Biggest waste of money you've witnessed?

I will never claim to be good with money. But I have a friend who recently finished paying off his credit card after 4 years. He's obsessed with MMORPGs and wants to play one that's coming out. He's kind of obsessed with games running effortlessly on his system. If he has even a smidge of lag he gets mad. So he's planning on wasting his money on this.

Is it just me or is that insane?

I doubt anyone has any that are as bad, but if you have any similar stories feel free to share.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Of course it is insane. It's Mexicanware.

Might as well use 2/4th of that money for ordering seperate parts off Newegg and building it yourself.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

My cousin and her new husband bought one of those high definition plasma TVs that hang on your wall. They paid up front, in cash from her husband's last check before he had a two week break before he started a new job, and put the thing on the wall in their bedroom. I'd have personally put it in my living room. You know, so that other people could enjoy it. But whatever.

Well, after blowing several thousand dollars on this TV her husband goes to start his next job (he's a safety worker for petrochemical plants) and they won't let him into the plants because his license is expired. He couldn't get it renewed because he had several outstanding tickets that amounted to like $2500 or something. We had been telling my cousin for months to take care of the tickets but she and her husband seem to be unable to control their impulses to spend money on crap instead of using it to pay for necessary things. Never mind that her husband could have been arrested if a warrant would have been put out on him (I can't remember if there was a warrant or not). Obviously an HDTV is more important than not being thrown in jail. After paying for the TV they couldn't afford to pay for the tickets, so my cousin went whining to my grandpa, who of course forked it over because he has a soft spot for her. They would have been up a creek if my grandpa hadn't helped her.

The moral of this story: Get your priorities straight. Or get a rich grandpa who will bail you out when you're in trouble.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

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 am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Those of you who have read my journal wherein I bitch and moan about how my car is treated by my sibling figure already know a lot of this but perhaps my little sis should get her priorities straight too. Both her and her husband have good jobs and somehow they can't seem to buy a car.

A CAR.

I see them coming home with random trinkets, armloads of games and movies here and there but no car. They could easily use some of that money buy a car and, once (if?) they have one, to pay someone to look after and maintain their car; because both are too fucking lazy to check a dipstick for oil and thus the reason why they don't have a working car in the first place. Worst part is, my car is slowly going to shit and when (again, if?) they buy a car, all the problems that it has now are never going to be repaired and I'm gonna be the one footing the bill to fix my own car.

Some peole, man... You give 'em an inch and they'll go on for fucking MILES. :/

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Originally Posted by DarkMageOzzie

MMORPGs

In my opinion, that's more of a waste of money than a computer. But seriously, tell him not to get an alienware. If he doesn't want to built it himself, tell him to go with Falcon Northwest. Falcon Northwest Computer Systems, The Ultimate Gaming PCs.

Edit: Woah, I just copied and pasted the Falcon Northwest link and it automatically changed it to the text above. Is that GFF's doing?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Squib

In my opinion, that's more of a waste of money than a computer.

You could say that, but that's all he uses his PC for. And it would take decades for an MMO bill to add up to what he's going to spend on that PC. There is so much stuff on that PC he won't even use including the Blue Ray Player and 15/16ths of the hard drive space. I mean seriously. He doesn't even browse the internet unless it's an MMO's official message board.

Also as far as the building it yourself part. He's basicly computer illiterate. He can't figure out anything himself and always asks me to help him. I'm not even a computer wiz myself, but I figure things out easy enough. I taught myself how to make AMVs and he wanted me to teach him how... when he wasn't even using the same software. I'm not a freaking tutor...

FELIPE NO

I always thought buying "fashionable" brand name clothing was a massive massive waste of money.

"It's got a little alligator over the right breast! That embroidery is worth an extra $100!"

wut.

Also minimum payments on credit card bills.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Meia

Chocosponsor. /thread

Fixed.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I was at H&M one time with a friend, he was gonna buy a $70 that we would wear during a school trip that was soon approaching. While waiting in line, we see this family buying a shitload of clothes. This pile was HUGE. To my guess, it was probably a good half of the women's selection and a good half of the men's selection. They go through half the pile and the total is about $1,200 already. Suddenly the wife of this guy paying comes by him carrying another outfit. The husband motions her to add it on to the pile.

I was thinking to myself, "WTF" the whole time I'm witnessing this. They're buying all this clothing that's gonna go out of season in about two months... So my friend finally pays, and there's still a pretty decent amount of clothing left on the counter for this family, as we walk out, we see the total reach up to about $2,100...

Why the fuck would anyone need that many clothes. H&M has nice clothes, but it's not worth buying the whole fucking store. <_<

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Maybe they were on What Not to Wear. :P

As for the topic, all I gotta say is Super Sweet 16.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Avalokiteshvara

I always thought buying "fashionable" brand name clothing was a massive massive waste of money.

"It's got a little alligator over the right breast! That embroidery is worth an extra $100!"

wut.

Also minimum payments on credit card bills.

Oh god. The guy I mentioned in the first post used to buy Tommy Hilfiger clothing in high school. I always thought that was retarded. I never understood these kind of clothes aside from bragging rights for how much money you spent on them. Which honestly I don't think is something to brag about.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Tonight my girlfriend backed out of a vacation we had planned next month.

Bye bye $700 non-refundable plane tickets!!!!

I was speaking idiomatically.

