are ripped off or faked and most people get cheap reproductions or nothing and never get their money back. One thing I learned after that close call when buying online is to use a major credit card and not PayPal or a Debit card because it’s easier to get my money back.
Omg, I got suckered TOO! The clothes look rad in the pics, but I should’ve known better. Too good to be true prices! And not to get an immediate purchase confirmation was a tip-off.
Sadly that’s not my worst or most embarrassing purchase!
Gowns. I don’t get it. I stopped wearing dresses or skirts since I was 8, and only wore dresses/gowns for quinceañeras (including my own), or at weddings (in Mexico there is was no ‘casual’ or ‘cocktail dress’).
Yet for some reason, I walk by Macy’s dress department and the little princess inside me gets captivated like girls and bling (or something is on sale) and I buy it “just in case”. I have 5 unworn formal dresses and gowns hanging inside protective bags in my closet, including one that’s only appropriate for a red-carpet event. That’s at least $500 in there.
Aayyy… qué le hacemos…
The inner princess is a demanding bitch.
I rarely wear jewellery for more than an hour at a time, I put on make-up maybe twice a year, I can’t walk in heels of any kind (my default footwear are karrimor pull ons or crocs) and glittery, lacy and sequinned fabrics make me itchy.
Now ask me how many pairs of long dangly earrings I own, of way too high heels, the number of bottles of bright glittery nail polish and the varied pots of colourful eyeshadows. . . .
Maybe I’d better join you when you’re next going down the red carpet to the Oscars (though my inner princess seems to thinks she’s a sparkle rainbow unicorn rather than a glamorous jet setter)
“The inner princess is a demanding bitch.”
There is so much truth in this.
100%
I know, right? Do you have an invitation for the next event? (I certainly never would). Although with quaratine, I am 100% certain I can’t fit into any of them anymore.
I have a shoe thing too….but since I’m not much into purses, mani-pedis, spa time or other clothes (I always conveniently forget how many dresses I have), I allow myself to have shoes as my one girly weakness (I don’t turn my nose up at Payless either). And again, forgetting those dresses in my closet….
Jukebox and Donna A. – You made me laugh so loud, I scared my dogs! Thank you so much! I’m laughing as much with you as at myself cause I too have an inner princess bitch that wants stuff the outer practical me would never, ever wear! Thank you again – I really needed that????????????
We can also talk about even more ridiculously expensive socks; I make my own handknit socks. Calculate the price of the yarn and my hourly rate at my day job, and each pair of socks that I knit for myself are easily $300 each.
I have those round pyrex storage bowls with rubber/plastic lids, after a while they split and break and get brittle. I decided to reorder the lids. it would have helped if i’d been at home when I reordered them. if two are good the price of six are better! but only if you guess the correct size. plus the shipping….. I have the choice of donating the lids to good will or buying replacement bowls for the other size…………….
I am in Dallas. My feet are always cold, just saying….
I bought a wifi extender, no reason. I live alone. My wifi seems to be fine. I am not even sure what to do with it.
I’m impressed my extender never shipped after 2 months got a refund
Probably a 5.5lbs bag of Callebaut Dark Chocolate. In my defense, I really needed some chocolate at the time. But maybe not that much. Oh well.
At least it was chocolate … a lot of it, but still, shocolate
… it would really surprise you just how much volume 4 oz of loose-leaf white tea takes up. I had no idea how to store it … was more than my largest countertop canister.
Not sure if this counts – spent hundreds to outfit a game character in an online game that I played for about 6 months – 6 months later and the game gets taken down. They would only refund in game purchases made 4 months prior to take down. Was a bit vexed.
Spending money I don’t have to outfit a character that doesn’t even exist in rl… The story of my life
I bought a name brand leather handbag ,list price $325, on ebay it cost $180 including shipping and tax. I usually never spend more than $125 I must have had a virus caused impulse . An hour later ,no returns, I saw the very same bag for $65. I’m happy with the bag but not myself.I consider myself a “professional” bargain shopper so this is an even more embarrassing personal failure.
Stupidest thing I bought erre probably the shoes, that don’t fit. Although it wasn’ t that stupid to buy them. Just annoying that they fit in the shoe shop and after five minutes wearing them, I have bloody heels….or maybe I am just a bad step-sister…
Anyway, there is a German online shop, called “dedoles” that sells mismatched socks. They have the same theme, like “dandelion”, but the pair itself looks diffrent. They are coloutfull snd funny and I love them to pieces. Maybe you should have a look ????
Stupidest thing I ever bought… (wait… there’s so much competition for that title…)
It has to be the big lump of wood, some sort of old tree stump, that I bought from Wayfair for a footstool.
It started when my husband was griping that he needed something to prop his feet on when we sat in the chairs in the bedroom. I also know him to be rather inattentive as to whether or not he has removed his shoes, so I only have wooden tables in the living room for coffee tables/foot props, and I don’t mind him using them. But there was no room between the chairs on the footboard of the bed to put any kind of big table. And then VOILA, like magic, there was a hunk of weird wood on Wayfair and I WAS NOT ON DRUGS and I still bought it. I cannot for the life of me explain how I thought it was going to look good.
1) it’s really really heavy.
2) it’s really ugly… it looks like a sort of disembodied hawk face if I turn it the wrong way, with hollow evil eyes
3) it ALSO doesn’t fit in the space, so I have to pick it up to move it if we want to use it and
4) it’s really uncomfortable to use (not really the right height).
Carl thought it was the dumbest thing to order and I exclaimed with all due confidence that I was going to LOVE IT and be so happy I ordered it and now I am never ever ever going to be able to get rid of it because he will mock me forever.
(Thank god he doesn’t read my comments on the internet.)
argh… between then chairs *and* the footboard on the bed…
that sock company was in shark tank right? daymond john invested.
My husband bought a Moto g Fast smart phone this month on Amazon a few days before release (because Motorola was sold out of pre-orders) and then separately bought a case and tempered glass screen protectors for it . Paid extra for shipping to have the protection when the phone arrived. Phone and screen protectors are great, but The phone case vendor lied about the case being made for the g Fast model in the header, bullets, and image. This case did not exist even in China on the release date (talked to a Chinese phone case vendor in California that sells thousands of them on eBay). The vendor shipped old style case that he called Moto g Fast. Now we’re out the express shipping and if we want to send this $7.98 piece of junk back, Amazon wants to charge us return shipping + $3.00 handling. I can’t even get in touch with the Amazon “Partner” vendor, because there is no vender name or address on the package (which,BTW, arrived late). Amazon won’t take any responsibility for the disreputable vendor Who is still allowed to sell on Amazon, and only had them state in their ad that this case is not available right now, in the same ad they are still running with the same misinformation. I will NEVER buy from an Amazon “Partner” again. It’s not the first time I’ve had trouble with Amazon over disreputable “partners”, but it will be the last, and I won’t use them for anything but Kindle Books. How’s Your Amazon Shopping Working Out, Friends?
As ForThe Socks, during an expensive washer repair, the repairman said that I could avoid ever seeing him again, if I got some zippered laundry bags and used them for anything small, like underwear, bras, socks, sleep masks, what-have-you. I’ve been using them for 4 years, now, and have never lost another thing to the machine. Also I match everything up as I take them out of the drier, so nothing gets lost in the shuffle.Hubby cut a board from an old piece of plexiglass to place over the slop sink next to the washer, and now sorting is a breeze.
Have we suddenly found out where all the missing socks have gone?!!!!
Is this kind of like the vet opening up the goat and finding the clothesline as well as the missing shirt?
I rarely buy new clothes. My local thrift stores were crazy quality, even designer labels. As my dad always told me, live where the rich people live. They keep the roads and trains in terrific condition. And there is always someone with servants quarters and caretaker buildings to rent. So I discovered living for a time on the Philly Mainline; maybe you have see the Grant Hepburn movie “The Philadelphia Story”. Yup, like that. So it is a pretty big deal for me to order clothes online. Unfortunately, I shopped with a company called Noracora. Turned out to be one of those scammy places that steal beautiful pics from good companies. When the clothes arrived, they were ridiculously awful. I mean, rags. No quality embroidery, special stitching, high quality fabric. Just wonky serge cuts, weird split seams, fraying, poly, spray painted cheap yuck. I felt so stupid, but live and learn. Took forever to get social media to stop linking their ads to me. Reported to BBB.
OMG, I just ordered $94 worth of all cotton dresses from them! Maybe if I’m lucky at least one of them will be ok.
Not recently, but I once bought a set of Corning Visions cookware. Stovetop cookware made of Pyrex, looks beautiful. What’s not to love? The problem is that Pyrex holds the heat. So, if you are making a sauce and need to turn the heat down, the pan stays hot for a long time and the sauce overcooks. IF you are pouring a sauce out of the pan onto pasta, for example, because the pan stays hot, the last bit of sauce always scorches and has to be scoured off. And things would stick to the fry pan worse than any other surface I had used. Stupid idea from the folks at Corning; stupid of me to buy them; but they were beautiful so laong as you didn’t try to use them.
I just blew $20 on two dish towels at the grocery store … why buy dish towels at the grocery store? Most of my dishtowels are ratty, and I wanted to buy a treat to cheer myself up, so I bought two white & grey matching dish towels. … for $10 bucks each.
Should have just bought a diamond.
I decided that during lockdown I needed games to play. LOTS of games. So I went on a crazy bender and spent too much money buying all these little sale games I will most likely never even download. Additionally, despite my random habit of only playing sims for three days solid about every 8 months building a house and then getting fed up, I paid out for several expansions AND even pre-ordered the new eco living expansion. Which I got and now do not like as my solar panels keep getting dirty and my wind turbines break and the bugs die and I STILL DON’T HAVE A GREEN ECO HOUSE!!!
A spindle-style wooden chair, painted white, with a grayish-green paisley-like pattern on the seat cushions. I thought it’d go well with my spindle legged side table, but the chair was bigger than I thought, and uglier. It wasn’t going to fit in the living room very well so I put it out on the balcony. I couldn’t return it cuz I’d torn up the box to get the chair parts out (yep, I had to put it together). It’s heavy, too. ???? Cost me 165.00. My cat uses it sometimes.
I’m a sucker for sauté pans. I have them all sizes and finishes. If a company makes a new style, I buy it. It’s stupid because I’m retired and the only time I cook for anyone but me is when I cook for a fellowship meal once a month or when my nephews come over for dinner once a month. But I keep buying them.
My daughter is getting married in July. So 90% of our shopping for this has been done online because you know, pandemic. We kept thinking she would postpone but nope, she refused. I am not sure why. We have all tried to talk her round. But the crazy purchase was my mother of the bride dress. It looked great online. My daughter’s wedding colors are purple and light blue. The dress from JJ’s House was supposed to be a deep purple with a classy silver lace overlay in a classic 50’s sillouette. What I got was a grape color with gold lace overlay. The back of the dress was cut too long causing it to gap open making me look deformed. It’s has a “boat neck” that was too high and off center. I was left with two options. Return the dress and get my money back. Then I would not have a dress for the wedding. The second option was to take it to the dressmaker and put more money in the dress getting it fixed. ( At that time formal shops were not open. Most still are not)I ended up going with second option putting nearly another $100 into the dress. At this point, I hate the thing. And to make it even better, the minute my daughter saw it, she asked if I could return it. This after I altered it… . There is no practical way to replace the dress before the wedding. You can’t even try on clothes in stores now. At least this thing fits… Even if it’s awful….
