Why did I buy that?!

[Bethalize]

What was I thinking picking silver plate cutlery? True, it has a really lovely sheen but I have to clean it after every use. Have a dinner party for eight and I am polishing for two hours. Biggest shopping mistake I ever made.

[Venus193]

I went to an expo with a friend years ago and bought two gorgeous jewelry boxes with Egyptian designs on them; total price was $55.  I don't display jewelry boxes on my dresser since my apartment was burglarized in the 80s.

They sat in my closet for a year until my mother went to Germany to visit her sisters and didn't have gifts to bring.  I brought them to her house and she said "Those are beautiful; I'm tempted to keep them."  She didn't, though.  She gave them to my cousins and said they were very impressed.

[Thipu1]

When we visited St. Eustatius, there was a nice little museum about the amazing history of the place. One of the exhibits was a letter from an English lady of the 18th century that hit home.

'Robert, ever mindful of the table, has provided us with a great variety of sauces and pickles'.

That was Mr. Thipu.  He's gotten better over the years but, when we started visiting the Caribbean, he felt compelled to buy every local hot sauce and spice mixture available.  At one point our kitchen cabinets had a good two dozen jars and bottles of assorted stuff that would take the top of your head off. 

[Bijou]

One day when I was doing the rounds of the local thrift stores I bought this interesting adobe clay (it looked like, anyway) replica of a house.  It was something you could display on a table.  It just called to me.  But not that loudly, apparently, because when I went to the next thrift store I took it in and donated it to them.  I never did see it again in there, so they must have sold it.   

[Redsoil]

Bethalize - an easy way to clean silver is as follows.  (I used it for years on cattleshow trophies - some of which had ornate decorations, and thus, were hard to clean with silver polish.)

In a bucket of HOT water, add about a cupful of washing soda crystals.  Get a heap of aluminium foil, tear it into pieces and crumple it up.  Add to the mix.  Put your silver in and leave for 10 minutes.  Tip water out, dispose of blackened foil, rinse silver well in hot water and dry.  Nice and shiny!

[happygrrl]

Well, I went to a local auction last year of a lady that owns a huge, gorgeous home and was downsizing, and was redecorating.

They were several silk trees that were in a heap on the ground and one was lovely; beautiful leaves, real tree trunk--perfect! Loved! I ended up winning it, and since I had walked over, I had to drag the thing home (it is concreted in a bucket).

Got it home, and I learned a valuable lesson that may serve others well: A 10' tree will not, under any circumstances, fit in a room with an 8' ceiling. Nor will it fit on an enclosed porch with 8' ceilings. Or the garage. 

[CrazyDaffodilLady]

Someone mentioned museum gift shops.  Common sense abandons me when I enter one.  I buy beautiful but overpriced jewelry, overpriced postcards, overpriced stuffed animals (so cute), and overpriced souvenirs of the exhibit.  My weakness is expensive art books.  They're beautiful, but I'll go through them once and then maybe look at them a time or two in the next 20 years. 

If I want to look at an art book, there are plenty at the local library -- I know because I donated them.

[greencat]

I admitted a long time ago that I am a total magpie and I will buy things just because they are shiny.  I can't tell you how many ridiculously shiny shirts and skirts and pairs of shoes I've discovered on my receipt at the end of a shopping trip.  Then I look at the thing in my closet for a few years (well, not the shoes, I tend to wear the shoes to parties and clubs) and eventually donate it to goodwill.

[DollyPond]

Several years ago when I was on vacation in the Virgin Islands a very nice rum cost only $3 a bottle.  I bought 4 bottles. Score! ...or so  thought until I realized I needed to carry them in my carryon bag (this was pre 9/11) and could not put them in my checked bag. Lugging that extra weight through the San Juan airport and the Miami airport was not fun at all.

[siamesecat2965]

I learned my lesson on year with Christmas cards. You know, when they're 50% or more off after the holiday? One year I bought 12 boxes, and it took me years to use them up, and I didn't like any of them a year later! i learned its better for me to buy the 2 or so boxes i really do need, each year, when I like them, and will use them.