My best friend's father is possibly the WORST compulsive buyer I've ever met in my life. The man LOVES technology... hasnt the SLIGHTEST clue how to use it. He's bought at least 10 different iPods over his life... he's down to 2 because he keeps losing them. "Ally, how do you make a playlist?" "Didn't I show you this last week?" "I forgot! Can we sit down for a couple hours and you show me again?"

Plasma screens, the latest computers... NO IDEA how to use them. Once I returned home from school after a long time away, and I was welcomed home with "The wireless isnt working. Can you fix it?"

Also, shiny things. I went to BJ's WholeSale Club with him once, and we have to walk by the jewelry section at the entrance. He immediately was distracted by these little glass animals, each about $30. When I told him he didnt need any, he said "You never know when you'll need a gift for someone" and talked abut buying ten of them. $300 worth. Thank god I convinced him otherwise, because they would have gotten lost in their pig-sty of a house anyways.

Not to mention his 'hobbies'. Camping, exercising, redecorating, and fly fishing. All expensive hobbies, and fly fishing is the only one that he does continually. The rest is all on random impulses.

I think the worst part about all this is that he used to own his own business, but because he screwed up his back horribly when he was younger, he recently sold it to his nephew. So he's on a totally set income now, has gone through 6 back surgeries in the last 4 years, and STILL buys completely on impulse.


Also, one of my personal 'favorites'... fucking PURSES. I cant understand why a woman would spend upwards of $100 to $1000 (yes, I've seen them) on a PURSE. I use this little purple backpack I've had since like 5th grade... or (surprise!) my pockets.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Cellius

Tonight my girlfriend backed out of a vacation we had planned next month.

Bye bye $700 non-refundable plane tickets!!!!

Ugh, owned so hard

Early adopters are huge money wasters. I did that once with a laptop and learned my lesson hard. Since then I did that with my Wii and I did it many years ago when iPods first dropped. I've had success with those two but that's it. The majority of early adopters end up fucked rectally (iPhone, HD-DVD, etc).

Biggest waste that I've personally witnessed would be when a crew of 13 people including myself dropped $1500 each on a film that would never see the light of day because the director was an incompetent twat. Temari can back me up on this enormous waste

FELIPE NO

I can be a pretty impulsive buyer. Not to such a grand scale as some of the already posted examples, but I manage. One recent example is Folklore for PS3. I bought it about 4 months ago and have not played it once and don't even have the urge to play it. I think that I bought it just to have a new PS3 game, but I really didn't even have any interest in playing it then either. o_O

Here's another one. A few years ago, me and my buddies needed to look for some mats to do our wrestling training/sparring on. After much searching, and use of 411, we found this martial arts store. The mat that we wanted was $395 plus tax. It was a 4' x 12'. Needless to say, it was a rip off. I opted for 5 pieces of these puzzle mats. Spent $150. Well, let's just say, we might as well have been bumping on concrete...

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Federal Government, AMIRITE??????

In all seriousness, however, at the College-Level the money waste is unbelievable. They know they can get whatever funding they want between raising tuition and state aid, so they're comfortable spending it on anything.

My particular rant is about scholarship athletes. Look, we can't find pennies for people unless they're the academic equivalent of Tiger Woods and yet we'll give full rides to any bozo who looks like he can toss a ball. They need to get stricter on this stuff. They come in, they get tutors and excuses around classes, they get criminal records that they get pardoned from, and they get more tolerance than anyone else. And what do we get? A bunch of guys who can't go 30 seconds without a holding penalty or a botched pass for a turnover. If you can't learn the basics of the game, you lose your scholarship. Period. It's all you're damned here for, it's a lot easier to learn than what the actual students are here for, so get it right.

How ya doing, buddy?

waste of money = car
best value for money = home

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by tiimbz

waste of money = car
best value for money = home

That totally depends on where you live and how much you travel. For example, I can't imagine living in New Jersey without owning a car at one point.

Most amazing jew boots

There's a girl with a Swarovski crystal-encrusted laptop at my school.

Where should I hide the body?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by tiimbz

waste of money = car
best value for money = home

Actually, a home is a horrible investment for your money. Ignoring the fact that the home market's crashing right now, having that much money (a few hundred thousand) tied up in a house and doing nothing is a lousy investment. It's far better to keep a mortgage - build up your credit report and invest the money you're not keeping frozen in a few pieces of wood/plastic in the stock market where it can actually do something.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Arainach

the stock market where it can actually do something.

yeah cause with the drastic day-to-day up-down movement that the stock market has been recently is also a good idea of a place to throw your money

Face it, you'd be better off just telling him to go into a casino with $300 and "invest" it there. At least the odds might be more in his favor then.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Let's see... I remember paying about 700 dollars to get into a college, 500 to get an apartment, and 300 to get a plane ticket down there. But, at the last minute, I couldn't go down because, surprise surprise, I didn't have enough money to support myself when I looked for a job.

Abd not a cent of that money was refundable. Lost 1500 buck-a-roos, which, to a college student, is about a half-year's part-time work at minimum wage. Go higher education.

FELIPE NO

Airport Security... Billions thrown into the incinerator... what a waste of fucking money.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Little Shithead

yeah cause with the drastic day-to-day up-down movement that the stock market has been recently is also a good idea of a place to throw your money

Face it, you'd be better off just telling him to go into a casino with $300 and "invest" it there. At least the odds might be more in his favor then.

In case you hadn't noticed, our entire economy is geared for the benefit of stockholders. Corporations are legally required to treat their employees as shittily as possible to maximize shareholder value. If you're NOT in the stock market, you're going to get screwed over, period.

How ya doing, buddy?