Oh god, I have a whole bunch of stupid purchases. The worst? A “precision” bamboo cutting board, with markers for dice, julienne, etc. I’m sure I will use it once or twice and decide it’s a waste of time and effort as I’m a home cook, not a chef who could do that without benefit of help. I have also accumulated all sorts of Pilates equipment. Useful, but I don’t know if I need 3 sizes of stability balls, or a pair of rotating disks. Sigh.
I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect handbag for years. As I tend to do, I bought one that was about the best I could find at the time, but it’s a very pale colour and I am death to anything white-adjacent. Within seconds of appearing in my orbit anything light will be marked with something indelible. Give it to me for a month and you will be asking what it’s original colour was.
So despite having a functioning, if not ideal, handbag, I was still on the lookout. In early March this year I walked past an expensive bag store in a city I was visiting. Lo and behold, they have an exceedingly cool handbag in the window – and it’s in a colour that suits me incredibly well.
So in I go, knowing this is a bad idea because the bag will be expensive. By expensive I mean more than $800. You just sucked in a breath and made that squinchy face, didn’t you.
Well. The bag is beautiful to look at, but not perfect to use – I can’t wear it over my shoulder or as a crossbody, and the pockets are few. So the sales assistant goes out the back and returns with another style in the same colour. Again, very nice but there’s no closure at the top to keep my stuff from falling out when I inevitably forget to keep the bag upright.
She goes away again and returns with two more bags, both teeny tiny. One is a smaller version of the first bag with 0 pockets and 0 ability to wear over my shoulder etc and is really too small to fit anything inside and is sooooo cuuuute!!!!! The other is more frilly than my usual taste but I can see that it would be great for going to the races.
I dislike the races. I do not go to the races.
So there are four bags laid out before me, one that can’t be worn the way I need to wear it, one that won’t keep my stuff from falling out in my usual lifestyle, one that can’t fit the basics in, and one that would only work for an event I actively refuse to attend.
I bought them all.
$2,700.
Yep.
Don’t ask me, I really do not know. I really do NOT know.
I am renovating my house. I am partly doing this because there is no bathroom and part of the east exterior wall is FALLING OFF! Renovating takes money. Lots of money. I could do a lot with $2,700. I could install a bathroom. I could build a new exterior wall.
Even if I weren’t renovating, in what universe do I have $2,700 (!!!!!) to spend on handbags? Not this one. Definitely not this one.
Immediately after this moment of stunning intelligence and wisdom I went into the shop next door and bought another bag – another bag! – which, though still not perfect, I use every day.
The first four bags? Never used ’em.
????????OMGOSH. I hope you write / do stand up professionally. I read this out loud to my husband & we both were in tears. Thank you!????????
How lovely of you to say! I absolutely love laughing, it’s one of my favourite things ever. Telling stories to my friends about my activities pretty much guarantees there will be laughter in my life, so I do that as often as possible.
I’m sure there are several hundred stupid things I’ve bought over the years, but the only thing I can think of is the gel nail polish
and a gel lamp thingy. That was last November and I still haven’t opened the box. Not a huge expense, but I should know myself better by now!!
I bought a pair of Bose Frames – sunglasses that play music for £160 (around $200). I thought it would be so cool to be outside, out for a walk, in my cool sunglasses, listening to my favourite tunes, without any cables dangling around or without wireless headphones that keep falling out of my ear or make it all hurt-y. I live in London. We have three sunny days per year and I look pretty stupid wearing them on a cloudy day. We are required to wear masks on public transport, which means the glasses fog up like crazy and I can’t see squat when I take a bus or a train (when I need music the most because people, ugh). My phone heats up when I play music for more than 30 minutes. I refuse to send them back because I hoard gadgets, and they are cool. And mine.
Hahaha that’s awesome. Sounds like something I would do.
One of the gals in my Tai Chi class makes it a point of pride to wear mismatched socks and jeans that are short enough to show them off.
I got suckered by a Facebook ad for a sweater. It was supposed to look sort of like a blazer and was knotted with different colors – sort of boho. When the knitted sweater arrived, it was a cheap, scratchy polyester, poorly- printed jacket. Ugh!
Mine was a beautiful dressy chic fitted coat. I ordered it in late August, they said two weeks, and in October I mailed them and said “send me my coat or return my money today!” The coat arrived, and it’s paper thin — would have been great in early September, but by mid-October, it’s winter. But that’s ok, I’ll wear it next summer, right? It turns out that not only is it so well-fitted that I can’t wear anything underneath, once I have it on, the only place to wear it is to go clubbing.
I don’t go clubbing.
Also at Christmas, I periodically buy ridiculously expensive socks made from recycled or low environmental impact materials at one of our independent clothing / outdoor stores. What’s worse is I share my excitement at “saving resources” and “reducing my carbon footprint” whilst buying socks that cost more than my shoes with my nearest & dearest. Thus, pulling them into the global market of overpriced socks shipped from another hemisphere so we can all “buy local”. For years now we’ve exchanged overpriced socks from around the globe. I refuse to throw them out when one of the mates goes MIA. I just wear mismatched socks. It’s a downward family spiral of eco-conscious fashion shame.
I too bought bomba socks. They were just socks. I’m thinking I’d framing them. They’re too expensive to wear.
Useful hint: if no one sees your socks (I.e. long pants, boots, etc. ) no one notices if your socks don’t match. I speak from personal experience. Also, there is a theory that the rings of Saturn consist of socks that have gone through the Black Hole that seems connected to most dryers.
I wanted to get back to knitting after 30 years. I used Christmas Visa cards to go into a wool store, showed the lady the blanket that I wanted to make with huge wool and asked her to find me the right-sized needles. Well, $180 bucks later at home, I realize the wool has actual wool in it, which itches me to death, the huge attached needles kill my wrists, fingers and thumbs as I fight to force them through the loops AND I’m making a ridiculously expensive throw blanket for the cottage that I’ll never finish and that I could have bought at Marshalls for a lot less in cotton, without torturing my hands. Duh. No refunds from the store for the 9 balls I’ll never use. Worst purchase ever. ????
Kids these days are wearing mismatched socks! Embrace your inner kid.
Stupid purchases:
1. Anything nice for my brother and his wife. They never ever put anything out and dumped all the nice things when they moved.
2. Clothing that speaks to me in the store and then shuts up just after I cut off the labels and wear it for the first time. (Colour, fit, practicality…)
I have enough black socks for much of the free world, since my whites gray quickly. But they always match!!
Yes! This is my answer too.
Black socks always match, even when they are different kinds of black, because your ankles are not noticed *that* closely under pants.
Mesh laundry bags are awesome. I wash socks in them and it saves me from losing them in the washer and dryer.
I recently bought a expensive pair of Bamboo Yoga pants. Saw them on Facebook everywhere, cost me $50. They arrived 1 week ago and now have a rip, and bleed color in the laundry machine 🙁
“Why would you even buy socks for Christmas unless the person requested socks or loves them beyond all reason? Christmas is supposed to be about fun gifts.”
@Ilona
In Iceland if you don’t have new socks for Yule, the Yule Cat will eat you. 🙂
(I suspect it’s tied into a lot of the old myths in Germanic/Scandinavian areas that if you didn’t do your work b yuletide you were punished, and not having new socks probably meant you or those that ared for you had shirked your work. And/or tied into the real concerns of frost bite??? It’s a theory).
I am firmly addicted to sockwell socks. They’re expensive around $20 a pair. But they’re the only socks I’ve ever owned that don’t twist all around my feet (or fall down) as I wear them, plus the compression is great for when I’m standing for long hours at art festivals, or in long trips by car or airplane with elevation changes. Plus they don’t overheat me in summer, bu keep me warm in winter. 3 years in, I’ve yet to have a hole develop in any of them too. Some socks, are worth the hype, but many are not.
Four of the wrong size bras, just last week. I couldn’t go try them on at the store and I ordered the size I was a long time ago. Then my husband washed them so I wouldn’t catch COVID from whoever packed them and now they are mine forever. Too expensive not to wear. Too small for proper containment. You are not alone.
Not foolish, just underused.
I bought a knitting machine to knit my son’s socks (size 18 foot). However, where I bought it from is over 6 hours away, so nobody was able to show me how to use it. Thanks to YouTube and a friend that has a different type of knitting machine, I’m slowly learning how, but then the CV hit so it’s back on hold and I’m still hand knitting socks. (They do last for 3 years or more, so that’s good).
Survival food and supplies. I started out with an old fashioned pitcher pump to attach to the well out near the “barn” so that when we lose electricity we still have water. Then I got caught up in buying ‘terrific’ 25 year shelf life food for when the economy collapses and we have to survive. We got a small generator and I am considering getting solar cells to power it! I have turned the spare bedroom closet into a pantry! I am prepared!
If I bought something stupid, it probably had to do with a kitchen item. I’ve tried to become more intelligent as I get older but I still have the bad habit of buying a kitchen item that only does one thing, it’s useful for a while, and then gets buried in a drawer or cabinet until I do a major purging (like how I spent March and April!) and it gets put in a donation box.
As for socks, I have generic white ones and black ones. My daughter LOVES ankle socks and I don’t think I have ever seen her wear a matching pair!
Here’s my house’s recent list of Why Did We Buy THIS? Dog crate for the MinPin who won’t even look at it (complete with cushy cushion) $75, expensive Sous Vide gizmo I only used to make Starbucky egg bites but then Costco came out with them $160, silly back inverter thingy so you can hang sorta upside down without any benefits whatsoever $175, expensive Instapot only used to make beef stew 2 or 3 times until we quit beef altogether $150, imported mochi making machine that’s never been used (actually the box has never been opened!) since we’re mostly low carb now $250, Franz Keto Bread $7.50 loaf (truly GROSS), and too much fresh Dungeness lump crab meat my husband buys for $34.99/lb and eats maybe 2 or 3 tablespoons before throwing the rest out (he forgets I eat crab!!) and bags upon bags of specialty gourmet dog food for the MinPin who decided he will only eat the Cesar wet dog at $0.99 each (he eats 3 per day = $3!!! per day to feed the 18 lb [darling] monster). Lordy! I can’t even tally up the weird things my 90 year old mom buys from the tv 🙁
As for socks, visit BlueQ for the funniest socks on the planet if you like irreverent and profane humor with snark. Plus, they are actually good socks! My grandkids love them best.
A small loom. It seemed like a good idea at the time…It did actually work, but I really didn’t enjoy weaving so I went back to knitting. I was very glad I didn’t get the spendy one!
That was my isolation purchase too! All I’ve done so far is open the box and look at it. I’d always wanted a loom, and, like you, thankfully I didn’t get an expensive one!
I was convinced that there would not be food during the next corona wave, and i bought massive amounts of seeds for the garden. Way more than I have space for.
I bought a Santa climbing a ladder for my grandson. It showed up after Christmas and my daughter said the face was scary and it climbed up but wouldn’t come back down. It went in the garbage immediately. ????
