Impulse Buys
 

Trying hard to save up money for Animenorth in two weeks got me thinking about impulse buys. What are the silliest things that you have bought, or realized that you just wasted your money on? They don't necessarily have to be useless, or impulse buys; just admittedly overpriced or worth a second thought.

Very quickly I can think of things around my house that I really regret buying, seeing as the cash supply is low for me:


Gloomy Bear Plushie = $25, I thought I'd never see this anywhere else and it was so cute.

IPod In-Ear Headphones = $50, well I've basically lived off these since I bought them, but I could've gotten severely cheaper headphones, since I'm not a quality freak.

Nintendogs DS skin = approx. $13, I don't even have Nintendogs anymore :S

Boogiepop Phantom VHS tapes! = $12 for volumes 2-4, we all know how old VHS is! There were the dvds, but the tapes were a steal. Unfortunately, I had no inclination to watch the series, and at least one of the tapes doesn't even work -_-;

The Toastmaster's Treasure Chest = $10, a rather useless book of quotes. Damn those Chapters' $10 feature books!

Chop Meat ($2.79/lb, 3.48 lbs, $9.71) It's been in my refrigerator for a good four days now. I could make tacos, sloppy joes or Hamburger Helper with this meat, but I haven't had the will to cook anything over the weekend, and during the work week you can forget me being in the kitchen for anything other than a drink.

The most impulsive buys for me usually constitutes a game or something I might give as a gift. If you want specifics, I'd say the most recent was a Sterling Silver fork bracelet, which was more than overpriced.

If meat is the most impusilve buy, you're doing well : D

Cheap Digital Camera from Wal-Mart: $20 I hardly even use cameras, but even if I wanted to use one this is not the one to use. I'll probably never buy one of those cameras that costs hundreds of dollars, but I'll never get another cheap one like this, either.

Shadow of the Colossus - My friend was going to be home in a few days and he told me not to buy it since it's too short. I bought it anyway and finished it really quickly. Not worth full price.

iPod Video - Um, I pretty much only use it on plane rides. =\

I just bought a bass guitar and amp today at about 400 dollars. Now all I need to do is learn bass... It seemed like a cool idea at the time.

Pretty much any TV Show on DVD release

Don't let me anywhere near a Best Buy, trust me. I'll drain a wallet in no time.

"Wow, first 3 seasons of the X-Files on sale? Look, they're normally 100 bucks, but you save an additional 15 dollars if you buy 3 sets for $40 each!"

"Hey, look, the Muppet Show is on DVD! And it's so cheap!"

"Oooh, Earth2! I've never heard of it, but you get the whole series in one boxset! Better pick it up!"

GOODBYE MONEY!

Ohh, and don't even mention the new slimline anime series releases! It's like I'll pick up any 13/26-episode series if it's 30-40 bucks.

TROOF!

Every time I go into Best Buy I always end up dropping like $200. EVERY TIME! The last time I went there (which was on Tuesday) I bought MegaMan X Collection on PS2, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow on Xbox, , Munich, An Unfinished Life, Match Point and BrainAge on DS. Brain Age is the only thing I've played so far and Munich was only watched by my sister yesterday while I cooked in a fever of 102.

This is rather unhealthy. :/

I learned from my mistake. I once bought Devil May Cry brand spanking new for $50, thoroughly regretted my buy, but by that time it was a Greatest Hits and resell for high would've been very difficult. Never again did I buy a game on impulse.

The Art of Warhammer 40,000 + Mercenary: 11 Dreams + Motorola RAZR = $750 wasted.

The phone I use frequently now though.

PSP for $420 after tax, and a Bad Motherfucker wallet for about $35 after tax. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head, but I'm usually quite a notorious impulse buyer.

Aww shit... I didn't even think about my PSP. Although that wasn't so much an impulse buy, so much as it was a "I know it's coming, I'm buying that shit the day it comes out".

It's now as broken as my brittle emo heart. :(

Star Ocean 3: I got this in January sometime at Best Buy for $20 and everytime I played it, I've noticed more and more things wrong with it. I got it 'cause I haven't played a new RPG in a while, and unfortunately this was a disappointment compared to the last RPG I've played, Tales of Symphonia. That game was awesome : /

Months passed where I've liked everything I've purchased, until just now when I purchased a FFVII: AC Cloud figure at Ebay. It was a tad pricey, but was actually the cheapest I've found. However it looks so awesome that I'm sure it's worth it :D

I'm going to be saving up for a Wii, and it's hard not to buy things in the meantime. I want that new Squall fig :D

Magic the gathering cards some 2-3 years ago.

