“I Spent £1,400 Spontaneously”: 5 Women On The Expense They Regret Making

We’ve all done it. Whether it was an impulse buy or a heavily researched investment, we’ve all got it wrong at some point. The thing we thought we’d love and use turned out to be… well, a waste of money. Market research company Ipsos found that 4 in 5 Americans experience “buyers remorse” when they shop, even if they do research beforehand. While not ideal, we can take some comfort in the fact that making the wrong purchases occasionally is a common mistake. Sometimes you just don’t know until you have what you wanted and realise it isn’t it. The more we learn from these dud buys and reflect on why shopping didn’t work in our favour that time, the less likely we are to repeat the same financial error. 

And listen, it’s okay to misstep sometimes. These women did, and they’ve told Refinery29 what their biggest expense regret is and why.

I regret my London membership club, and now I’m trapped! I’ve had the membership since September 2022 and it's £220 a month, so I am hesitant to do the actual maths on how much I have spent since then...

I thought about getting the membership for a while, but the fact there was a waitlist and membership application involved made me want it more, which is stupid. As it turns out, I now barely use it, and it doesn't feel exclusive or as fun any more. It's always rammed and expensive when you're in there, so it’s lost the overall appeal for me. It's good for travel, but even that is so expensive now I don't make the most of it. I'd hoped to use it to make use of the gym too, but they have accepted so many new members the gym is always heaving.

And yet, even though I can leave when I want, I waited so long to get accepted so I keep convincing myself I’ll use it more… then don’t.

I went to Paris a few years ago and got carried away and spent £450 on a jacket that doesn't suit me or fit me and was mega overpriced. As my mum always says, I have a champagne lifestyle on a lemonade budget.

I am a spontaneous buyer who goes with my heart every time. If I see something I love, I have to find a way to get it no matter what, even if I can't afford it, or find it easily. I got very carried away having fun in Paris, it was after a few champagnes and I was wandering around all the quaint little boutiques. I thought the coat would look incredible on me — it didn't.

I regret how much I spent on this. The excitement of being free and easy in another city made me do it. I hardly wore it and then ended up selling it to a pre-loved clothing shop for a fraction of the price. Silly me.

I bought a self-rocking baby cot. It cost £1,400… and I used it for three weeks only. 

It was a spontaneous buy, because the ad gods got to me. My baby was due imminently and we hadn’t got a cot yet. We knew sleep deprivation was around the corner so it seemed like a godsend as it’s auto rocking, safe and it got bonus points for being stylish. Honestly, it sounded like a miracle. Plus, who doesn’t love the idea of sleeping while your baby does too?

It’s been three years since this total waste of money. Total regret! The baby hated it. Like, hated it. She’d cry every time we put her in it and let’s just say the whole straight jacket situation to keep her safe in it made her look like she belonged in a horror movie. It was supposed to be this relaxing, sleep friendly thing but it just wasn’t a good fit for us. When I think about it, I could’ve gone to IKEA and gotten a perfectly good cot for, like, a hundred quid and had enough money left to buy a lifetime supply of coffee to get through the sleepless nights. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry, right? Not worth it, for sure.

I bought a bathroom shelf on Temu that looked nice in the picture. It was an impulse buy after downloading the app and seeing loads of cheap items. When I got it, it was super small and weak. Bad bad quality. I put it in my bathroom and put my shampoos and other products and it immediately collapsed. I felt super guilty because it came by plane all the way from China and it went straight to the bin… This is why I regret it so much.

It was only £8, but the price itself is not the important thing. The ecological consequences of that purchase is what bothers me. I'm usually very strict about not buying new items, especially those shipped by plane. I stick to secondhand shopping to reduce my ecological footprint. Ironically, buying this cheap item — likely made under poor working conditions — only reinforced my commitment to those values.

I had an annual membership (the minimum commitment) which cost around £90 a month for a now defunct women’s member’s club. It was something I’d considered quite a bit, looking into different clubs and communities, and I was also willing to use a recent pay rise to invest a bit more in myself. I got a gym membership at the same time. 

I regret not using it enough and not getting what I wanted out of it. Part of this was me — I’d wanted to use the space for co-working after the lockdowns but my work went back to the office 9-5, Monday to Friday, as soon as it was legal to do so. Part of it was them — they would close the club and restaurant at short notice, never really delivered any of the events and programming they promised, and what was delivered involved extra charges which hadn’t been made clear at the point of signing up. I think I definitely could have made more of it, but it also felt like the opportunity to do so wasn’t there. 

Like many purchases, it’s an emotional one. You buy in because you believe in the cause and you also have aspirations about what your life will look like once you have spent the money. This was a bit more of a let down than, say, buying a gym membership then not turning up and therefore not getting the benefits. I think these things are more painful when you feel a bit cheated. Spending money is often more than just the numbers, you want to put your support into something, but because of that it stings more when the service is not up to scratch and the opportunity is not fulfilled.