What was your dumbest purchase ever?
Posted
Mar 10 2008, 08:55 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
"DebtKid," feeling buyer's remorse about his 1 a.m. purchase of a Nintendo DS Lite that has since been gathering dust, is holding a contest for the stupidest purchase ever. He's gotten quite a response from readers and other bloggers. The winner will get his DS Lite.
We'll give you a few of the highlights. "Krninco" at Compulsive Debtor's Finance Blog has several doozies: a $400-plus bowling party for her daughter, "Mini Me," (and to prove that she wasn't too extreme, krninco provides a link to a St. Petersburg Times story about parents who threw a $3,000 birthday party for their 1-year-old, complete with a publicist).
There's also the $5,000 piano "purchased in hopes that one day Mini Me would become Mini Mozart," and Beauty, a hugely expensive bichon frisé that bites and leaves little presents on the floor "to show you she can." Oops, we almost forgot to mention that krninco bought a $200 car seat for the little dog.
"Seasicksquid" at Seasicksquid's Cookie Dough recounts a tale of youthful misspending. She and three friends were supposed to go to a Coldplay concert in Detroit, but she forgot to buy the $50 tickets before they sold out. So she ordered four nonrefundable tickets online for $600 each. Only one of her friends repaid her. "We had a fabulous time in the end, but I don't think it was worth the 1,500 odd dollars that it cost me, plus all the interest," she writes.
Amanda at Me vs. Debt got sucked in by a phony debt-counseling service that took her $400 fee and disappeared. "Singlemomindebt" spent nearly $1,000 for a treadmill that soon became "the most expensive coat rack that I'll ever own." She and her boyfriend split up and she let him keep it so he could sell it and give her half the proceeds. A fire in his apartment destroyed it. It felt "the burn it never got to experience through use," she writes.