Seriously.

I wasted money on it just because... well, just because. Looking back, all that money could've been put to better use.

Walked into BestBuy around sometime in April, probably the 2nd week and to my surprise the Xbox 360 was available. 3 Premium's and 2 Core systems available on a Sunday afternoon. :eyebrow: Either way, I plunked down $399+tax, extra controller and a game. The blasted thing doesn't work properly out of the box and I'm waiting on BestBuy to restock so I can exchange it. Either way, that's a good $500 or so dollars. :doh:

Random foil/rare for 15-20+ bucks every now and then. =(

Pretty much every PC game I've bought. I just don't get enough in them 99% of the time so they just stay in a pile of CD somewhere in my room.

Quite literally almost every time I walk past the $5.50 DVD rack @ walmart. I shouldn't even be allowed NEAR that rack :). The other day I was in there and bought 4 movies from there, movies that I just kind of like.

Most expensive impulse buy I've ever made was a Nintendo DS. I kinda immediately got bored with it and sold it to pay debts, but now I want a DS Lite more than anything.

Most worthwhile impulse buy I made was Dream Theater's 1999 Fanclub CD. It was mislabelled on eBay a while ago, so I immediately used "buy it now" and snaffled it for £30. Shame I had to sell it to pay the aforementioned debts - I did wind up netting £90 for it, though.

Worst impulse buy I've ever made was a train ticket to Nottingham. I don't remember buying it. I have no motivation to go to Nottingham as I live in Canterbury and was in London at the time. I've got no idea what happened there.

Creepy! I'm listening to the title track right now.

My PSP is my biggest impulse buy. I enjoy it, but it was still bought on impulse. Much like my DS, come to think of it, which I also still enjoy.

I did buy some crappy anime box set once, I forget the series but it was amazingly cheap ($10 for something that's NOT a bootleg!). Hated it, traded it in at Gamestop and got $5 per DVD. With 3 DVDs, I made a $5 profit off of it.

beatmaniaIIDX RED CS was an impulse pre-order. I meant to take it off before it shipped, but I forgot play-asia ships early. Bye, $80 :<

A Stand Alone Complex DVD at AnimeNorth 2005 for $30cdn. I could have just waited until I got home and gotten it for $20.

Almost everything you see for sale at anime cons is horribly overpriced anyway, unless it's a retail chain setup like Waldenbooks who can afford to lose $1 or $2 on each graphic novel they sell.

Last fairly big impulse buy I had was my Gameboy Color. It was on sale at KB-Toys for something like $30 off, my old Gameboy was dying, and I wanted a new one to finish playing Pokemon with. Turns out I was just about at the end of the darned game, so the only use my GBC gets anymore is the occasional game of Tetris since it's always in my backpack.

I have done a lot of impulse buys over the last few years. I have my on and off times. I would go a couple months where I don't buy anything, and my expenses are pretty low. Then there would be a set of months where I'm buying whatever's interesting that comes my way. ;_; I haven't made any "impulse buys" since last summer. I just made one a couple days ago importing a DS lite right after mr current DS broke. ;_; Impulse buy. $180. Basically paid $50 more to get it a month earlier and for a different color (but then again, I wouldn't be able to make purchases like these next month). Hot. I will say it was worth it.

A couple years ago I went on a classic gaming (more like SNES) collecting spree, so I spend hundreds getting classic SNES games. Last school year, I remember buying basketball cards on impulse.

Oh, I also tend to go to concerts on impulse. I usually end up going on craigslist to get last minute tickets and stuff. Even my trip to LA for the first Dear Friends concert was impulse.... and I went to it during my final exam week. :p

I'm sure I've bought plenty of things on impulse that I regretted, but the one jumping to mind was that brand-new copy of Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete years and years ago. God, what an atrociously bad game. One of the few games I ever hated enough to sell, and the one that made me forever swear off buying new games on impulse. Now whenever I'm tempted to buy something that's new and full price ($60+), I hold off and do some research first, or at least have some patience and wait until it drops in price. Lesson learned.

