False economies of your friends cow-orkers and relatives

is there anything anyone you know does with the aim of saving money which actually ends up costing more money?

Is Cow Orking like Cow Bingo?

I wouldn't even know where to start with my colleagues. It's just too depressing to think about.

two examples I can think of -- my parents started renting a TV from a company called Radio Rentals circa 1981 after I broke the telly they had been given by a friend by throwing a cushion at it. Now, 29 years later, my mother is still renting her TV from the company's successor, Box Clever. I don't know how much she pays for the privilege. I do know she has paid for a very large number of TVs in the process.

An aunt of mine used to drive all round Hertfordshire looking for the cheapest deals from various supermarkets, spending far more in fuel than she saved by visiting the various shops.

The public sector has been riddled for years with expensive bodies/consultants that go in and advise on efficiency.

not having a credit card and using direct deposit advances on their paychecks when they're short on cash - which generally entails a $50 fee.

Just this afternoon I've got yet another pointless meeting trying to persuade someone in this company to invest in data cleansing for the addresses in our database.

It keeps getting rejected on the grounds it's "too expensive".

The cost of postage on the returned mail of postal promotional shots in the past 6 months alone would have paid for it already. I keep saying this, no one listens.

In the U.S. it is now a requirement for bulk mailers to do what I imagine you're referring to by "data cleansing."

I have a relative who always buys the smallest quantity possible of toilet paper. It'd be cheaper if she bought it in a reasonable quantity, and that way she wouldn't always be running to the store to pick more up. But I think she'd buy it roll by roll if her grocery store sold it that way.

Oh Radio Rentals was the worst thing ever, when I was a teenager I worked out that with the amount of money my parents were paying to rent a tv they could have just bought a new one every 6 months. We could never persuade my dad that it would be cheaper to buy one (or that shopping at Poundland so much was pretty expensive too).

parents used to mount window A/Cs in the bedrooms instead of using central air

the "driving around looking for better deals" one is so classic though

Surely Radio Rentals had a purpose back in the 80s when decent tellies were a lot more expensive and many people couldn't have afforded to whack down all that cash in one go?

also classic:

driving on the highway with the windows down so that you don't have to turn on the A/C and can "save gas"

I know a certain one-time ilx poster who still does the TV rental thing :o

Actually a friend of mine had been renting a (pretty big) TV and then ended up buying one. The rental dudes basically said "well, you've paid the cost of TV in rental, we can't rent it out again, it'll cost more for us to pick it up then it would to just let you have it". So I bought it off him for a tenner.

I wish it worked like that with apartments.

The public sector has been riddled for years with expensive bodies/consultants that go in and advise on efficiency.

Yeah, we paid Large Consultancy Group three quarters of a mil three years ago to come in and tell us to save money by making 50 people redundant and giving them big payouts

used to work with a guy who always had full tank of petrol, when he used a quarter of a tank, he'd top up.
i told him the extra weight of fuel would be costing him more in fuel to carry round, he didn't believe me!
what can you do?