I got drunk as shit and bought a 6' samurai sword. After that I hung my wallet on it so I would have to look at that dumb shit before I bought something.

On a samurai sword is lame but a 6’ one is sort of a trophy.

Kagamine Len cosplay kit

It turned out okay, so no regret on that. I also found out there's anime convention next week, so I figured I should wear it there.

I have ADD, so everything I buy is an impulse purchase that I can’t remember. And I. Regret. Nothing.

Right after we had a baby and moved into a new place, my husband and I decided we wanted to get a tapestry to hang over our bed to tie the room together. For some reason it turned into this really difficult thing. Like we were deciding on matching tattoos or something permanent, and we just couldn't make a decision. For over a year, we would send each other tons of examples, agree on a bunch, narrow it down from there, and then still end up not picking one for one reason or another.

One day ~3ish years ago we were just hanging out listening to music. My husband noticed the very bizarre album cover art for Minnie Riperton's Adventures in Paradise, and showed it to me like "THAT'S FUCKING AWESOME!" and then jokingly said "that's what the tapestry should be."

I can't remember much else, but it seemed so ridiculous it almost felt like a challenge. I looked into it and found out it's surprisingly cheap to just make your own tapestry by getting an image printed on cloth. So I ordered it and then we immediately forgot about it. Several weeks later I had no idea what it was when it arrived in the mail.

We were probably sleep deprived and loopy, but other than that 100% sober when we made this decision. No regrets:

I got an Amazon Credit card while drunk. I completely regret it and I'm ashamed it took me way too long to cancel it.

Why? It has no fee and pretty good cash back on Amazon.com right?

I’m very financially sound and price shop, never impulse buy things. I’m not cheap, but I don’t rationalize something I want unless I’ve researched it.

But then there’s medicated me… I don’t take prescription painkillers unless absolutely necessary. High doses after a surgery have found me binge shopping on places like w00t for the dumbest things. I of course don’t remember ordering at 2am, 120 led candles with remotes and color changing flames. Or after a car accident I felt the need to buy 100 non-refundable boxes of emergency break ice packs (break the capsule and it gets cold for 20 min) - donated these to the local highschool sports club. And my all time favorite was ordering a go-cart, $3500 for no reason.

After some hard financial lessons, my ex just took away my phone if I was going to take high doses of painkillers.

That's true but I feel like I am putting money in Jeff Bezos pocket(tho I suppose you could make the argument that all credit cards and banks put money in the pockets of unsavory billionaires) by having it. I just don't believe it's good to support Amazon.

Wtf what kind of self-respecting millennial makes major purchases from their phone

Yes, and yes.

I'm not sure if it qualifies as a completely impulse purchase because there was some sort of rationale behind it and I did some research beforehand, but it was very off the cuff- in any case, it was a thermal monocular, and I needed one. Some part of my brain did, at least, and I was in a position where I had the money to do something stupid.

I was going traveling to far-away lands for an extended period of time, and my night vision has steadily been going as I get older, and being the adventurous type I sometimes find myself in less-than safe environments. So I figured, to get around my handicap, either night-vision or a thermal scope of some sort would be a good thing to have on hand.

In hindsight I should have gone with night vision rather than thermal, but it was a cool piece of equipment to have with me. It helped me very little in the end, and the NV would have been the better one to bring by far in the end, as I was at greater risk getting lost in the dark than getting jumped by bad people or animals.

Oh it’s worse, I’m on the tail end of Gen X, very early millennial depending on your interpretation of the defined years. And our definition of major purchase is very different.

That bag of potatoe chips last night was unnecessary AF and I regret buying it with all my belly.

This must be you https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%2Fid%2FOIP.c0Gojv9Ieo6_1xg8wyDICQHaHa%3Fpid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=e34ddc53c9f0e9bad69e05135b148630c5a7d91bdb6d564f61e2b7b29f3bc2cd&ipo=images

Yep to both

But much more in the former than the latter, life is for living plus many places have a return/refund policy

They sounds cool as fuck though! Maybe next time get one NV monocular and take both.

I have some memories of that when I was a literal child. Otherwise no, not really. Most my purchases are carefully calculated and thought. That doesn't mean I don't make mistakes and bad decisions, but I don't spend money without a good reason. (Unless that reason is sugar, but I have an addiction).

Long fingerless gloves. I don't remember why but I must have been in a 2000s mood because I bought a bunch of bracelets too. Not too much regret for the bracelets

I can't lie, the LED candles sound kind of cool. If you're going to use them as decorations, you're obviously going to need a whole bunch. What else are you going to do, use real candles and set the place on fire like a Victorian Christmas tree? At least medicated you was thinking about safety first. (That would be my post medicated rationale at least).

I also did something similar to the 100 non refundable ice packs, but I had what seemed like a really good reason at the time.