Just had a baby. Lucky it is #2 so just confined to buying a 35$ sleeping sack bc it said the baby would sleep. I would do almost anything. BTW didn’t help her sleep.
I’m addicted to socks from Bamboo Clothing (UK brand). They are around £19 ($24) for a pack of 4. But they are honestly the best socks I’ve ever worn and now the only ones I’ll wear. I literally won’t wear other socks any more.
Stupidest purchase of late? Um…not sure. Probably access to a online photography course. It was super discounted and looked good. And I’d probably enjoy it…but then I bought a horse and now all my time is spent on the horse and not doing other stuff!
I have not bought this yet but I want a set of Furls crochet alpha series hooks. I already have a set of streamline AND streamline swirl. There’s no reason for me to get a set of alpha hooks which are like $80 per hook! I’m just greedy.
A split Sheepskin fleece-lined $400.00 jacket for my Husband while we lived in Susanville, where it does snow in winter. This is the man who picked me up for a date in his 62 jimmy in bare feet, shorts, and a berkeley T-shirt with holes in it in a snow storm. Warm has never been a problem for him.
Duh
Biggest money waster recently?
I love to play games on my PC, I have been a gamer for decades. Skyrim is one of my all time favorites, but Splinter Cell and many others also get time. I like my graphics on high as the worlds are so beautiful and I hate lag and shadowing. So I get custom built gaming machines from Falcon Northwest. They also offer amazing custom paint jobs on the cases. See where this is going?
I spent $3500 on a awesome gaming computer that included a cheaper paint option of raindrops on cobalt. 1000’s of individual drops of water look like they are beaded on the computer case and running down it. It’s amazing. If you have a spotlight. The salesman mentioned to me that the color was dark, I brushed him off because of the pictures. The pictures are under very bright light. So the raindrops aren’t as noticeable under normal conditions.
6 months after I get my new toy? I got a promotion for a job working 85 hours a week. My expensive gaming computer sits on my desk ignored for weeks at a time. But hey, 3-4 times a year I take a week off and turn it on. And they really do build first class computers with a rock solid 3 year warranty.
Here is a picture of the paint job from their website.
https://www.falcon-nw.com/falcon/custom-painting/gallery?type=desktops&model=&color=&artwork=&id=3432
You bought a Falcon? Why… Why? Cyberpower is half the money and you have to replace the system in 3 years anyway.
I bought a Wii. A discontinued since 2013 Wii. My lockdown dreams of bowling, tennis, and dancing are in a box, waiting for me to set up a previously well used, discontinued, Wii.
Better than wine from Italy.
I don’t like wine ????
My friends had a ball with that purchase.
Fancy hats. I was at Mardi Gras in NO and went into a hat shop. I bought 3 hats (one with netting that covered your face). I was in my 20s and spent almost $300 on dance hats. I, of course, never had a place to wear them (or the wardrobe to wear them with), but those beautiful hat boxes sat in my closet for years.
*fancy not “dance” LOL
A pasta making machine.
The video showed that you just dump ingredients together and the machine magically makes fresh, yummy pastas, in various shapes in just a few minutes. It looked so easy and delicious ! The people in the video looked so happy, the comments online were positive and some Italian chef said it was a good machine. So we bought one for Christmas.
Sigh
Turns out you have to measure super precisely each ingredient, or it will make the pasta too hard or too soft and it doesn’t work. Turns out that the type of flour you use is not the same one the engineers who built the machine and measured the doses, used to make their pastas.
Anyway, it took us 10 tries to find the exact right dosage for the flour we have and have an okay texture.
But…the pastas did not taste that great, compared to what you can buy in stores.
So we need to explore how we can improve on the taste and start experimenting different recipes (different dosage?). One day. Maybe.
For now, we just got back to buy pasta from the store, because it so much quicker and taste so much better. I hate that machine.
I have looked at bomba socks but the reviews weren’t high enough for me to justify. I can justify smart wool socks. Worth every penny for the ones with arch support
I had a photo of my son and his gf. ‘yellow peopled’ (Name of Company) … Meaning they were cartooned to look like people out of the Simpson’s TV show. It was expensive and I had the background customized to the photo I submitted because it showed their new house purchase. My kid one likes the syndicated show so I thought it would be a great birthday gift. Turns out for about 200 dollars you only get a digital picture. Thankfully before I spent more money on a print I showed it to my son… To a lukewarm review … “Meh! Not my thing”
I almost bought the Bomba’s. I really wanted them. Yes I live in Southern California. I think we had frost twice last winter.
My husband fell for the Duluth Trading Company underwear with the silly commercials. They may be soft but the stitching started to unravel after a few washes.
Ask their customer service. They may actually take them back. I shopped at their discount outlet once and they made a big deal about the outlet stuff being non-returnable because of their otherwise great return policy. I don’t know about underwear, but ran into a guy in the store who was there while they exchanged his fire hose pants for the third time at no cost. (The pants weren’t badly made, his choices of how to use them was e.g. using a chainsaw inattentively with normal pants. Good thing they were tough!)
I ordered a 25 lb bag of potato flakes from Bobs Red Mill, $93 with shipping. Why? Because my younger son has been struggling with gluten intolerance, and I was tired of paying the higher prices for the one lb bags and the packaging waste. I looked at the size of the one lb bags and tried to visualize how much space 25 of them would take up. AND of course the pandemic hits as we’re trying to find solutions, so it was on back order for a month. By the time it gets shipped, Mark declares that he should be avoiding nightshade foods which means potatoes are out. When the mailman delivered this large and very heavy box I was so embarrassed, and I could tell he couldn’t figure out what I could possibly need in that quantity and weight. So now what can I do with all these potatoes and the great big box? I just pushed it behind a chair in my living room. Every morning when I got my coffee I would see it lurking there and I would start laughing at the great potato debacle. I finally opened it up about a month later, and it ended up taking a LOT more room than 25 one lb bags. I have gallon freezer bags stashed in every nook and cranny. I even bought three large food grade restaurant quality tubs, but I really needed to buy 8-10. And there was potato flake slime over every surface after I was done putting it all away and I had to wipe everything down at least 3 times. I think so far we have eaten about 3 lbs max.
Now when my family sees me trying to overthink something, all they have to say is “potatoes.”
I fell victim to Bomba as well. I gave them away and went back to my danskin socks from Walmart. All white, never worry about pairs
I bought an awesome LG sidekick pedestal (dryer pedestal AND mini-washing machine in one). It is amazing, it is wonderful, I got it at an INSANE price!
It doesn’t fit under my dryer or washing machine. It’s 2 inches too short. T_T So I took this amazing, super-cheap item back because I didn’t want to spend a lot of extra time and money trying to get it to actually fit into my laundry room. I woulda had to tear out all the trim and build a pedestal for my pedestal. Still upset, I was looking forward to never having to wash my hand-washables by hand again *sniff*.
Other stupidest thing I bought recently: a bridge. An actual small little bridge! It is really small, and goes over my tiny ‘stream’ in my backyard with my tiny pond. Dunno how to attach a picture or I’d show it. It makes me ridiculously happy. I tore out a dying juniper and put it between two lovely chinese fringe bushes.
If it makes you ridiculously happy, it was NOT a stupid purchase. I’d call it required.
Good point, thanks!
I need milk and bread, so I did an online grocery order. My $200 grocery order will be delivered within the next hour…. it doesn’t have any milk or bread in it.
*face meets palm*
I bought my husband a new grill for his birthday. Then I topped it off with a grill canopy with shelves on three sides. A beautiful design. That was two years ago and he still hasn’t unboxed it, let alone put it up over the grilling spot.
He finally admitted he had no plans to do so, in the belief that the first good monsoon storm would blow it over and probably two or three lot down, panicking dogs and horses at the neighbor’s pasture. We’re going to gift or donate the thing.
I have gotten my husband, in the last nine years, so many gifts that he was very excited about:
1) a super expensive telescope that you hooked up to your laptop and it would tell you what you were looking at. Used once.
1A) a battery for said laptop that would charge in your car’s cigarette lighter. So we could rent a car, get out of the city, and look at stars. Never used.
2) an all-in-one music thingie that played CD’s, vinyl, and MP3’s through the USB port. I bought it so he could record all his vinyl onto MP3’s. It turns out you have to play the entire record through to record it, which he has no patience for (he has trouble listening to a whole SONG). Still in box with original tape.
3) the Himalayan Salt Lamp gag gift. I ordered it from Etsy, thinking it was about a hand high and they were kind of screwing me on shipping. No, when it arrived, it was over a foot tall and weighed five kilos, this massive block of pink salt, which absolutely wouldn’t fit on his desk. It sits in the living room and hasn’t even been plugged in since it arrived. Last week we caught the cats licking it. One of them, anyway.
And the ones he’s gotten me:
1) the ice cream maker I begged for, but when it came it turned out to work completely differently from the way I thought it would and hasn’t been used once.
2) the Instant Pot. I have two recipe books from Amazon for it, and all of the recipes are those that just don’t need a pressure cooker. That’s ok, it’s a slow cooker! Except all the slow cooker recipes I know use US products (particular brands of BBQ sauce or grape jelly — there is no such thing as grape jelly in Austria).
It’s probably a very good thing that you have photo comments turned off. This thread is too perfect, everyone would be posting pictures.
I have two instant pots now. I started out with the 3 quart one and it stayed in the box for almost 6 months. I would just watch videos on how to use it. I started out with what I called “dummy” recipes and with ingredients that wouldn’t be a disaster to throw away. I slowly built up my confidence with the machinery. Now I make a lot of soups. Pinto beans and any other beans are great. I also cook chicken, beef, or pork in the 6 quart pot. I just throw in my favorite salsa with some fresh onions and other spices and then shred the leftovers and freeze it in individual portions. The pots take up a lot of shelf space, but since I figured out how to use them as simply as possible, they are very popular in my house. I only use them for easy recipes and the most effort I am willing to make is chopping vegetables and meats. Meats cook most consistently if they go in with all pieces very similar in size.
Chicken broth is the only thing I’ve really made in it. For Avgolemono soup.
Donate that telescope (and battery)to a high school with an astronomy club. We loved our donated scopes!
It wasn’t obviously stupid at the time, but… 2 pairs of $300 heels right before I broke my ankle. They’re still sitting in their boxes in my closet because, dammit, hope springs eternal.
I spent £80 on cashmere long socks for my dad as his feet get cold in bed. He has gnarly hard skin on the soles. Socks last a fortnight before they shredded to nothing.
So, next Christmas, socks and a pedicure?
I love socks, and the fam knows the prettier the better. Great stocking stuffer for me. Btw, my adult daughter intentionally wears mismatched socks because its fun!
The stupidest thing I ever bought was a manual lawnmower. I live somewhere it hits 100 all the time and have a hill. Needless to say, I bought a self-propelled mower soon after.
The most expensive socks I ever purchased started as a $30 skien of hand-dyed bfl and were very fun to knit and comfy to wear, so I consider that money well-spent.
I do really like the Costco wool socks. They are four pairs for less than $20.
I bought a ridiculously expensive hank of yarn because I was chatting with the woman who dyed it and then felt bad just walking off. I tried for two years to knit something out of it–it was a merino and silk blend. Everything knitted looked funny. I finally realized that it looked like toddler-girl’s camoflage, the silly bright pink and neon purple kind. Luckily, a friend offered to overdye it and now it’s lovely. But I also fell for the expensive guaranteed to fit everyone jeans. $45 dollars before tax and shipping. My only excuse is that I was helping with a newborn granddaughter and was sleep deprived.
