$nothing - Lottery Tickets

I know what you are thinking "how can something that is free be a stupid purchase?" ill tell you.

My mom sent me a St Patrick's day card with a lotto ticket and I won $2. This ticket has been in my pocket forever and tonight while my better half was oggling wildflower seeds at Meijer, I decided to cash in and.. wait for it... buy more scratch offs. I won $2. Then I just kept going and buying more tickets. Eventually I won $5, which I proceed to waste on more tickets. In the end in bought $15 worth of tickets instead of just cashing out that $5. especially since later in the store I saw something that I wanted that cost exactly $5. Dolt!

In the end lottery = stupid and Thomas = sucker.

$8 - Cotton Candy Maker

Even though this is a blog dedicated to the dumbest of (and often expensive) purchases, I still like to find a deal. And to feed my deal finding habit I often go to thrift shops like Goodwill or St. Vincent de Paul. You can still make stupid purchases in a thrift store. This is the first in a series of my "Thriftiest Stupid Purchases".

I might as well say it now, I'm have a sweet tooth, well 28 actually (the four missing teeth were removed surgically, NOT because of cavities). You know those candy shelves they place in check out aisles? They designed them for me. I like to save money, and I like cool gadgets, so you can imagine my keen interest in a machine that turns boring colorless sugar granules into out-of-this-world-mouthwatering-threads-of-coolness. Haha if only the machine I bought really did that. Instead this fine product, made by RoseArt (what crayon company wouldn't want to make potentially dangerous kitchen appliances?), makes eerie spider-web-like tendrils, and it makes them slow, very slow. We did find that if you want to color you cotton candy you could use colored cake sprinkles, but that just gets expensive. I have since shelved this sugary ring of fire for another day or when the neighborhood throws a carnival.

$200 - Bibles

Now I know what you are thinking, "How can a bible be a stupid purchase?!"

Well inheritently they are not, unless you go overboard like I did. Over the years I was never satisfied with the bible I had. There was always a better one. Trading up for a different translation, or a study bible, or a study bible wrapped in fine DuoTone leather, chronological bibles. I'd say I purchased around 10-15 bibles in the last 7 years or so. How many did I actually read? Not a one.

If that doesn't qualify for a stupid purchase I don't know what does. Today I am down to two, a small one and a big one. I donated the rest, so at least they went to a good home.

$30 - Super Stupid Bubble Foot Massager

The other day my girlfriend came home with sore feet from standing all day in heels at her new job. So obviously I thought my feet need to be massaged right this instant (this instant happened to be midnight). I headed to Walmart and bought man's marvel, a heated foot massager. Little did I know I dropped my dough on plastic bucket with an extension cord, followed by these three epiphanies:

1) bubbles are not soothing and massaging in any way
2) the designer obviously forgot to add the heating elements because the water becomes cool from all the bubbling within minutes
3) i want my money back

$10 - Blu-Ray Aquarium Footage

OOoooooo Doggies, is this a fun one. I was walking around in Sam's Club with real particular purpose and I saw this. I grabbed it. I put it back. I continued to think about it. I grabbed it again. And finally I bought it, thus completing the stupid purchase. What a piece of crap. Who am I to think I can turn my $$$$$ TV into a $ Fish tank?

$100 - Braveheart Sword

One word, well a concatenated word thing: eBay.

Ah let's stroll down memory lane with this one. Everybody has a first eBay purchase. Most people probably purchase logical things or maybe something silly. OR perhaps it was really late and you bought something really stupid. Who knows?

My first eBay purchase occurred in 2002 around 12:44 AM the week before Halloween. I wasn't thinking I wanted to be William Wallace for Halloween at that time, but I bought a replica Braveheart sword for $100 and that pretty much settled it. I had to be William Wallace now. And at that I wasn't even allowed to wear it because it was a "weapon".

So now it collects dust until an Englishman tries to break into my house. I keep it under my bed with some face paint....just in case.

$350 - Sony 400 Disc DVD player

Because of my gluttony for movies (as posted previously), I felt the need to buy a device that could hold them all at the same time. So I bought a 400 Disc DVD changer.

What the crapola was I thinking? I know what I was thinking....

Thought: Man wouldn't it be great to watch all 6 Lord of the Rings discs at the same time without ever having to get up
Reality: I have never watched more than one movie back-to-back with this dvd player, nor have I ever used the Random feature. Who presses random to pick a movie?

Thought: If I move houses, all I have to do is pick up my dvd player and go, no more messy cases everywhere.
Reality: This was a good idea in theory, then one day I moved. I picked it up and little did I know that you can't move the thing with 400 discs in it. All the discs slid out of their slots and jammed inside the player. I had to manually take the entire thing apart to remove the discs.

Thought: I will never lose another DVD again because they will always be in the machine
Reality: Just kidding, friends still want to borrow movies and that means ejecting a disc. Unfortunately when you eject a disc you lose all information, like the titles I painstakingly spent days entering. So now I have a bunch of empty slots and no idea what movie was there. At least with a DVD case you can see it is empty and missing.

I currently own 4 DVD players and a Blu-Ray player. Why? Who knows....I should sell this one. Any takers? Make an offer