Thanks, Lunar! In the long run you probably saved me more money than I wasted on you, so I guess we're even.

I bought a dolphin globe thing for about $1 b/c I thought my sister would like it (even though I already had a gift for her). Also, candy can sometime be an impulse buy for me.

Yamaha 2330 Shepherd's Crook Cornet. I managed to snag it in beautiful condition for just over $130 shipped and I couldn't resist. I still love it.

Arainach's ava/sig reminds me of one of mine impulse purchases.
I bought some cordless Sennheiser headphones, and after getting them, they were disgustingly staticy, and I just stuck with my 2 year old Koss headphones.

A PS2 game called "Ephemeral Fantasia" was one purchase I still regret. I had been looking for something interesting to play and it was $20 at that time. I started it, but didn't really find anything that kept me playing the game for long.

Various articles of clothing have also been impulsive buys. I still have some with the tags on.

The most stupid thing i ever bought was the album "Rosenrot" from "Rammstein" because i bought it 2 times... Well, i bought the normal edition and the limited edition + dvd, but the CDs are actually the same :P I just spend all my money i got on that day on those CDs >_< (Also bought a single from rammstein on that day)

My worst buy was Pokemon Stadium for N64. Sure, this happened years ago, but I want my $60 dollars back. Now. :(

Most of my other implusive buys are clothing-related, especially nice dress tops, pants, or skirts costing around $30 each. I have about a million of them sitting in my closet, and I still believe that I have no formal clothes, which is sort of true, considering that I would never wear half of what I had picked out. This needs to stop! I guess the problem is that I liked them when I bought them.

I also tend to go overboard with stuffed animals. :(

A whole dollar? My god, how can you afford such extravagancy?!

Fuck, I buy all sorts of shit on impulse. I'll buy shit just for the hell of it. I don't need it, but damned if it isn't cool. Right now, from where I'm sitting the impulse purchases I have made are;

- Nerf Guns (2)
- Rubicks Cube
- Numerous, numerous DVDs
- NHL 06, Tiger Woods 06, Resident Evil 4
- 1001 Albums you Must Hear Before you Die book (buy this)
- 2 1000 peice puzzles
- 25 dvd-rs (they were on sale!. It doesnt matter that I don't use them!)
- An original framed 1989 Back to the Future 2 theatrical teaser poster

I bought Star Fox: Dinosaur Planet at Future Shop for ten bucks.

I die a little every time I hear about that game. Worst ever.

Candy and video games for me. thats my extent that or dice,... all kinds of dice, lots of diffrent sided dice. wow I need a life

I can't remember ever having bought anything on impulse. It's actually somewhat depressing, in a way.

The last thing I bought on impulse was a t-shirt. Seriously, I almost never buy anything not necessary to survival. Before you disbelieve me though, I fully considered Oblivion necessary to survival ... alongside the ramen I'll be living off of until my next paycheck comes in.

Things I buy on impulse... anything a cute girl im ona date with wants :\ that's my weakness.

LOL, with the sub-minimum wage pay they give me at both my jobs, I can't. Just kidding, but seriously I don't buy huge things on impulse b/c I'm into saving money, but it's the little things that get me since I tell myself, "It's just $1, what can it hurt?" However, if you tell yourself that 100 times, it can easily add up.

However, I guess if you want a higher number on the impulse buy, I can think back to this shirt I bought once b/c my friend thought it looked cute on me, so I agreed and I bought it for $24 without really thinking about whether or not I would truly feel comfortable wearing it (it's "bohemian chique" instead of the normal t-shirts I wear). She said that she would've felt guilty if I had left the mall without buying anything.

I still haven't worn it and it's been about 2 weeks. Also, when I brought it home to try it on a second time--in case that whole "Elaine Store-Mirror" effect was happening--and one of the straps broke. It has been reparied, but it wasn't one of my better purchases.