Not exactly a stupid purchase… My husband and I were going through a cranky patch. He’d gotten three pairs of slacks from my parents for Christmas and didn’t really like them. We took them back to Macy’s, but he didn’t want to wait until we got the gift receipt from my folks, at our next visit. So we returned the slacks, and got the lowest price they could’ve possibly been sold, and got the money on a gift card. My feelings about that day/ transaction were so negative I couldn’t even look at that damn gift card for YEARS. We finally found it, and someone across the country had used the number on the card to buy a designer purse. I did not have one regret. BTW, we just celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary, and I am still completely in love with him. It was just one of those bad patches that can happen in a long relationship. 🙂
Admittedly I love my bombas too. I’d also like to say that I am very thorough when I make a purchase. I go extensively through the need vs. want rant in my head. By the time I make the purchase I am usually happy…except for add ons. I always get suckered into buying add-ons for things I buy that I don’t really need.
Perfect example is my Cricut machine. I am a sewer. I make custom items so I cut fabric and custom vinyl on my Cricut. I have zero need for ALL the blade/tool attachments but do I have them? Yes, yes I do. *sigh*
The socks seemed a little tight on my hobbit feet.
It does get cold in FL, one time they made us do PE. Outside. In 40 degree cold. We almost died.
I bought that stupid arcade machine for like 5 grand. I still hold the dumb purchase record.
Honey, the arcade machine was only $1,800.
I have to say it’s the alligator and pork sausage I just bought from the Beef Jerky Outlet. Because first of all THERE’S A BEEF JERKY OUTLET! I mean, how? I had no idea jerky had that kind of support. And second, my husband insisted there was nothing less kosher I could eat then pork sausage. I was like, “Challenge accepted. Found it, Hon!” It horrifies my husband every time he opens the fridge… we’ve been married for 24 years if that explains anything…
Explains everything LOL!
I’m not that familiar with Kosher food rules, but what about pork and cheese sausage/bologna? I just seem to remember something about no dairy with meat, maybe? Plus, no pork. ????
There’s always the twelfth time I bought a book that looked interesting – and a copy was sitting in my to-read pile. I don’t feel quite as bad about those as I do about the ones that I *did* read, but forgot the title.
At least the friends I pass the extra copies onto don’t seem to complain!
+1
I bought the hard copy of a book I had already read on kindle thinking it was the next book in the series. I thought I had most of the series as hard copy. Turns out I only had the one.
I also have a few books that I’ve got doubles of. I blame the Bargain Books SFF table. I always buy them when I spot my favourite authors on it because I barely ever find the books in stores without ordering them first – turns out it’s always the same few book. Such as Angel’s Blood. I have two hard copies and the ebook.
I had a breakthrough and realized that my feet don’t care if the socks don’t match, particularly when it’s only the pattern or color that differ. I would take four mismatched socks and consider them two good pairs that can be worn in any of the possible combinations.
I hate shoes and socks. I wear my sandals as long as possible. At 45 F or below or when at the gym I will wear my sneakers. So I don’t buy many socks. However I like the Happy Socks athletic socks. They’re expensive too but comfy.
My husband and I have lived in a 900 square ft apartment in NYC for the past 13 years. There isn’t space for extra “stuff”. Anything major, $ or space wise, we have to agree on. If something comes in something has to go out. Saves on impulse buying. We don’t buy each other gifts but instead put our spare cash to a travel budget.
No good comes from going to the ATM after 10pm or buying things when hungry or tired ????
I’m so sorry you’ve lost your socks. I adore Bombas and have a collection of them. They’re my favorite socks to wear at Disney. Lotsahugs ❤️
Wow, I love Bombas wool socks — warm and soft with stretch. Also, cool colors. Plus, who else is supplying new socks at the rate of one pair for each pair sold to homeless individuals? Totally agree that they are a luxury! Didn’t your family love their Christmas luxury socks?
For cotton dress/boot socks in the luxury category, I like the Stance.com brand. Fun colors, good gifts.
Nike used to make good wicking sports socks in China. They were one for the left and one for the right foot. Last year, they re-engineered their crew socks to be universal. That solved the problem of seven orphan left socks, but the fit is not as good.
I read a newspaper piece interviewing a podiatrist who said people definitely should sleep in socks. “Your feet are the Grand Central Station for your body,” he said. Not sure what that means but that is a quote I remember.
Stupidest thing I bought, was during a Girls trip to the Cape (MA), went to a winery. Everyone else loves wine( I like vodka.) But they also had wine jelly that was amazing.
I spent $60 on various flavors of jelly…????
https://www.plymouthbaywinery.com/shop/wine-jelly/
The star for the Christmas tree. I was in elementary school. I thought a 4 color flashing star with a reflective cone in the middle was AMAZING. My brother took one look and flashed his hands saying, ‘Vacancy! Babe born here!’
My Mom put it up. For years. I thought I broke it one year, but she fixed it. (It did stop flashing.) The year before I moved out, I put up my own tree and bought a lovely star for it. I couldn’t find it when I went to put up the first tree in my new home. I went to Mom’s and – a miracle – it had replaced the mad flasher.
I was thrilled for about 40 seconds, until I turned and saw the old star on top of the manger scene.
Awwww. Sounds like that star is a Christmas tradition for your mom, and warms her heart every year. How could that be a dumb purchase?
I made a… bell-looking thing (?) out of construction paper, yarn, glitter and a jingle bell when I was six. My mama has hung it on the tree front and center every year for 45 years. It even has it’s own special storage box. There’s a reason “only a mother could love” is a cliche!
I am very persnickety about socks and I would rather go barefoot, so I mostly wear Havianias, but my go-to sock brand is Hue. I love their ankle socks!
There is also a Scottish Co-op that makes lovely cashmere mitts and socks and their stuff is very affordable, it just takes awhile to arrive.
My biggest mistakes are handbags and hair products, but my most expensive one was a car that I bought. A MGB.
At least you’re making your big mistakes in high style. My future mistake is the very similar-looking Sunbeam Alpine. I fully intend to make this mistake in the future.
A Nintendo Switch bundle for $500 because I wanted to play Animal Crossing: New Horizon and I didn’t have a Switch. I haven’t owned a console in decades lol But I’m the happy owner of AC
I spilled a glass of water on my four-year-old computer. I loved that computer, because it was SILENT; the CPU was gutless (which is fine because I only really use my laptop for the Internet and MS Office), but ran cool so the laptop didn’t need a fan (I hate fan noise). Anyway, I found the same computer for $200 on Craigslist; it was in pristine condition but that cheap because the battery was completely dead. Which I was fine with, except in my haste I didn’t notice it had a bilingual keyboard, which I find super awkward to use.
https://superuser.com/questions/1308515/what-is-the-bilingual-canadian-keyboard-layout-pictured-and-how-do-i-use-it
Then I was able to revive my old laptop! The trackpad no longer works (not an issue because I already had a mouse) and the WiFi was dead (so I spent $15 on a WiFi adapter).
So, now I own a $200 paperweight that I will probably never end up selling. But it’s very pretty, and it is kinda nice to have a back-up in case my lovely SILENT laptop dies. (But with my luck, CPUs that run cool become common and/or my current laptop lives forever.)
PS If you wear the socks with long pants, you’d be the only one who’d know they’re mismatched pairs so I’d still wear them 🙂
PPS That’s just the most recent example of a stupid purchase. Unfortunately, I’ve wasted a RIDICULOUS amount over the years!
I thought everyone knew that socks, pencils, and paper clips are the different life cycles of a household pest. Ever notice when the socks disappear, the number of pencils goes way up? And paper clips appear all over when you look for pencils?
Socks are the eggs, pencils are the larva and paper clips are the butterfly.
No, socks disappear to metamorphose into Tupperware lids. ????
You both made me giggle. ????
In late March, when I saw where the Coronavirus disaster was headed, I ordered about $200 bucks worth of custom pattern masks for everyone in my extended family. Sadly, there was no indication that these were made in China, and here is it almost July, and I still haven’t seen them, despite a message that they shipped April 30th from China postal service.
I WILL NOT buy Bombas 1) because they are stupid expensive 2) they really are NOT comfortable. But I love my World’s Softest Socks for lounging. Soft and warm and last…
Thank you for saving me! I almost got lured in. I kept listening to those damn sock ads on the radio and said hmm those must be good!
If you believe what they said about getting a tattoo after the millionth pair… well you must be in good company.
Ah, socks. I will say that I’ll shell out for Smartwool socks. They are good for hiking and keeping feet warm in winter boots. I use my unmatched socks (thanks dog, who thinks socks are tasty) as yarn keepers while I knit. Although I mainly buy ankle socks, so they wrap around a cake of yarn and hold it in place without much in the way of excess fabric.
Stupidest thing I bought lately…the entire Mission Impossible movie series. I already have a few individual copies. It’s not like I’m going to have any time in the foreseeable future to sit down and watch them. But of course, the sale flag was up, so there I went!
I’m giving my dad a car. Before you get excited, he paid for half of it 6 years ago and I just got a job with a company car, so I have an easy solution to spare my dad’s old work truck a few miles. Anyway, I have a dog with curly hair and only heavy equipment can get her hair of the black fabric interior. To spare the inevitable lecture about keeping my car clean and respecting my propriety (I’ve heard it all before) I took it in to get detailed at a local car wash. They charged $436 for 3 hours. I don’t think I was overcharged for my area and they did a great job. But this is my first year out of school and I used to live off that amount of money for a month. I’m having a hard time justifying it in my head, it just aches… I think I’m going to eat ramen for a few days to make myself feel better.
I LOVE my bombas socks. And my smartwool socks. I live in Boston but was raised in California so i freeze every winter here. those socks are the only things keeping me from frostbite every winter! HA!
Best socks I ever had were the OG wool boot socks I was issued when I went in the Army in 1967. I haven’t been able to find anything comparable since. The current military socks are thinner and not as long wearing.
And when you wear boots no body can see the color.
UnderArmor makes a great OG sock, not fully wool. They have both men’s and women’s sizes.
I bought a beautiful artisan hand carved Thai wooden chess set. The board was part of a folding stand and the pieces were stored inside. It cost several hundred dollars when I bought it fifteen years ago. I rarely play chess and when I tried to display it, the cat kept batting the chess pieces off the board and hiding them. It stays closed up on a shelf in my closet for most of the last 15 years
I love Bombas socks!! Yes they are just like other socks that they magically disappear once in the laundry. I have 3 single socks that I am holding on to because they are my favorite and I refuse to give up on them.
A strong safety pin through the toes can help, or just put all socks into a delicates bag, that’s what I do. Lol
I do that too. Lose both at the same time. No matching needed.
$35 worth of color from Sally’s and then I went to my nephew and had him professionally color my hair. At least I have enough product for the next quarantine
A pound bag of expensive peach tea iced tea bags, I had never tried before and definitely don’t love.
