Shook People Share The Most Outrageous Waste Of Money They've Witnessed IRL
Money matters. We all get that. But it doesn't seem to matter to everyone in the same way. For some of us, a few dollars is a treasure, for others it's hardly worth thinking about. I'll be the first to admit, I'm notorious for wasting money for convenience. My local Chinese restaurant is within walking distance, but I pay the delivery fee EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. rather than go out and get it myself. To some people, that's a total waste of money that really adds up. To me, it's worth it to not have to pack my kids up, go get the food in a million degree heat and bring it back while listening to the kids complain the entire time.
Some things, though, are the kind of wasteful that you can't really get over. Have you ever seen someone blow their money in a way that just made you stare and scratch your head? One Reddit user asked:
What is the most outrageous waste of money you have witnessed with your own eyes?
And, honestly, I'm feeling pretty good about my Chinese food deliveries right now. Because hey at least I didn't buy sneakers just to put in a display case while I still lived at home with my mommy! Yeah, that happened.
Boating
The three separate occasions where my dad bought a boat, neglected to use it for years, sold it, and bought a different boat like the next year.
One Laptop
Around 2001, my wife worked for a national company, and her team was split between east and west coast.
No working from home or laptops, Desktops were standard for them.
If someone needed to work from home, they had a single laptop they could use. For the whole team. So, if that laptop was in NC, and someone in CA needed to work from home, they had to box it up, ship it (with full insurance, rush shipping, and a few days notice) to the other coast.
Chalk
High school head of math department buys about ten pallets of chalk, and retires the next year. The new head of the math department decides to switch out all the chalk boards for dry erase boards. They aren't allowed to throw out the chalk, and aren't allowed to share with other departments who still use chalk boards. They had a room full of chalk for at least 7 or 8 years that no one was allowed to use.
Social Anxiety Scotch
I bought a $300 bottle of scotch when I meant to buy the $60 version from the same distillery (the boxes looked nearly identical). When the cashier told me the price, I realized my mistake, but she and everyone behind me in line seemed really impressed that I was buying something so expensive. So now I own an unopened very expensive bottle of single malt because of my social anxiety.
Lesson Not Learned
Previous job, a satellite location ran mostly on their own (technically was their own company of 7 people). President of said company met someone online, got cat fished hard and sent them $20k from the business.
THEN THEY DID IT AGAIN 2 YEARS LATER.
VIP Tours
I'm a VIP tour guide at Walt Disney World. Each guide costs $600/hour and charging starts when you ask us to meet you, whether you're there or not. A family booked two of us multiple days in a row and wouldn't show up until typically 2-3 hours into being charged. $7k+ overall paid for tour time they didn't use. Didn't care at all.
We Just Use Wooden Pallets
I used to have something to do with warehouse logistics, and whatnot. A new manager came in, and his first project was an order of about half a million dollars worth of pallet. These weren't wooden pallets, but plastic moulded ones, specifically made to fit the forklifts that we were using. The order had to be made overseas and brought in by freight. They had to be exact measurements, of course, to fit the forklifts. We don't have adjustable forklifts here, that will be important later.
He started bragging that my sales department made all the money "for him to spend."
A few months later, the pallets arrived and none of them fit the forklifts in our warehouse...
Except for one.
Turns out, he measured only one of the forklifts for these pallets. That one forklift was part of a unique, non-standard system used for minor moves.
Faced with a warehouse of half a million bucks worth of plastic pallets that won't work with our standard forklifts, the guy was swiftly asked to resign. But yeah, now we use wood pallets.
Could Have Fed The Hungry
Not sure the amount of money, but it was a lot of bacon.
I once worked for a 3PL warehouse primarily focused on food storage services. A client company was storing some pre-cooked bacon for use in some product they were planning to release. They decided not to release said product and ordered all of the bacon we were storing for them to be destroyed. We loaded multiple trucks with close to 150,000 lbs of perfectly edible bacon to get tossed in a landfill. Saddest day of my life while working there.
Before anyone asks, there was an auditor from the client there making sure all of the pallets of bacon were loaded onto the trucks and none "fell off."
Don't Be Like Kevin
I worked with a guy years ago as his manager, we'll call him Kevin. Kevin had a gray, 1987 Chevy Celebrity that he had bought for $300, which he customized with 18" rims that he had bought for $800 used (and likely stolen) and $500 worth of audio equipment (also likely stolen).
He decided one day that he should put under-car lights on his $300, 1987 Chevy Celebrity. He spent $400 on a fancy set of lights and another $200 to have them installed. Under-car lights happened to be illegal in our state but you could usually get away with them if you weren't stupid. Kevin was stupid.
He decided to show off his $300, 1987 Chevy Celebrity with it's $800 rims, $500 audio system and $400 under-car lights, which weren't particularly legal in our state. He concluded that the best place to do so was the local carnival, sponsored by and held outside of the local police station.
Kevin pulled up to the carnival in his $300, 1987 Chevy Celebrity, slowed down on his $800, 18" rims and turned on his $400 under-car lights and $500 audio system. Not 100 feet into showing off for the ladies one of the police officers, of which there were many, decided to show off the lights on his 2002 Chevy Impala.
He was given a ticket for $180 but told that if he had the lights removed and showed up to his court date then the ticket would likely be dropped. Returning to the shop at which he'd purchased the lights for $400, Kevin paid another $100 to have them professionally removed, which he then earned back by selling the $400 set of lights to the very shop for that $100 that he'd just handed them, having only gotten to use them the one time.
After removing and ridding himself of the lights that had caused so much drama to Kevin and his $300, 1987 Chevy Celebrity, he decided to celebrate by trying to drag race a Mustang on the way home. He wrecked and totaled the car but walked away unscathed.
Thus was the end of the $300, 1987 Chevy Celebrity with it's $800 rims, $500 audio system and $400 under-car lights. Since the car had been totaled, Kevin never got the chance to prove to the magistrate that the lights had been removed and still had to pay the $180 fine.
Display Sneakers
Had a friend who was in his late 20s and lived with his parents (100% dependent).
Dude worked a part time job and said he was saving money for something big. We all assumed he meant like moving out or a trip out of the country or something.
No.
This mf bought a $750 pair of SNEAKERS and then put them in a display case.
I haven't spoken to him in about a year.
H/T: Reddit