When I was pregnant my OB kept telling me to watch this standard birthing video that they make all new parents watch, just so they're not completely unprepared for the experience. I kept putting it off bc I thought "I know how having a baby works. I'm not steewpid!" She kept pushing it, so finally at like 8 months pregnant, me and my husband sit down and watch the stupid birthing video together.

I can't remember exactly which parts really did it, but it ended up kind of scaring the shit out of me.

I just remember that even after being uncomfortable for months, not sleeping, not being able to do anything I wanted to do, (even little stuff like drink more than one cup of coffee or eat certain foods), and finally getting to the point where I couldn't even bend down to pick stuff up, and had to rely on other people for help, I was so ready to just get it over with. Then I watched this video, and I literally started thinking about running away so they couldn't make me give birth.

While we were watching it, I honestly imagined myself standing up, telling my husband I needed to go grab something from the other room, then just getting in my car and driving away without any plan. It was pretty much my body being in the textbook definition of flight mode.

I ended up calling a friend of mine who had a kid, and talking to her about it. She reassured me that it really wasn't that bad, except for the "perenial tearing." 😬 She advised me to get plenty of ice packs and have them ready to go for when I got home from the hospital.

So I ordered a box of crackable ice packs made for exactly that purpose. Came home one day to a giant box sitting on my front porch that said "PERENIAL ICE PACKS" on the outside, and realized I had somehow purchased a box of 150. Ended up having to have a C-section and using none of them, so I also just donated them. Hopefully somebody somewhere got some use out of them.

And my all time favorite was ordering a go-cart, $3500 for no reason.

This is amazing, and probably the best answer anybody has given so far along with the 6ft samurai sword.

Edit: To be clear, not that I suddenly decided I didn't want to have my baby, I just had the very irrational thought of running away to avoid the process of labor. I knew the baby was coming one way or the other, but maybe I could just hold it in forever and raise the baby that way? Idk it was not a rational response, I just panicked. I just always assumed (based on everything I had learned prior to watching that video) it was only a stretching process. I didn't think there would be any "tearing" involved unless there were complications. I definitely had never known before that day:
A. Tearing is much more likely to be the default (90% of first time mothers) and rarely (but it happens) some people will even do a preemptive snip prior to giving birth, B. There are grades of tearing severity (first-degree being the least severe and fourth-degree being the most severe, often requiring surgical repair.), C. It never really occurred to me that there was a risk of spinal injury if you move the wrong way when they're inserting an epidural (while you're in labor), and D. Even if you get an epidural, there's a chance it might not work. Giving birth is no fucking joke. Not that I ever thought it was going to be easy, but before watching the "basic" birthing video, even with a master's degree and more basic medical knowledge than a lot of people, I didn't really comprehend what women go through to give birth. There's actually an evolutionary theory that it can be so traumatic your body and brain kind of work together to keep you from fully forming memories of just how bad the experience was, to help drive continued reproduction. (Also important to note though, that more negative experiences and memories of giving birth are associated with more adverse outcomes, and that the experience can leave a long lasting impression)

It's not that you won't remember the pain at all, (bc even with a C-section and epidural, I damn sure remember screaming and feeling like my stitches were tearing open after it wore off, and I know I got off relatively easy), but in hindsight, your memory of the intense pain you experienced during childbirth can be dampened by the flood of hormones and feel good chemicals you experienced after. Like there's a reason oxytocin both stimulates painful contractions to help get the baby out, and also helps you bond with the baby after birth. It's really beautiful. But it's also insane.

Edit 2: Pregnancy May Reduce Fear Permanently, Scientists Reveal

Reduced fear memory may also support caregiving behaviors after birth by lowering anxiety and promoting bonding.

I live in an apartment. I was at a yard sale and saw an old pipe wrench. About a meter long and weighing about 5 kilos. Testosterone told me that I needed to own this. Brought it home and left it in the closet for years.

Last week the kitchen sink was stopped up. Took me about twenty minutes to locate the monster, but I knew I had kept it. Another five minutes to set it to the right size and position it. A half turn loosened the bolt on the U pipe. I was able to snake out the drain without calling the super.

Now I can boast about my mighty feat on the interwebs!

For much of my adult life I’ve been very careful and considered with most big purchases. I have a friend that is not though, and it worries me. He is definitely not in a life situation where he can afford random impulses, and it can take him less than a day to regret an impulse buy, even before it’s shipped to him. I keep trying to ask for reasoning, and it offends him each time.

Part of a sprinkler system to bury in ones lawn, that extends upward with water pressure.

I do not own a lawn.

Nice one. I agree that the hardest part of hoarding potentially useful stuff is being able find it 5 years later when I finally have a use for it.

There's an episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Hal and Lois discover they have a downstairs bathroom that got so filled with junk they forgot about it.

I literally have dreams about that happening at my place. Like, often dream about searching through the garage for a box or something and I open a door to a hallway that leads to a totally different part of our house that we forgot about since we moved in.