No one has mentioned this one yet – A few years ago, they were advertising this belt, that would use electric pulses to ‘exercise’ your abs. Got it, inspected everything and found the belt, the plug in, and lotion. Read the directions saying ‘make sure you use sufficient lotion to facilitate the pulse action’. So, lotioned myself up, and put on the belt and settled in to build amazing abs… and the pulses started getting a little ‘bitey’. Apparently, I needed to add more lotion, so I got some on my fingers to slid between my tummy and the belt, and encountered the ‘pulses’ directly on my fingers… Somehow there were no warnings in the directions not to make any ‘adjustments’ while the belt was running. I yelped, scrambled around trying to take the belt off, (while it zapped me rhythmically), until finally I turned it off. Once I was able to take it off, I packed it up, and gave it away at a white elephant exchange later that year. So much for amazing magical abs.
Fun topic. I bought one of those magical juicers that are supposed to help you get healthy by juicing everything and make your veggies tasty. Problem was I tended to have an allergic reaction to a lot of the concoctions and would get a scratchy feeling in my throat. Great for some people but not good for me. LOL.
Also done during Christmas, I bought myself a new Chrome PC… one I realized too late I do not need and rarely use.
I was ordering one for my mother who was in the hospital Nov-Dec for Leukemia treatments and figured “oh this is a great deal” (stupid sales). So I talked myself into buying one for myself. I had these delusions of not playing as many video games on my PC and instead using the Chrome Book to surf the internet and catch up on my writing and graphics. Instead I rarely use it. I really love my video games.
It was pretty much a waste of money, but someday I might use it.
Clarification – Since I was searching for a Chrome Book for my mother I did a weeks worth of research on the best Chrome book, the uses of them, features, etc. This actually got me excited and I ended up selling myself on needing one “at such a great price, why not”.
And no, I do not do well with salesmen either.
I bought a bracelet made from recycled materials pulled from the ocean, it was pretty, $20 and helps the environment so I thought why not? I totally forgot about the exchange rate and it ended up costing $67 with shipping.
Impulse bought a chandelier once that was half-off wholesale for a home that didn’t exist yet. Showed up in a giant box that sat around for a couple years before I could resell it.
I’ve stopped doing that. Ask me how long it took me to learn… (Please don’t ask me).
Wear them mis-matched, and make a statement. My teenager (a boy) does this. He will pull apart matched socks, and wear them mis-matched on purpose, to show his own style. As for the price, eh, it could be worse.
I havent bought anything on line.
But 10 years ago I was called in for an interview at the company I retired from, and still go back as special employee to help. Anyway the accounting department took me to lunch to check me out. I just got my false teeth so ordering was painful. And I told them so.
The Assistant controller ask me why I had applied for the job. I asked “do you want the truth or made up story?” Of course they said truth. Proceeded to tell them i didnt recall applying for the job. But did recall drinking wine one nite and applying for a slew of jobs. Needless to say i got the job and it was the best 10 years. Great company and boss.
Oh brilliant. I’d hire you for that story, too.
Not mine but my husband’s purchase. He is hard to buy for and I always have friends and family request ideas for his birthday and Christmas. So a month before his birthday I go through the rigmarole of nagging to get ideas and pass them on. He tells me he has always wanted a Blue Jays’ baseball cap in a certain style, even when he was a teenager. Fantastic!! I was keeping that idea to myself to get major wife points. Two days before his birthday, 2 days! he goes out and buys it himself. I was furious! I was going shopping for him the next day when I picked up groceries and such so at least I hadn’t bought it yet. So, I still made him a nice cupcake from scratch and he got a shirt instead. Whoop-de-do.
I bought tires. 14 for the 50 foot long boat trailer, 4 for the truck to pull the 50 foot long trailer, 3 for the 20 foot long boat trailer and 2 for the zero turn mower. I shouldn’t need tires for 10 years.
My best socks ever were billed as the “softest socks”. I am allergic to wool and when in the Army, had to find something else. I bought them in black and they were/are soft, not fuzzy knee socks. They wash well in a machine or by hand with a canteen of water, still soft. Pretty sure I got them from onehanesplace.com, for about $3 a pair. I had over 20 pairs by the time I retired. Loved those socks and as they wear out I can match to the remainder. I think I am down to 8 pairs now.
When I was pregnant a woman came to my door and wanted to sell cheese. She convinced me that it was really healthy and I ended up buying 300g for nearly 21€.
I dont’t like cheese and this one wasn’t even allowed for me because it was raw milk cheese…
Lesson learned – since that day I have never bought something at my door again.
Dear BDH – I’ve had so much fun reading your stories tonight. I occasionally have 4-5 day spells of intermittent insomnia, and am on night four right now. But instead of being frustrated and grouchy, I’ve been grinning, groaning and giggling with you all. I just wanted to tell you thank you. You are a truly cool and funny group of people.
Ilona and Gordon, thanks so much for, well, everything!
Late to the game but want to play?! PS please do not explain this to me. My brain is too full right now. Worst thing We ever bought were solar panels. Living in bright sun misery with giant electric bills we thought aha! But our public utility is deeply rotten. We could NEVER get a grip on our monthly utility bill. It was $4 until it was $2200 Because it was true up. So we added EXTRA above our bill every month in attempt to create dependable budget amount. We now have OVERPAID somehow with BAJILLION $$$ extra in our utility acct. Repeated attempts to ask explanation means minimum 90 min wait time. Typically 3 hrs. Someday we will figure it out BUT don’t trust utility to back up whatever they say. Sigh.
$100 dwarf wurtz Avocado tree i saw while out and bought. Unfortunately it was the height of Australian summer and within a week it had died (even with shade and daily checks)
Stupidest present ever was also socks. One Christmas we told the twins they could open one present on Christmas Eve. My ex shows up and pulls out two bags of socks. They cried. Literally cried. Then he pulled out two better presents, but the damage was done. After that he received socks for years.
My stupidest purchase was from Anime Expo about two years ago.
I still go to the convention even though I’m not watching any shows or keeping up with manga (except Skip Beat) because I love walking around the Exhibit Hall and seeing the vendors.
That year, there was a vendor who was the official distributor for the Sailor Moon fan club. The club is based in Japan but now overseas members could join! Woohoo! The booth had a cute display of previous club member gifts and explained all the benefits (news letter, access to an exclusive website, etc). The membership would start three months after sign up and last a year. So I signed up for $70, got a nifty microfiber screen wipe as a membership gift and waited for the membership to kick in.
Three month later, silly me, I find out everything is in Japanese and no translation was available. All the events were in Japan and most of the exclusive merchandise was unavailable to overseas fans. I could see what was offered but that was a type of torture. I did get a necklace and pretty membership card but that’s it. I still get emails with Japanese text in my spam folder.
Needless to say, I did not renew my membersip.
For me, it was Karbonz knitting needles.
I spent a lot of money on needles that are no better than plain (cheap) bamboo. They snag. The coating of the tips wear off. They are not that much lighter.
It was a while ago, but am still upset about it.
A “travel-sized blender” that worked twice and that I would not need any more any way since I can’t travel anywhere. And I bought it for a similar reason as your socks: constant push messaging on instagram and facebook since I mostly (used to) post about my travels. Sigh.
Bath back scrub brushes. They weren’t hideously expensive or anything, but for some unknown reason my online basket updated and I bought 3 of them. 3 back scrubbers. What am I supposed to do with 3 identical back scrubbers? Worst of it is they aren’t even pretty enough to make a decent gift, they’re a generic white plastic. Mabey my mom needs a back scrubber……
Best socks I ever bought my husband and son are bison/silk boot socks-very pricy but they love them. Supposed to be good for warm weather, too, but haven’t tried that. They’re from the Buffalo Wool Co – they sell other stuff, including yarn. I, too fell for the Bombas ads. OK, but not worth the price.
My son works as a crew member on nature expedition film shoots (think PBS/Animal Planet shows shot in winter at Yellowstone or Norway or Russia). I do give socks each Christmas like some moms give pj’s. So, one year I bought him these Very Expensive buffalo wool socks. But, they made his feet sweat. . . even in boots in the snow. The next Christmas I was at his house in Oregon and complained about cold feet. He gave me the socks. Now I wear them as slipper socks all winter – in Texas! I love them.
I am late to the party on this, but the dumbest thing I bought recently was lighted magnifying glass that hangs around the neck and stands on the chest so I could see what I was doing while needlepointing. They looked so functional on the TV ad and needlepointing blogs I follow. The thing is, the legs are so short you almost have to have the work touching your chest, which means your neck is in a really uncomfortable position to be able to look through the glass to see your work.
I ended up breaking down and buying one of the Brightech Pro LED magnifying floor lamps and am much happier. However, I could have used the money I spent on the neck one to upgrade the floor lamp…. Live and learn.
oh, oh, oh, I forgot. 😉 There are the 6 pairs of work pants I ordered in February and arrived the week before my employer decided to close campus and have everyone ‘non-essential’ work from home. I haven’t even washed them yet.
I once spent $44 on a book that was supposed to help me get a job at the US Postal Service…it was something you could have gotten free from the US Postal Service. ARGH.
I’m a mailman, when they have job openings, they’ll allow you to log on and apply. It’s free everywhere, no book, no application fee, Nothing.
USPS.gov.careers
PVC pipe fittings and grommets.
My summer garden experiment started out to see if I could successfully sprout bean plants from the Rancho Gordo bean sampler that I got for Christmas. I can attest to the freashness of the beans since 52 of 55 of them resulted in plants. I had no room in my normal garden for them and the husband objected to roto tilling his lawn, so I built a hydroponic growing system for them.
I’m now building aeroponic towers to expand my garden. After a bit of trial and error (and many, many trips to the hardware store), I’ve rapidly amassed a collection of fittings and little rubber rings that aren’t exactly the right size. Luckily, I have the receipts…
Bartending classes. This was several years ago… when I was still in college. We spent $1000 on bartending classes for me because of the ads on the radio, and I got a job where we were living for two weeks before we moved back to where we’re from in Ohio, where I found out that it’s almost IMPOSSIBLE to get a bartending job in a restaurant because they hire from within. They promote servers, and I didn’t want to be a server. I don’t even get to use my skills anymore, because I don’t drink (medical reasons, and family history of alcoholism), and my husband only drinks tequila or wine. LOL.
Thank you Ilona Andrews for the post. My advice is Unless they are specific per foot, just wear the socks and enjoy. My sister sent me crew wool socks for Christmas gifts a few years ago. My Christmas gift request list is same as Dads always was.. good boot socks and good book to read. Well, after I properly washed socks they were smaller than footsies. Not boot socks. One went to the lost sock dimension, one to the cat , and I wear the remaining as footsies because my feet get cold at night. I don’t care that they don’t match, they are warm.
I will have to think about your question on purchases as I have been in survival mode for quite awhile. Ups and Fedex have issues finding me because GPS wrong here. USPS and first responders know where I am though.
I bought exercise resistance bands. I don’t exercise. They are still in the pouch they came in.
On socks- I buy fluffy socks in Florida too. I get about 2 or 3 months of real use out of them and eventually toss them around October, buy new ones in November -repeat process.