Worst impulse buy ever? I bought a $25 CD player from Best Buy once (this was back in 2001, when that was cheap!), without the slightest knowledge of the brand or the player itself. The paint started chipping off almost immediately, the screen quit working after about a month, and the whole unit died not long after. I learned my lesson, and wound up replacing it with a little Panasonic one that only cost a few bucks more than the little generic thing. That lasted for at least three years before I replaced it with a Sony CD/MP3 Walkman and eventually an iPod nano.

the nano itself was a bit of an impulse buy...I bought it on launch day before any reviews were avaliable. I can't say I regret it at all, though! ^^

My best impulse grab was a used stereo system from the early 1980's. I wound up getting a $25 Technics SA-626 receiver and a pair of old Acoustic Research AR-93 speakers for $36, pretty much unheard and without any real knowledge of the particular models or brands. The speakers needed another $30 worth of repair to work well, but the end result is amazing. The receiver can put out 60 watts per channel for hours (I've never clipped it, and that's using pretty inefficient speakers) with no distortion or noise, and the speakers can go very low and have good balance and sound quality. <3

recently I bought my Nintendo DS - $200 with mario kart (with 256 mb gba flash card - $90) and my 30 Gig Creative Video player - $350 (openbox). I use them both all the time. The worst impulse buy I can think of is Viewtiful Joe 2, and is the only game I own un-beaten. I'm sure the Wii will be one too

That reminds me that my PSP was an impulse buy:

"$220 used? That's pretty cheap" (but of course, there's a reason it's used)
So I learn about all the quirks of my system the hard way. The analog nub sticks to a direction in the slightest most annoying way and the power switch has to be brought down a certain level to ensure it doesn't turn off automatically.

Considering I only bought it because the used price was more affordable in comparison to the price of a brand-new one, I decided I might as well go down the emulation path, since I don't really like any of the games.

So I bought Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for the sole purpose of emulation, and I had no desire to play the game itself. Fortunately, I grew to like it and play it often now.

Subsequently, a bad impulse choice was to get Ultimate Block Party at the full $40+tax price, because I thought they'd stop stocking it due to it not being that popular.

Although, Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX at a massive 50% off, coming to a mere $25 was the best impulse buy I've ever made. Nowhere else would I find a deal like that, unless you count waiting for months upon months until it becomes a rather old game.


Seeing Magic cards being mentioned before too, Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards drained well over $500 of my money seeing as how I have three tins worth, several starter decks, and bought all these useless cards because it was "exciting to see if I get anything rare."

Finally, the same goes for Pokemon Cards. I count $23 worth since I got 23 cards from those silly machines which you have to pay $1 per card, again to see if I would get rare stuff (2/23).

Hmm, impulsive buys.... I think that would be most of the techy sorta stuff I own, my pc setup, my audio setup, my digi cam, small alcohol collection :p cloathes.

Admitently I use all of that stuff, but so far, impulse buying = £5000 spent on stuff in the past few years on stuff. I'm only 20 :(

I know someone who used to regularly waste THOUSANDs and get into tons of debt because of it x.x as for personal impulse buys, I don't use my money often enough to really give any imput.

I usually conserve my money, I have a defensive tactic with finance. My bf says its a bad tactic, heh. I still do it though.

Not really an impulse purchase, but rather an impulse decision:

Today I had a conversation with an English teacher and all of a sudden he asked me if I want to participate in the Chinese student exchange next year. He also added that I only have one day left to decide and I just replied yes, without even having any informations about it. Well, I'll just send in the application tomorrow and then, during this summer, I'll probably regret my decision one day. But whatever, from Europe to China and back again with a plane for only $400 together with a two weeks' stay in Peking shouldn't be that bad. At least I won't pay anything. :tpg:

My DS was an impulse purchase. Saw it for a decent price on eBay, and all my friends were getting PSPs and I wanted a new portable system to show off, so I bought one.

It turned out to be worth it in the end, but I thought I was an idiot for a good month or so.

I'll also sometimes buy games I normally wouldn't just becuase they are becoming rare, like I was considering the WoW Collector's Edition but I thought it would turn out like the Warcraft 3 Collector's Edition (The one I spent $70 on release, and then it was on Amazon a few months later for $20.), but then I got word WoW Collector's was going for $200 on eBay, so I went to 6 stores to find one, and I did.

I did something similar with MGS3: Substance Limited Edition recently, but I got wind of it's rarity a week before release, and I couldn't preorder it at that point, so I ended up driving an hour out of town to get one at a more rural EB. Insanity.