I've broken my habit of buying stuff when i travel "just because" My rule is I can only buy it if i know I'll use it, consumer it, or its something I cannot get at home.

[Bethalize]

Bethalize - an easy way to clean silver is as follows.  (I used it for years on cattleshow trophies - some of which had ornate decorations, and thus, were hard to clean with silver polish.)

Thanks. It's not recommended to use this method on silver plate because although it works "the chemical process stays in the cells of the metal and keeps on working and corroding the metal long after it has been rinsed off". I've heard that from lots of different sources.

[CrazyDaffodilLady]

Bethalize - an easy way to clean silver is as follows.  (I used it for years on cattleshow trophies - some of which had ornate decorations, and thus, were hard to clean with silver polish.)

In a bucket of HOT water, add about a cupful of washing soda crystals.  Get a heap of aluminium foil, tear it into pieces and crumple it up.  Add to the mix.  Put your silver in and leave for 10 minutes.  Tip water out, dispose of blackened foil, rinse silver well in hot water and dry.  Nice and shiny!

What are washing soda crystals?

[magicdomino]

Several years ago when I was on vacation in the Virgin Islands a very nice rum cost only $3 a bottle.  I bought 4 bottles. Score! ...or so  thought until I realized I needed to carry them in my carryon bag (this was pre 9/11) and could not put them in my checked bag. Lugging that extra weight through the San Juan airport and the Miami airport was not fun at all.

   I did that too.  I was on a cruise, and bought rum from 3 or 4 different islands.  My checked bag had wheels, the carry-on was little more than a small duffel.  Amazing how much weight those bottles gained, isn't it.

[Thipu1]

I learned my lesson on year with Christmas cards. You know, when they're 50% or more off after the holiday? One year I bought 12 boxes, and it took me years to use them up, and I didn't like any of them a year later! i learned its better for me to buy the 2 or so boxes i really do need, each year, when I like them, and will use them.

I've broken my habit of buying stuff when i travel "just because" My rule is I can only buy it if i know I'll use it, consumer it, or its something I cannot get at home.

We've done the Christmas card route.  One year, a local card shop was going out of business and we both went a little nuts.  The place had lovely cards and they were marked down to 25 per cent of the original price.  We were just married and went a little nuts. 

We still have 75 cards left out of the gigantic mass we bought in 1982. 

[SoCalVal]

I used to buy all sorts of unnecessary junk when I worked at this one drugstore chain.  We got an excellent discount (cost + 10%) so I'd go crazy (Hallmark greeting cards were only 55% of the retail price).  I'd also buy "interesting" things that were marked way down right before inventory (so that management wouldn't be stuck counting them -- usually things that were samples left by sales reps).  Anyway, I still have many MANY greeting cards I purchased from there 20+ years ago when I worked there (I gave them all to DH about two months ago to see if he thought he could use them or if they should go into my donate to Goodwill pile).

I still haven't learned my lesson in not letting a good sale get the best of me.  I, yesterday, saw the coupon from Michael's for 40% off my entire purchase of regular price items and kind of lost my mind earlier today.  I wasn't planning on it but did manage to spend just under $100 for lots of things I really didn't need (cake baking and decorating supplies).  I think I lost it at the featherweight bags (canvas bags are too hard on my wrists; parchment bags and disposable plastic bags allow too much warmth from my hands).  This is after I put a bunch of stuff back on the shelf after asking myself if I really needed this stuff now (like luster dust and sugar sparkles).  Mind you -- I just do this stuff for fun, and I don't even decorate very often so some of the stuff might go back (although I think I might exchange one icing color for ivory if I can find it because I want a gel color that is close to skin color).  Am so glad I didn't know the coupon had been extended to be good all day long because I might've completely lost my mind finding many more things I don't need at all (was originally going to buy some cake pan sets but decided that I will wait until I see 50% off coupons for those).

Someday, I might like to decorate cakes as a side business, but I'm still in the middle of moving from my old house (taking forever) so I can't focus on it right now (next year is a realistic goal).  Still, I bought ready-made fondant, color-flow, meringue powder, piping gel, etc., in the hopes to work more on these things in the near future.