As for stupid purchases:
I had a Pontiac Sunfire for 14 years. Got it right before Ivan hit and it had been my loyal steed ever since. However, it was definitely needing to be put to pasture. Roof lining was hanging down, the seats were stained and didn’t move right, and the warping on the front boards was getting bad, etc. The PLAN was to wait 6 months, be debt free, get the Camaro I’d been dreaming of. While old, I was blessed to have had jobs near where I lived so the engine and transmission were still good so the plan likely would have worked. But the darn Camaro, I kept was seeing it everywhere. Blue, yellow, stripped, red etc, etc. I decided to go car ‘window shopping’ just to see what the prices were like on the lot. Got talked into to a cheaper, tamer version of the car though on the outside it still looks very pretty. But because I didn’t wait, big payments, made even bigger by not having had a car bill in 8 years, and not really the car I had dreamed of.
So driving along in my Camaro, trying to ignore that massively stupid decision I just made, I decided to double down on the mistake and move into a new apartment building being built downtown not quite 2x what I was paying in the old place because nothing validates a bad decision like making another one. Also it was very small so I had to get rid of things and had a horribly expensive move on top of it. All the warning signals my brain sent me before both purchases were beat into submission.
A year later I’m in a new apartment building with a second job to drive my pretty car to, to help pay off 2x the debt I started with. *Hand to forehead*
I had to come back because I’ve been laughing a bit since I first read through this yesterday. I was watching a live news show right after and the first ad that came up was for these socks. First time I’ve come across the ad. Coincidence or a sign I need to spend some time cleaning up tracking cookies? I don’t know, but it has been giving me repeated bits of levity over the last day. If I finish my comment and go to watch some news & once again get the ad it may proceed to full on belly laugh.
A beagle. Demon dog in puppy form. Things not told to explicitly (expected to know via osmosis):
– Beagles are scent hounds.
– Hounds are pack dogs. 1 pack dog goes kinda crazy and tries to interact with humans to a distracting degree. You need 3 or more to satisfy … something … in their personality.
– Scent hounds have no self restraint, and will follow scents without concern for safety or situational awareness so you can’t let them off a leash.
– Beagles are gluttons and will eat until the food is gone (which wouldn’t be so bad, buuuuuut):
– Beagles are pretty clever and learn things like how to open latch doors and refrigerators (we had to ‘child proof’ our house 3 years before having children)
– Beagles bay. And bark. A LOT.
I love my Bombas no-show socks. The seam of other no shows always rub and push into my little toe. I keep a dollar store lingerie bag handy to keep the socks together when I wash them bc they’re too expensive to lose and socks are tiny they’re a pain to find and fold.
I can’t think of any expensive, regrettable purchases right now, but in certain I’ve made several.
I love salads, but it’s just me and I am not very motivated to make food for just me so I buy salad stuff then it goes bad. So to try and eat more salads and not waste food I’ve bought a couple of salad gizmos that ended up being horrible.
One was a tumbler you were supposed to just put your salad ingredients in and take to work. Then when it’s lunch time you twist the bottom and it chopped the salad. Didn’t work and it didn’t hold close to enough food.
Another you were supposed to put your salad ingredients in this bowl with slots to cut your salad then once it’s full use the lines to chop all the salad ingredients quickly at one time. Looked so flimsy when I got it I never tried it. It’s still in the box. Maybe I should at least try it.
If the matches don’t appear you could make really expensive pet toys. I take my “un-wholey” mismatched socks and fill them with batting and catnip.
I’m probably really late to the game here, but 1. Bombas socks are awesome, but you can almost always find a coupon for 20% off. 2. Everyone likes to get nice socks! and 3. Bombas has a replacement program for missing socks!
https://help.bombas.com/hc/en-us/articles/360038732233
My favorite socks are are heat holders. They are amazing.
As regards stupid spending…kitchen knives. I have more kitchen knives than an entire professional kitchen could ever use but I can’t help myself: G. Santoku, Robert Welch, Swibo, Victorionix, Wusthof, Henckels etc. I can’t seem to help myself. Some people have a knife block, I have two bulging knife drawers.
This week I bought another swibo despite having eight others of that brand but as I told my other half, this one has a black handle and is a straight blade two inches longer than my other swibo of the same design. *face palm*
For sock purchases in the future, Smartwool are the best. Winters in Alaska get a bit chilly and those socks keep my toes toasty. We all make “ What was I thinking” purchases. Mine was for Gabbeh rugs( on eBay so “they were a bargain!”) I didn’t even have a house. We were living in an RV. I still have them and even a house to put them in but, I will never live down the story. Enjoy the life out of those socks. Last thought, knitting socks is fun. Two at a time toe up is the best.
My recent stupid purchase? Two masks, dragon snark on burnt orange. Ordered in April. Very embarrassed partial refund on June 2nd. STILL no masks. I’m beginning to think the ones I ordered from Publishers Clearing House (yes, I do buy from them sometimes) on June 11th, which order has barely been acknowledged and will probably show up in early August, will arrive first.
I do have several masks already; but I want the dragon ones.
Facebook ad for a pair of leggings – I have recently lost some weight, and was looking for new leggings to wear to the gym. These were cute and reasonably priced, I bought two pair at $20 each. I purchased a size large, but the add neglected to mention that the leggings were designed for toddlers.
The stupidest thing I’ve ever bought was a Roomba. I have 4 children and a golden retriever and Dreamed of a day without vacuuming. It was a major purchase and a stunning flop. I spent more time trying to get it to work than the little round devil ever spent vacuuming. Back to Amazon it went. And now all 4 of my kids know how to vacuum.
Btw- I love love love my Bombas socks. The no show ones are the only kind that ever stay in place.
If all 4 kids now know how to vacuum, I’d call that a win.
I’m a Smartwool girl myself. They have a fine gauge crew length sock with a small cable that really works with the heeled brogues and boots I often wear to work, and which does not squeeze my calf muscle awkwardly. I wear them year round for work and play. In warm weather I switch to slides (no socks) off duty. Fine gauge wool is fabulous sock material. Warm even when damp, so they never get that awful clammy thing going on that cotton, or even nylon does. For athletic socks, I’ve been nursing along a 12 pack of wildly colored low ankle socks from Footlocker. They’re super pretty, but also super cheap, so they’re starting to get holes. So sad.
Dumbest thing purchased recently: perfume sampler collection that sounded great, but which I should have waved off from as notes described included musk, which I know I personally abhor. Totally does not work on or for me. They sounded so mountain meadow and woodsy otherwise, but what was I thinking? This time it would be different? Ah, no. Happily, the samples were small, so the expenditure was not large.
Definitely a felted-bag kit (knit) from my local yarn store. I’m a sucker for knitting kits. I have so many projects in process and sooooo much yarn the absolute LAST thing I need is MORE yarn or a new project. Sigh. I didn’t even like the bag that much, haha, but the yarn, it called to me…
Mine was a weighted blanket. I’ve been dealing with insomnia (thank you, menopause) and anxiety. I heard everywhere that a weighted blanket was the answer. Oh God, were they wrong. I overheated (already getting hot flashes, thanks), could barely move without it falling off of me, and ultimately, it made me more anxious. I don’t have claustrophobia, as a rule, but this came close to triggering it for me.
I actually slept better when I was under it for a bit then got fed up with the thing and pushed it off the bed. It couldn’t even be on the bed with me. Just sent it off to a new home yesterday. Feel even better without it sitting on the bench in my bedroom, judging me.
Same. Too many hot flashes and the weight gives me claustrophobia!! Yay, more anxiety!
A kit for building a model of the Tower of London, a nice and somewhat expensive one. The rationale, when my husband was a kid he loved to build ship and plane models. He also is a British history buff. The real reason, I hoped to distract him from his phone for a few hours. I now have the foundation of the Tower of London on my dining room table for the foreseeable future. Total fail and out $70.
I bought a Suunto Traverse Alpha watch because it has moon phases and I wanted a watch with moon phases. It has a million other things and can locate a deer for you but I wanted the moon phases.
Everything works except the moon phases. I can be staring up at a full moon and the watch tells me it is 46% waning. Suunto has been spectacularly unhelpful via customer service or their 50 page manual. I am defeated. However I tell everyone this story as a redemption arc.
I was wandering around Macy’s -this was back in the 80’s- and saw a nice tape player with double tape decks etc. I gleefully bought it as it was on SALE . Well, long story short, apparently it couldn’t work without a receiver so entire family comes with me to show me what to get. Wound up with receiver, speakers, 250 disc CD Player and other things to tune of $1000. All on clearance and nonreturnable.
All because of tape deck on clearance which we didn’t really need
This lockdown has driven me crazier. I now can’t stop buying expensive bags, totes and shoes online. I’m the sort of person who uses a bag until it falls apart so you can imagine how deranged I am to suddenly have 5+ beautiful bags in my cupboard. Online shopping is my bane apparently!
If you really want the best socks ever, check out Darn Tough. Also pricey, but lifetime guarantee, made in US, and I have pairs that are 10 years old and still wearable. I wear them to work and everywhere else.
My adult son loves Bombas socks, got the most expensive style, I think. He is on his feet all day at work, says they are super supportive and comfortable. Me, I could never justify paying that much for a pair of socks.
Money I wasted? Yarn. I crochet for pleasure and relaxation, and I select yarn because I love the color and texture. I love to cuddle it. But now I own enough yarn to last a century, it has filled four big cabinets, I am giving it away to everyone. Yes, I still love it, but it turned out to be eating up a lot of money.
When our daughter was 13 decided that she would wear only mismatched socks. So we had fun for a while trying to find crazy colored and patterned socks for her. Few years later we all started to wear the socks mismatched. So I don’t see where is the problem with unpaired socks. It can be fun. Actually we mix and match them when we get them out of drier.
I saw a scratching post on FB that looked like a cactus with branches and flowers for cats with a video of them climbing on it and it was under $40 so I bought one for my daughter for her 3 cats because she loves cactuses. After a month she got only a package of rope, no instructions or different colors… looked it up and the rope is generally around $5. We were all very unhappy!
We took a trip to Mexico with my neighbor and her husband. They go usually every year because her brother has 52 weeks of vacation weeks for a condo; so we bought a week and they bought a week and her brother and her husband went. My hubby and I were shopping in Market 29 and a higher class jewelry store I fell in love with a blingy ring. I do not wear blingy. Long story short, spent $500 on a ring, which the stone fell out of(I found it) but the jewelry store could not replace because the soldering would burn the stone. Then the 2nd stone fell out.
Love the ring but seems odd to wear it with 2 missing stones.
Summer camp for my kids this year in Florida. Due to the surge they aren’t going and I won’t be getting a refund. I should have known better.
Stupidest thing I bought? Well I love disney. But it’s a very conservative love. I don’t go nuts or anything. But I saw this cute little Minnie back pack advertised on insta and I just had to have it. Well It was from China so fast forward 2 months later and it arrives. I open up the box and yes it’s cute but all of a sudden I’m so embarrassed. I’m a 58 year old woman. There’s no way in heck I’m going to wear that anywhere let alone outside my front door. And it can’t go back because, well China. So there is sits, in my hall. A monument to my stupidity.
Some little girl would love that! I have donated quite a few “seemed like a good idea at the time” purchases ????
I loved that info about the Bombas socks. I have looked at them a million times and thought about buying “super” socks. Im glad you corrected my thinking.
