Biggest waste of money you've witnessed?

Originally Posted by Captain Desu

A friend of mine purchased a Blu-ray dvd player, and he wishes to buy a playstation 3 this year too...

Ugh ><
How much is a stand-alone Blu-ray player nowadays anyway?

More than the PS3... That's for sure.

Originally Posted by Meia

High end weddings. /thread

Its SO ridiculously stupid. I just cannot really put it in words in how much that money should had been for a HOUSE or savings for their kids or god forbid their own freakin debt or marriage counseling/divorce proceedings. :\ I've visited too many weddings that were doomed to fail.

I understand why people want a big wedding, and why they are willing to spend a lot of money on it. The way I see it, it's most likely the only day in your life, aside from you funeral maybe, where everything will revolve around you and your husband/wife, so why not make the most of it? Yes, a lot of people say that they are happy if they can just be with the two of them, but I'm way too shallow to appreciate that, I basically want a gigantic wedding with tons of people to witness me and my wife's moment de gloire. Besides, I don't really know how it's in the US, but in Belgium, the parents pay for the wedding most of the time, and the couple gets tons of gifts and money, so why not invite some more people?

People say it's incredibly gay of me, but I love splurging obscene amounts of money on shopping, and I always find a way to justify it to myself (i.e., I'll wear it for years, it really matches that blue pair of jeans that I have,...). I know I have pretty expensive taste, Diesel, Replay, Hugo Boss, Lacoste (only the latest collections though, their older stuff is really not that good), and a lot of people find it ridiculous that I'm willing to spend a lot of money on it, but what's the problem if I'm ok with it all?

I'm usually an impulsive non-buyer. I go to the store with a list, and talk myself out of 3/4 of it.

I don't understand how people can spend so much money on luxury things. Things like huge-screen tv's and stuff. Maybe I'm just too practical for my own good. I found it hard to spend money on a digital camera even, because I just couldn't see myself needing it. It took me two weeks to talk myself into getting it for the simple reasoning of wanting it. Buying my laptop was a neccesity in many ways. Communication, school, hobbies etc. So paying 1200 for my laptop wasn't a major waste in my eyes. I got something really good, with a great warranty and a few great accessories. But I've seen people buy shitloads of things that they'll never need. I don't know, I just hate seeing people spend all their hard earned money on things they don't really need.

I don't mind gambling if it's a couple of quid in the IT box, but I have a friend who used to spend practically all his disposable income that month on slot machines. He wouldn't be phased by coming away with about a quarter of what he'd spent, saying that the coffers were full and if he kept playing he'd hit the jackpot. Luckily he's learned to moderate since then.

Also agreeing with the bottled water. I'm sure someone ran a scam once by simply making his own label, bottling his own tap water and selling it at a regular price. A sly trick but it goes to show how stupid some people can be.

I was going to second games and movies that are rarely, if ever played again, since the same guy I was talking about before must have well over 200 DVDs and plenty of games, most of which are scratched to hell due to his untidiness. However, he always seems to know where to get things cheap and it's probably less expensive than renting. Also, if they are in good enough condition, there are plenty of places that would let you trade them in for cash, so it's not a total loss.

The biggest waste of money I ever witness happened a few years back when two of my friends blew their entire student loan (6 or 7 grand) in a bit more than a week in the video lottery machines at our student bar. They kept influencing one another to play more. Both left university that semester since they had no way to sustain themselves. One never went back, and the other was back the next year and feeling pretty stupid.

Biggest waste of money eh?
It's a good thing I don't actually live here, because it's been 6 months and I must have spent at least $300 on vending machine crap.

If I bought it at the store maybe it would cost half that?

The figures aren't high, but they add up over time I think.

Definitely my little brother. He's wasted cars (changing the god damned oil isn't that difficult and yet...), racked up a myriad of parking/speeding tickets, court dates, lawyer fees, and generally manages to break or lose things often. He's the type of child you hope to god you'll never have.

company spent tens of thousands $ on a computerized, automated, touch screen redic system they later just threw away cause they fired the guy who set it up, apparently they hated him that much.

also staffed a full time phd (100ish $/year?) for 3 years, and all he did was make graphs in excel, only came in 3 days a week to boot

edcross: What exactly is a redic system? I hope I'm not just misreading a typo.