I also bought Everquest 2 Collector's and City of Villians Collector's because I got good deals on them and thought I would play them, but I ended up cancelling both and just playing WoW.

Quite simply, I cannot hold onto money very well. I have an annoying tendency to want to get the hottest games on the market, and half the time I won't actually finish it until the game is no longer hot. Recent examples include: Grandia 3, ES4: Oblivon, Dragon Quest VIII (Although I got an insane deal on it.) and MGS3: Substance Limited. Admittedly, most of my time was spent completing Kingdom Hearts 2, which hooked me hard and fast.

I've managed to slow down on impulse spending recently though. I'm trying to buy an Xbox 360, and it looks like I'll be able to hold onto my money long enough to do so, so things are looking better, but it's still one of my worst habits.

PSP was an impulse buy, and it was a kick in my figurative balls. Now I wish someone would impulse buy it off my hands. I've got, like, three games; it's a damn three-game adapter! What a waste of money.

I can't think of a good impulse buy, if that actually happens with me.

In terms of video games,

- Fifa 06
- Unreal Championship
- Unreal II
- Monsterhunter

:tpg: Why?

OUCH @ Monster Hunter. I remember reading about that and saying, "Online monster hunting action? Sounds fun AND lasting!" I wonder if the servers or whatever for the game are still up. On a similar note, Resident Evil Outbreak was an ALMOST impulse buy. That would have had me questioning my mental state too.

Same as Evergreen. PSP with three games I never play. Luckily I got it fairly cheap while I was in Japan last year for ¥18,000, which is around $170 US.

It was a bit of a novelty for a while, but I bought a really crappy game to go with it (the Bleach fighting game, since I wanted something without text), later bought Wipeout Pure on sale which I only played for an hour, and then got Lumines and played it quite a bit for the week.

But it's all okay now that I can use my PSP as a rear view mirror for PS3 racing games.

Logitech Web Cam- Thought they were the 'thing' at the time, no one i knew got one so it just ended up collecting dust...and it still does.
Matrix Online- Need i say more?
+3 INT hat- Hey, it was cool in the first three days until all the nerdy kids at school bagan to hover behind me all the time...creepy
AVP DVD- Honestly i thought the movie never existed, i really thought it was just a bad dream until i found this DVD sitting in my closet hidden far away from anything besides some old family photos and Rocky IV, V, and soon to be VI on DVD.

FUCK. I don't even like racing games. Guess that's a couple Franklin's I'll never see again.

Hm. Well the only thing that's draining my pocket now is having the urge to buy food.

[edit] Oh yea, and my PSP that I eventually sold. Kept thinking to myself I know I'm never going to use this cause I don't make enough money to support a console let alone a portable one who's games are pretty expensive. But it's so new and shiny I just have to have it. Sold it for 150$ bought it for 214$

Three Fates Warning albums. I'm not sure why I went out and bought -three- albums by a band I didn't know if I'd like, but either way they're sitting right in the middle of my CD collection, and probably won't move for a while now.

I'm notoriously bad at buying things just to buy them. A common reason is because of how they look. (My best friend actually joked that I'm the kind of person that marketing folks use to test new products on. Showcasing the Gameboy Micro? Lumi: "Ooh! I'd LOVE one of those! Look how TINY it is!")

Just like Xanadu, I ended up buying a Fates Warning album ("FWX") just because. It was at FYE for $9.99 and I sort of liked the band, and plus I was so excited to see some more of the music I actually like in a US store that I just went ahead and bought it. I've listened to it . . . once over the past year.

Back when I had a PSP, I bought many PSP games on impulse. "PoPoLoCrois is an RPG? Shoot, I'll buy it!" "Wow, Dynasty Warriors for a handheld? It's mine!" "Sweet! The Sims 2 in my pocket!" Never even thinking to READ about the damn games beforehand. None of them were that great, and the loading times were horrible (particularly for The Sims 2).

I'd have to go with my copy of Nightwish's Greatest Hits on this one. I had no idea who they were, or what their music was like, but i bought the cd anyway. Listened to it pretty all the time when i first bought it, not so much anymore though.

How about an impulse theft?

My buddy Reg lifted a big shiny wrench from a construction site, and proceeded to carry it with him at all times for about 8 months until he lost it. It was a nice wrench.