I think the stupidest thing I ever bought was a sun shaded dog bed. What was I thinking. The only place my dog wants to be is beside me
I purchased a blue hooded cloak from Wish. I waited 6 weeks for my purchase to arrive and it turned out to be a hideous blue reverse Snuggy. I was very sad.
I leave unmatched socks in the dirty clothes hamper. Eventually, and sometimes after months, I get a match. It’s like finding gold.
I barely dodged the Bombas bullet. Same as you, at Christmas, I contemplated buying some or adding them to my Christmas list.I asked friends on FB and the most positive and popular sock was the no show-shoe liner style. Luckily I resisted buying them ????
I am a sock-o-holic; it’s a dark secret. My feet are cold 9 months out of 12, so no seams in the toes, thank you very much! Merino wool or a cashmere blend, crew and not to tight at the top. I had a drawer filled with “failed” socks, got rid of those during my “COVID-19 Purge” it wasn’t a pretty sight. Now I only have those that have passed the wearing test ????
My sils swear by Darn Tough, made in Vermont. I love them too, but don’t wear them enough times to known how reliable they are. Supposedly, they are guaranteed for life. The company behind bombas is appealing because they donate to homeless shelters.
I haven’t bought socks in 5 years because I make my own. There is simply nothing better than hand knit socks. The more you wear them, the more you love them. Send me you’re shoe size and an address to mail them to and I’ll make you a pair of socks because yes, they can be better than you expect and because I love you’re writing and this is what I’m good at.
I don’t own a car, so I walk a lot! A couple of years ago, I thought that with all the money I save on not having a car, I should really invest in some good quality sneakers and socks. Both turned out to be amazing purchases! I know the theme is poor purchases, but I don’t want you to be turned off great socks by one crummy experience! I started with one pair of micro crew cushion darn tough socks and loved the cushion they provided. A few months later, I found I was wearing dirty socks just so I could keep those on longer, so I bought a pair of T4016 Tactical No Show Cushion. Oh my goodness, the fit was amazing. Long story short, I now have 6 pairs of T4016s and I love them. My husband tried them, got jealous, and now has 6 pairs of T4088s. I think I like his even better than mine. They’re black so we don’t have to worry about mismatching. Plus they have a lifetime warranty. As for the shoes, Brooks Gylcerin sneaks are freaking phenomenal.
Thank you so much for the Blood Heir posts! They make me so happy 🙂
I got a huge laugh out of this post because I had also recently bought expensive socks, specifically Comrad Compression socks (comradsocks.com).
I use a standing desk and went through this period where my legs were constantly aching and I somehow convinced myself that compression socks were the answer after seeing someone Tweet about them.
Don’t get me wrong; they’re great socks and they do exactly what they’re supposed to do, but they didn’t solve my leg aches. ???? Still, I thought it wasn’t a total waste because I figured I could always use them on flights . . . except now we have a pandemic. ????
A Ruby (fake) encrusted Tiara. I am currently in a battle to stop me buying a crown.
????
You ‘RULE’ , with your socks!
Rock on ???????? ????
Lately I have been tempted by those Bombas sock ads. Thanks for the reality check!
Throw socks out? The horror! Lol. They make the best dusters. I clean out my sock drawer every decade or so and all unmatched and elderly socks go in the ragbag…doesn’t anyone else have those anymore?
Thank you so much for reviewing the Bombas socks. I’ve also been subjected to their advertising campaigns and if not for my extreme poverty would absolutely have bought their socks. So this was an excellent antidote to their marketing campaign.
The one I’m currently deeply tempted by that FB KEEPS SHOWING ME is Ponyo ponytail holders (and the bun bar!) that look amazing but I’m dying over spending almost 8 bucks on a glorified hair tie. Do you know how fast I lose hair ties?? You buy them in 100 packs and then a couple months later you have to go buy another 100 pack b/c somehow they have all disappeared. But this one just looks so cool and like it holds really good and allegedly it won’t leave a dent in my hair, and especially with the bun bar its another way to get my super thick hair up in the Houston heat with out just a pony tail or a gigantic clip. And I might even get the smaller one for my mini me b/c her super fine hair catches on the hair ties no matter how careful you are and she whines when it pulls (granted she’s 6 so she will probably whine anyways). BUT ITS A 7 DOLLAR HAIR TIE and am I seriously considering this??? LOL
Basically, I feel you. Thank you for validating my fears over the socks.
27 acres. It is a long story but while it has had an upside, I should not have bought it. To add to it I purchased the 22 acres next door .
Some good friends gave me their old treadmill a couple of years ago (they had been using it as a clothes hanger and wanted it gone). I’d been flirting with buying one forever but figured if I did it would never get used. Surprise. I’ve actually been using it (some days I have to push myself to get started but still…) and love it. I listen to audiobooks while using the treadmill. Worst purchase(s) – hum – probably most kitchen gadgets and appliances. Cooking has to be easy or I just won’t do it. Sadly.
Ok. For all the folks losing socks. Years back, my brother was fixing my washing machine, so took it apart. There were many, many socks that apparently went over the top of the ‘basket’ (not sure what it’s actually called). So apparently that’s one places socks go missing. Wash them in a mesh bag (also, if you put in dryer, use mesh bag) and minimize lost socks! I now wear wool socks, so wash in a mesh bag, so I can easily pull them out before the rest of the laundry goes in the dryer. I don’t think I have lost a sock since.
I also put my dirty socks in there own dirty laundry container, so that may minimize loss also, as that don’t get tangled up in other clothes. All this because I started wearing woo socks exclusively ????????????.
My whole life is filled with stupid purchases. The $700 treadmill that I used for 3 months and then sat in the basement for 6 years gathering dust. The $250 travel bag from an Indiegogo startup that I bought because it said you can fit anything in it. That was true (sort of) but what they didn’t tell you was that if you can get that much stuff packed inside, it’s too heavy to carry. And there’s no backpack straps or wheels, so you’re stuck carrying 50 pounds on your shoulder.
I could go on but I won’t. However, I have never paid $80 for 6 pairs of socks. You have me beat there.
This is one of my favorite sock makers. I love their motto “Life’s to short for matching socks” and the look of patterns. My problem with them? My feet hate the feel of them!
Does this stop me from buying a pair if I find them in a store? Of course not.
I’ll wear them for short periods and tell my feet to just suck up and quit complaining. (Although using arnica gel before does help.)
https://solmatesocks.com/
I saw an add on YouTube for some pretty over the shoulder bags, they weren’t expensive at £16.99 So I ordered one. I toyed with the idea of ordering 3 as the colours were lovely but I thought I can go back and order another few if I like this one.
I waited and waited then a package arrived with…wait for it…a toilet brush in it!
I was so damned mad, I couldn’t find the order or an email for the company to complain. There I was stuck with a “revolutionary toilet brush “ – their words not mine – it was useless it didn’t even clean the toilet well. ????
I snapped it in half and put it in the bin. ????
The moral of this story…don’t order anything off a YouTube add, the chances of being conned are extremely high!
I bought a hideously expensive winter jacket. I was desperate because for 2 years I couldn’t find anything warm, nice and without natural fur. Plus the price tag was in EUR and not Polish currency (approximately 4 to 1). I found out only at the register and was too shocked to back out. Of course next year shops were full of perfect, cheap jackets, the one I bought is too warm to wear and it doesn’t really match my other clothes and shoes.
I love Bomba Socks!!! They are the only socks I can wear that don’t inch down into my shoe!!! I have spent hundreds of dollars on almost every sock in production and non of them worked until I tried Bombas!!! I’m sorry they didn’t work for you????
22 bras ????
Right before the pandemic I started a new job working remotely. I decided that I could now be free of underwire bras. I bought one from Target. It was ok but I wanted to try some different brands/styles to find the most comfortable with good support. Then the pandemic hit and I stopped shopping in stores. But hanes had a clearance sale online of bras. The thing was that all of their wire free bras were 50-75% off with an additional percentage off the sales price and free shipping. So I bought all the dang bras. If it was in my size I bought it. Sports bras, structured bras, comfort bras, ALL the bras. And in multiple colors so there were duplicates. 140$ worth of bras I can’t return. So the cost isn’t the biggest issue for me in this dumb online purchase, it’s that fact that I really only like and use a couple of the bras and have a drawer full of bras that I feel obligated to use. I will also say at the time my sister and I purchased 80 additional bras to donate to the children’s center for their
teen girls. When I called to see if they needed more, my size wasn’t what they asked for.
Coal dust, rucksack… did he want to MAKE you a diamond for Christmas? Because that would be pretty impressive and hard to pass up.
Oh and socks – I have a sock fixation but passed up Bombas because they are not only outrageously priced but they are boring. Instead I bought my entire NZ branch of the family Bigfoot socks. I searched and searched for child sized ones and, happily, found them.
Seriously, when you grow up w/o enough decent socks, undies, and intact, well fitting shoes playful, comfortable essentials feel … essential.
Not recently, but o wanted nice towels. Restoration Hardware has nice towels. Then while in a mission to buy ONE nice towel each I decided we needed the set. So I bought bath, hand and face towels. We don’t even USE wash cloths. Then, I bought bath SHEETS!! They’re ginormous! We’ve never used them, it’s too much fabric and too expensive to use as Beach towels. So they sit in the closet.
For the socks, create a lost sock bag. Throw all unmatched socks after laundry in the bag. Monthly, match the socks in the bag. Trust me it works. After a few cycles throw away unmatched socks. Trust me, it works!! My husband doubted as well, but he’s now a believer
I love Bombas, but they are crazy money. Worth it, though I’m not sure they’re $320 worth it.
Make sock monkeys out of left over socks.
Adult toys. I’d never bought one and since this company was giving a free toy when you spent a certain amount…
So, now I own two adult toys and my body let me know it’s not a fan of them. They sit in the lint free bag next to the toy cleaner that I bought to go with them at the back of my closet.
Stupid purchase was an electric grill/ griddle. I thought it might inspire me to cook more and healthier. No such luck. $150 down the drain. Box not even opened after six months. Black socks best purchase. Dozens.
I bought a desk last month. Granted, it was a cheapy $300 Walmart desk, but when I got it and put it together, it was too long for the space I needed it for. And I measured! I was way too tired to figure out how to take it apart and return it, so we had to find a new spot for it. And I had to order a new one. I felt completely ridiculous, and I spent $300 more than I needed to. Ugh!
My sister-in-law has me beat though. She spent thousands of dollars on a new Ratan sofa and chair set for her living room. When it was delivered and she sat in it, she realized that it hurts her back. Now she’s stuck with this pretty sofa she can’t sit on.
Rattan not Ratan. Oh my.
Is calling out your own spelling errors the same as talking to yourself? It sorta feels like it.
Ok, one more for me. I’ve been trying to find curtains (for the same room with the desk). But with COVID 19, I tried to order them online. When they came in, they looked very different than the picture, so I returned them and ordered a different set. Eleven returns later, I finally found one I like. Again with the ridiculous feeling – especially having to keep going back to the UPS store to return them.
I spent so of my misspent youth in Southeast Asia, where Moma-son did our laundry along with hundreds of other guys, all of whom were wearing the same colour sock. The result was that you would get back a pair of socks one size nine and one size sixteen or four, never two the same size. The answer to the problem was to buy large safety-size pins and pin each pair of socks together before sending them to be washed. Issue solved same size sock always came back. I have been using this method for the past 53 years and have never once not gotten back a complete pair of socks. Having now been married for 51 of those years I maintain that having never complained to my wife about missing socks is one of the reasos for my long married life.