Biggets waste of money? $6-700 on an Apple iPhone. You really need your phone and your mp3 player on the same device? Okay, pal.

First thing that popped into my mind was smoking. It's sad to think about the huge amount of money people spend on cigs (when you look at it over a long period of time) just to kill themselves more quickly.

$6000 custom computer.

My friend bought this custom computer to play WoW and Crysis. Normally I wouldn't call that a waste, but he over clocked it to the point that it basically blew up. It is so far costing him $2000 and rising to fix it all.

Probably my flatmate, a complete nerdatron. Warhammer, LARPing gear, train tickets to go to the LARPing events, PAYING for the LARPing events, Yu-gi-oh cards, Pokemon games...I let him off with video games since they're easily sold on and enjoyed but the rest is a bit too much. He lives off the bank of Mum and Dad as well as a Student Account with a large overdraft.

I think considering since this is an Internet community, it would be safe to say that the biggest waste of money I've witness (according to you guys) would be my own purchase of twenty-five CDs at full or near-full retail price, since most of you probably download all your music anyways.

I download music, but the effect it has on me is the opposite of most people. Usually I either don't like it that much and never play it again/delete it or I feel a compulsion to "support" the artist and buy the CD in full, even though I already technically I have all the music from it. Two examples of this would be my buying of Eric Serra's, "RXRA" and Marit Larsen's, "Under the Surface" - both expensive imports.

Some family friends dropped at least $100,000 on their wedding.
Not even kidding, the food alone was $100 a plate. And there were about 200 people there.
And they gave everybody silver heart-shaped measuring spoons as favors. I don't want to think how much the woman spent on her dress.

Weddings are expensive sure, but there's no reason to go over the top.

Originally Posted by Sane Brain

I download music, but the effect it has on me is the opposite of most people. Usually I either don't like it that much and never play it again/delete it or I feel a compulsion to "support" the artist and buy the CD in full, even though I already technically I have all the music from it.

Well...I do actually buy CDs of groups that are underrepresented and I feel could use the money, especially if they're with a smaller label or independent. Unfortunately most of my downloaded musics come from somewhere outside the country, which makes acquiring the physical disc somewhat...expensive.

I bought my friend a $200 War Hammer starter kit as a farewell gift. He told me he always wanted one.

But after about a month, he stopped playing.

Nothing can top mine. My friend inherited around $65,000 from his grandmas passing. He was around 17-18. His parents are dumber than he is, didnt really care about em. He eventually used it all within 6 months. Not buying anything useful like a car, or investing it in something, nothing!! Some notable things he bought include:$4,000 worth of hentai
$2,000 dollars for a PS3.

The PS3 thing was he tried to buy on on ebay when it came out for 1,000, but he actually bought a PS3 domain name! LOL. We were on him about that for months. So he spent another thousand gettin a PS3.

The rest he spent on random stuff or things he hasnt said anything about. Either way, biggest waste of money ever!

The weekend I was getting out of boot camp, they let us go out in town and to the local mall and whatnot, my friend bought a $400 watch that tells him his heart rate and a bunch of really useless stuff. Luckily I was able to convince him of his folly and he returned it.

I work in the restaurant at the local golf club. There's a family that eats every friday night. They're messy and wasteful- pay for a huge meal, and then only eat 1/5 of it. Their children mess up the place (10-14 year olds, so they should be capable of being at least somewhat tidy). They buy things such as bottled water, and then only drink a mouthful. It's ridiculous.

My grandmother impulsively buys trinkets and decorations (a trait my mother seems to be taking on) for her house. Every surface has something sitting on it. Come Christmas time, there are new Christmas-themed stuffed animals and Santa figurines on all the tables and shelves. And she wonders why she's struggling to repair/renovate her house...

This sort of behaviour continues to baffle me.