‘What’s the worst financial decision you’ve made?’ – 23 people who will admit to being monumentally bad with money

Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves, as the old saying goes. Which is a very sensible approach. Sensible, and boring.

Sometimes we just want to throw caution to the wind and take a risk with our cash. It’s an understandable desire but, unfortunately, it rarely ends well, as anyone who got involved in non-fungible tokens will know.

They’ve been discussing money disasters on the AskUK subreddit after JoshuaWebbb asked this…

I’m bored at work. What’s the worst financial decision you’ve made?

I’ll go first. I Amazon primed some AirPod pros to my workplace because I forgot to bring mine with me.

And lots of other people chipped in with their own foolish impulses, like these…

1.

‘I had about 5k sitting about in 2014ish after my granny died. My mate at the time worked in finance, so I phone him up asking about what to do with it. He gets very excited talking about how theres been some buzz around something called ‘bitcoin”

I went on holiday and bought an engagement ring. Hindsight…’
–DarthKrataa

2.

‘Oooh good question. Two years ago I bought a house with my partner. Six days after we moved in to the house I caught her having an affair. Cost me a bomb to fix that mess! So it’s that or any time I put Spurs to win on an Acca.’
–Desperate_Bad1416

3.

‘Bought a house which ‘needed some work’.’
–TheLadyHelena

4.

‘I booked a fancy dining experience for over £200, it was pay upfront. I put the wrong day in the calendar. On the day I was all excited to go, I realised it happened yesterday.’
–Proper_Emu_2296

5.

‘VR headset, £400 at the start of the first lockdown in 2020. Thought it would keep me occupied, unfortunately I realised about 10 minutes into wearing it for the first time that it gave me chronic motion sickness.

For the past 6 years its primary function has been to sit at the bottom of a drawer and take up space.’
–No-Locksmith6662

6.

‘We’d had an offer accepted on a house, so I cashed in my stocks and shares ISA and held it in cash for six months as it was our deposit we’d been saving for years and I had a lot of high-risk stuff in there.

Yeah, I sold my Nvidia shares right before they rocketed 240%.’
–Harriato

7.

‘I took out a credit card to buy a laptop when I was about 20. They kept increasing my limit and, because I was dumb and it felt like free money, I maxed it out and carried that balance for bloody years.’
–Obvious-Water569

8.

‘Bought a drone licence for £100, didn’t have a drone, didn’t complete the licence. Was a good price though.’
–robdelterror

9.

‘Getting married to the laziest man in the UK. Oh he could talk the talk, he was gonna be this and that. Never delivered on his promises. Never worked full time or regularly. Never paid towards the mortgage or bills. Always had excuses. Left me in debt. Happily divorced now and recently got my credit score into the 900s!’
–Dazzling-Nothing-870

10.

‘Finally decided to get a pair of really expensive shoes I’d been battling with myself over for weeks. Left them on the train on the way home.’
–IndigoQuantum

11.

‘When I got my second paycheque, I bought some £50 jeans. This would have been about 25 years ago, so adjust for inflation and we’re looking at over £100.

I then promptly forgot which of my pairs of jeans those actually *were*, and never knew whether I was wearing them or not.’
–Sir_Gerald_Nosehairs

12.

‘Paid £8 for Deliveroo because I was too lazy to walk 5 minutes to the shop and buy the exact same thing.’
–Zestyclose-Rice6401