Bomba socks. They have a great marketing department lol.
The Kegel exerciser, yep I purchased this piece of equipment. It said it would tone those muscles, helping your bladder while uplifting your butt. It said I could do this while laying on my back. Perfect, I could watch TV while on the couch and feel like I put the work in. It’s really hard to squeeze two metal plates together with your thighs, so I only squeeze once every other program.
Yup. Stupid sock purchase…found these cool, fun socks (sole something??? Can’t even find the name now). They were thick cotton, crazy colors and deliberately mismatched patterns/foot (no worries about not finding the mate!). Bought 3 pairs for my brother, 2 pairs for my sister-in-law and 2 pairs for me. On sale, $84
My sister-in-law thanked me politely and said that if she could force herself to wear mismatched socks these would be the ones she would wear. My brother said nothing and I have probably worn mine twice. But, I had to have them! “)
300ish Rice Krispy Treats and 4 lbs of chocolate chips.
It sounded good at the time.
Then 2 lbs of yeast.
I live in Nashville, TN, but wear SmartWool socks all year long. I got my first pair of Sesame Street BOMBAS for Christmas from my sister. I like them, but not enough to replace my SmartWools.
FOUR mismatched socks? Wear them! If antone mentions that you are wearing socks that do not match, get a bewildeted look and say, “Yes! And I even have another pair just like them!”
I adore messing with people. It’s fun!
I would totally do this!!! Lol. I love socks. Especially if they are a fun pattern. Bonus if they are cotton and breathable. People think I’m crazy when I ask for them as gifts.
I bought Super Beets because I’m all about natural foods, especially if it’s a way to help you. The ad said tastes like black berry not beets. I can’t stand the taste of beets. They taste like musty dirt to me. When I tried it, it was sweet at first and then the musty dirt of beets shown through. I gave it away to a coworker who loves beets.
My husband bought me an air fryer because his coworker’s wife loves hers (I love getting appliances, so it was a thoughtful gift). I’m feeding a family of 4 with 2 teens. They are a retired couple. An air fryer doesn’t hold enough food for my family.
A computer desk. In the comments on Amazon a grandma said she put it together all by herself. Another woman put it together in half an hour. There were lots of positive stories. My friend helped me put it together. She said its directions were the worst she’d ever seen. She also told me not all customer comments are true.
There is a company that sells packages of three deliberately mismatched socks, the idea being that way you can lose a sock and still have a set. I wear my mismatched same brand socks for winter, where no one will see. I also think mismatched socks rock, and wear them on purpose when people can see them (You should see my shoes.).
I buy stupid things all the time. I bought a toaster, then immediately stopped eating bread. I bought a blender and strawberries so I could make smoothies.. then immediately went on the keto diet, where the sugar in strawberries would be a no-no. I bought an iron and have not used it once. Really, the list goes on. Oh, I spent $50 creating a persona in a virtual world. He looks very cool though: https://gyazo.com/4e4f7ba36d6e0c86e5eaaceff1af9947
I have not bought Bombas, but I have bought socks at every store in town, trying to find ones as good as I used to get at Meijer’s several years ago. They were SO soft, wore like iron, and kissed my feet when I wore them – and they came in a 6-pack for $15. I NEED soft socks because of my neuropathy in my feet (chemo, the gift that keeps on giving). Unfortunately, I didn’t keep the packaging, because hey you can get them at Meijer’s any time. Now they don’t sell them any more, I have no idea what brand they were, and I can’t get ANYTHING to compare. I have one last pair the I keep in my drawer but don’t wear, just so I can squeeze them once in a while and feel how soft they still are, after having worn them almost constantly for over 2 years. Nothing else comes close, even the ones advertised as supper-soft.
Mine was a lot dumber! (and more expensive).
More than 25 years ago, I used to do a bit of sewing – using a normal sewing machine. One thing that I always hated was hemming things, so I had this great idea: buy a Serger (Overlocker) and it does all the seams and hems for you in a single step!!!
Right.
So I bought an overlocker about 25 years ago.
It cost me at least $500, at a time when that was a lot of money for us.
I somehow convinced my (soon to be) husband that I would save us money by making our own clothes, curtains, etc.
Yeah, right.
I never used it.
Not once.
To make matters worse, my husband won’t let me get rid of it. It has followed me around for our entire marriage.
My husband brings it out every time I find something that I just “have” to buy.
I still haven’t come up with a decent comeback… and we still have the damn thing.
I recently bought myself a pair of pointe shoes. I’m 48 years old. I haven’t danced on pointe for 27 years. I bought them because I tested a crochet garment for a designer, and so I have to get fun, interesting pictures of me wearing the finished garment. And I decided that I needed pointe shoes in order to do that. And I didn’t buy just one pair of pointe shoes. I bought two pairs, because the first pair I bought online were too tight, so I bought a second pair…and never returned the first pair. But now that I have the pointe shoes and I need to get those pictures soon, I’m realizing that I’m more likely to break my neck than to get cute pics. ????????♀️???? I definitely win for stupidest purchase.
I bought a ton of plant cover pots, except that I got sizes that were “just”too small or way too big, and so now I have an entire closet of pots that won’t fit any of my plants, and eventually found the correct pots I needed from dollar tree, with the help of a quick little DIY evening…smh
I have bought too many essential oils with the intention of using them but I never seem to get around to doing it. I have the best intentions and have found 2 different companies that are reasonably priced, but the bottles continue to sit on the shelf. Maybe someday…
Lmao. I’m a Floridian. And I agree. We have horrible winters here. I keep telling my hubby he needs to warm up my toes before they fall off. Lol
Define stupid. Every year near Christmas I buy myself a pair of thermal socks which are about $12.00. I wear them in the office at work because our managers really don’t like turning the heat on. I have a few pairs. They are fuzzy on the outside but they keep me warm which is all that matters. As to stupidest recent purchase I’d say either the camping hammock I bought for $27 including the shipping or a magic trick which was also $27.00. With Covid unless you are booking a camping space about a month in advance or going out into the woods somewhere you aren’t going to get a spot. The magic trick will take some practice but people seemed to enjoy my sword swallowing bit.
I bought a pair of SmartWool socks for $20. Super expensive, but awesome socks. Pretty much no foot sweat when hiking. I also bought some other cheaper wool socks and though nice, not nearly as nice as the expensive ones.
That isn’t my weirdest impulse buy. I bought 2 spools of rainbow filament for my 3d printer. I haven’t even gone through 1 yet.
My husband decided almost on a whim to buy the multi-material upgrade for the printer. That might be the most frustrating purchase.
I bought a pair of dressy leather boots for over $300 that I couldn’t afford because my mother and I went shopping at a nice department store because I’d said I wanted boots I could wear even with my bad feet (I usually have to wear orthopedic shoes and pretty they are not). We both found pairs we loved that were in our budget but the sales woman told us they were sold out save the display models and talked us into buying far more expensive boots we liked less. I caved after two days and talked to my mom and we both returned our boots only to learn they had the ones we liked better in our size the whole time. The sales woman just wanted the much higher commission and it was fairly awkward as she was on shift while this other associate processed our return (bye bye commission) and our purchase of the boots we liked in the first place.
I can’t really handle bad purchases – I don’t like spending money so I do a lot of freaking out over it and rush to return if I change my mind. Still, paying over 300 bucks for a pair of boots I didn’t really like in the first place and finding out I was getting scammed turned me off from most department stores. I’m realllyyy suspicious of anything involving commissions now because of those awful boots. It turned out okay in the end but it was super unpleasant having the chick try to guilt us all through the return and purchase of the cheaper boots we liked better that she lied about. She followed us around and kept trying to intercept and derail things, I’m pretty sure my mom ended up talking to a manager despite being the type of person who hates to do so. She has to buy nice shoes for work so she has to shop at such places. I deff. plan to avoid them from now on- I have no idea what happened to my brain while we were shopping. I didn’t even LIKE the boots I bought for so much money.
A six pack of craft beer for 80 bucks. We tasted samples, and they were really good. But every bottle we opened at home tasted like unwashed ass.
Bras- I’ve bought soooo many bras that hurt or cut into my skin and they are stupid expensive. Definitely Bras
Vibrating brush for my face.
Ilona, I am totally with you and totally embarrassed. Mine’s worse though although it sounded logical until the end.
A few years ago we had 3 kids in diapers and because of contact allergies and peeing tons all at once they required expensive diapers. It was too much money every month. My Mom and sister-in-law were all INTO cloth diapers. I started reading articles and pretty soon I’m feeling brainwashed into thinking that my kids need GOOD cloth diapers like it will make their lives better somehow. I think of cleaning cloth dispers and think “okay, I don’t really want to, but I can do this and it’ll save money… I can’t afford NOT to do this.” Honestly I was feeling like they’d give my kids rainbow powers or something at this point.
I claim continuous sleep deprivation because… 3 kids young enough to be in diapers… so my judgement and even math skills (usually great) were terribly out of whack. So I decide to buy diaper covers and it results in a literal mess, so I decide for my next try I’ll invest in expensive ones. Mistake 1.
They cost so much (I have to buy 3 different sizes) I decide I have to make my own liners. I do tons of construction and materials research and spend lots of money on materials to make lots of diaper liners. I’m even considering opening an etsy business and making some to sell to help recoup costs (2 yards of the fabric cost less than 1 yard… per yard). I buy the best quality fabrics at the best prices I can find. Ultimately I spent between 3 and 5 hundred dollars and weeks on this, which was more money than I had ever spent on anything because we were diaper and house poor.
Everything comes. Yay! I take out the nonreturnable fabrics and as I’m sitting there in a pile of hundreds of dollars of absorbant fabric I realized with horror that not only was my sewing machine broken and there’s no money left to fix it, but I CAN’T REALLY SEW!!! 0_0
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My excellent husband started getting to at night with the kids after that.
I copy the recommendations for Darn Tough socks. I got sucked in by the Bombas adverts as well, but they aren’t very good quality.
I bought Bombas for my son. He is a really big guy 6’3” with big feet. He couldn’t even get them on. Wasted that money. Then I knitted him two pair(both standard gray) he loves them the socks fit! Hobby to practical wear. At da!
My education. Useless. What the hell ever happened to apprenticeships? On the job training that starts as basically a paid internship where you work your way up to full skill and full-time pay. I’m in.
Stupidest thing I bought was baby long johns from baby gap for $80. Babies grow out of clothes so quickly, and it’s just long underwear!
I have purchased The World’s Softest Socks at the grocery store! Yes, expensive but not as much as Bombas. But they *are* soft and comfy! I love them!
HAHAHAHAAAAA I freaking LOVE bombas! They are totally superior socks. ????❤️
An electric arepa maker. Was supposed to have them ready in minutes….took forever- I should have read articles online first on best cooking methods. Not even sure if they came out right.
My fav Sox where 50c each from the NZ sock factory in Ashbruton New Zealand. They have merino wool ones and possyum fur ones too very warm. They released Aussie possyums here and the eat all the native bush and eggs they are a pest but the fur mixed with merino is warm