I saw a pair of $40 scissors at the hardware store the other day. These things were like almost the size of my forearm. I have no idea what I'd use them for. I may pick them up next time I go.

Edit: Ok looks like cutting thin steel and plastic stuff like siding. I don't know when I'll need this but I know I will at some point.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Malco-1-in-Straight-Cut-Tin-Snip-M12TS/100147753

They make these electrician scissors that I used to have. They're more meant for cutting cables and stuff. I used them to cut some flat rolled roof material and ruined them but got the job done. These would have been great for that.

Like I said, I live in an apartment and I've never mown a lawn in my life.

One day I was in rural Pennsylvania on the way to a camping trip. We stop at a mall to pick up last minute supplies. There's a display of riding lawn mowers outside.

I'm sitting on one like a child on a mechanical horsey

Novelty wears off quick, and utility scales slowly with price, at least for the thermal. It's like with real wrist watches Anything under $1.5K is a toy- or so it is claimed, I'm not into clocks, but for thermal shit if you want real gear you're looking at $2K for the lower-mid range models, buying both thermal and NV is just not an option unless you have serious cash to spend. I got a great deal on the monocular, at $600, and for the price it was decent for a hobbyist, but there were definitive drawbacks, most specifically field of view and distance.

I did randomly find a turtle sleeping in a bush in the middle of the night in the jungle though. That alone was probably worth the $600 hahahahaha! Nah not really. But it was cool being able to walk on the beach and looking through the thing and see people hundreds of meters away completely unaware of me. And thermals tell you a lot about what people are up to. It was important for my security as I was living in the wild, kind of, but in hindsight I was never in any real danger, and had I been, I had been better of with night vision anyway.

Someone else posted a similar story.

They do landscaping and whenever kids walk by the youngsters look in awe at the huge shears they use to trim plants.

The poster said they'd think "That's right kids! I get paid to use giant scissors."

I get it.

I know that nothing I do will actually affect his pocketbook, but I still hate giving him even a dime.

I made another comment in this thread about checking out a riding mower.

Live in an aprtment.

How long are they, Johnny?

I don't know who this Johnny is but he can't have my glove. It almost reaches my elbow

I bought myself a new name on impulse.

I had been joking about considering taking that name on and off for years, but didn't expect the name change approval papers to show up a couple of weeks after a bender.

Turns out joking about stuff for a long time can just rewire your brain, and I'm actually really happy with my new name.

Can’t regret what you don’t remember, it’s just random gift time all the time!

I blew around 4k on travel in 2019 and 2020. I blew another 2k on SCUBA gear and training. My only regrets are not spending more on gear that would be easily repairable so I wouldn't need to buy a new set and not buying a much better camera.

My wife had passed away and I didn't know what to do. My only emotion was pain and sadness. I had a little cash left over after her memorial and cremation. Nearly everything was impulse at that point.

Sorry to hear that. Honestly in that situation impulse was probably a protective mechanism driving you to go somewhere else to give you a break from the pain.

Sometimes just going back to a normal routine after losing somebody who's always been part of that routine can be one of the most painful and difficult parts of mourning.

For sure. We had one of the AMC Theaters movie pass things and I couldn't bare to sit in a theater to watch it. The only thing that got me up and out of bed in the morning was her dog. I still have boxes with some of her things in them I can't go through that were packed up when I moved 5 years ago.

🫂

Any chance you could just link directly to whatever it was you wanted to link to? This looks like a lot of layers of redirection going on and in the end it only redirects to example.com for some reason.

I would if I had any clue as to how

good old tin snips. when I worked at home Depot, zero-markdowned a pair for myself because they were perfect for cutting the thick plastic bands around bunks of lumber and roof panels. I kept those suckers when I quit and use them frequently around the house. it's not an impulse purchase, it's an investment in your future.

I don't remember why but I bought a $50 manual pencil sharpener that came with own leather carrying case. When it arrived I opened it and there was just a regular brass sharpener inside so I returned it. I was actually relieved when it wasn't the item I ordered and had an excuse to return it.

I guess I don't have anything to regret.

Yeah I have some of the traditional tin snips. These are pretty similar but way more "scissors" like. I'll probably be grabbing them next time I go to the store

I had an opportunity to buy a juvenile peacock. Why not? Learned a lot about caring for peacocks very quickly.

Just a friendly note that if you find yourself doing this periodically, get checked for bipolar disorder.

I have ADHD so, yeah. A lot. I've made a rule the last few years, if it's not a NECESSITY or a time sensitive thing (sales don't count), it needs to sit in my cart for 24 hours minimum before buying. It's helped a lot.

In my early 20s had to help a friend go pickup their 2am drunk eBay purchase of 3 vending machines... That was something lol. 2 he was able to fix up and 1 was just for parts.

I've got an injury at the moment that means I have to order my groceries online and have them delivered. So many items I don't remember ordering and bitterly regret. Jelly snakes. Chocolate. Bombay mix. Fancy sourdough crackers.