Bikes
One bike ride cost me £60 in damage when something went "ping" which was bad enough.

A friend punctured his forks riding down Snowdon a while back - £400 for a new set.

I'd take up running to save money but I'll need bionic knees in 12 months (which aren't cheap)
( thistle, Thu 13 May 2010, 21:58, 8 replies)

Vegas Nights All Kind Of Fuzz Together
Albert Marshmallow's story reminds me of one night when I was invited by a stranger with an English accent to the Mandalay Bay's Foundation Room, which, incongruously, turned out to be on the penthouse level. The stranger had money, influence, and swagga, and had reserved the central couch and fireplace section in a room packed with hundreds of people, many of whom were nubile women. The central section was empty, except for the stranger, myself, plus a baker and a boxer who had caught the Englishman's fancy. While I lolled around on my fat ass on the couch, the women constantly leaned into the central area from the jammed perimeter and pleaded for relief from their cramped stillettoes. Their smiles were so sweet and appealing: I smiled back, pleaded helplessness, and politely told them to fuck off.

But I made money that weekend, so that's off-topic.

One day, after losing $3,500 in eight hours, I looked up bleary-eyed at a billboard, that offered breast implants for $4,000. Opportunity lost - I could have had breast implants instead!

But that's off-topic too. File that one under 'boobies'.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Thu 13 May 2010, 21:38, 1 reply)

Waiter! Fetch me my marigolds!!
A pearoast, but with an updated ending.....


Barcelona, we working there for a week in a really posh hotel (World Trade Centre). So posh we couldn’t afford to eat there - €38 for a club sandwich!! Jumping into a taxi hailed by the doorman, we arrived at a restaurant he had apparently recommended.

There were plenty of locals there, seemed like a nice place, and the menu was reasonable. The 4 of us chose a meal and a beer for about €10 each. The waiter slithered over and asked if we wanted a starter. Maybe some Tapas?

Well, whaddaya reckon chaps? Yeah, OK, that would be nice, great!

Duly, the plates of Tapas arrived, some zingy little sausages, some wonderful thin ham, some fucking huge juicy prawns, and some crayfish type of things.
Well, 2 of the guys were having none of that seafood muck, if it’s not out of a tin they don’t want to know. Fine by me, the Tapas was wonderful, though the problem with those prawns is that there’s not that much flesh in them for the size. You throw most of the things away.

So, we finished up, had our €10 Paellas and called for the bill. Should be, oh, €20 each, absolute maximum, surely? Well, as I’m sure you are all well ahead of me here, the bill arrived and the boss looked, jumped, looked again, then went white.

Now it’s standard practice in my crew to snap our fingers and call for our Marigolds at the end of a meal out, we’ll wash up because we can’t meet the bill. Oh, ha ha, very funny. This time, however, we were thinking it for real.

Total bill €286, thanks to the fucking Tapas, which was starting to make me feel distinctly sick. Luckily a credit card was produced and we were able to leave in one piece.

As I left though, I approached a rowdy group of about 30 English lads sitting on the other side of the restaurant, obviously on a stag do, or maybe even football fans. Very pissed and barely under control.

“Listen lads, we’ve just had our pants pulled down over there, don’t let these cunts put ANYTHING down on the table unless you know exactly how much it costs.”
“What, you mean like this Tapas shit, these zingy sausages etc.”
“Yep, that’s the stuff, I hope you have plenty of cash with you. Enjoy your meal……..”

It did give me immense pleasure that the last thing I saw as I turned at the door was the sight of several lads standing on the table, and the first chair sailing through the air towards the huge fishtank as the roar of a drunken brawl just kicking off built up.

I hope they wrecked the place!

Since I posted the original tale, I have been back to Barcelona as part of a 28 man crew on a large production. Going out to eat one night, we found ourselves at the Marina, and the waiters were all keen to get us into their eateries, offering free wine etc. The boss (the same geezer who coughed up when we were stitched up) allowed the waiter to seat every one of us in that very same restaurant, take our orders, and lay out the wine........at which point he stood us up and marched everyone out and into a place further on, taking great pleasure in telling the bewildered staff that he had been ripped off there before, so fuck 'em. The looks on their faces were priceless, well, €286 anyway.
(Rsoles, Thu 13 May 2010, 21:17, 12 replies)

A lot of money spent not having sex
One of my old mates, known him for years and years, is a financial black hole. He's circled the drain of bankruptcy at least once to my certain knowledge. Not entirely sure how he escaped in all honesty. He's generous (extravagant, really) to a fault and women and booze are his major, major weaknesses.

During one such episode of profligacy he owed his brother about 1500 quid in rent. So, he withdrew the cash from the bank on a Friday, thinking that he would pay his brother when he saw him the following day. Then he went out on the piss. Then he went to a lap dancing club.

The following morning, 1500 quid down on the previous night, he discovered a receipt in his wallet for a further 800 quid he then remembered leaving the club to withdraw, before returning to piss that up the wall too.

2300 quid and he didn't even get his dick wet. He could have had Belle de Jour herself for that. Hell, he could probably have had Billie Piper... at the same time.
(Dr. Scambolic, Thu 13 May 2010, 20:20, 12 replies)

Your mom
All those years ago, and I'm still paying for it. You're not even worth it. And her tits weren't(aren't) that great.

And I had to apologise for lack of length
(CactusZack Shaved his coin purse on, Thu 13 May 2010, 20:02, Reply)

Leaving Las Vegas
Me and the missus were attending my sister-in-law's surprisingly tasteful wedding in Las Vegas. We lost a fair bit of cash on the tables, as you do, but that wasn't the real financial killer of the weekend.
On our last night staying at the Mirage hotel I went to bed early (for those of you who haven't been to Vegas, they ply those who gamble at the tables with free drinks all night and I had my fair share so I decided to call it a night).

My wife however had other plans. Not only did she lose a shitload of cash on the roulette wheel, she then preceded to get rat-arsed and so subsequently she forgot which room she was in. Instead of doing the sensible,sober thing and show some I.D to the staff and ask for her room number she instead purchased a new room for the kingly sum of $400.

Unfortunately the financial mishaps don't end there. Needless to say I was pissed off when I found out in the morning, but hey it's Vegas. I was prepared to lose some money. After we checked out we decided to drive to the Nevada desert for shits n' giggles. It was pretty cool, I must say. Nothing around for miles and miles. It was then that all the booze I drank the night before wanted to say hello to me again. I crouched behind a cactus to take a shit and my wallet must have dropped out of my back pocket as I did my jeans up.

Didn't realize it was gone until we were at the airport. Had to drive all the way back to the friggin' desert to find it again and we missed our arsing flight.

Of course the wife blamed me for everything :D
( dirtyscarab intends to live forever. So far, so good..., Thu 13 May 2010, 19:43, 2 replies)

Paris
and pissed looking for the Metro, bird in shop entrance flashes tits (near Pigalle), goes home with her, £200 asked and I question why?, penis is unaware of surroundings, alsation comes from bathroom, £200 down and looking for taxi.
( The Scrunt Wants a Dozen Pints, Thu 13 May 2010, 19:39, 2 replies)

Cheap divorce?
End of marriage. No house (always rented), no kids, not much to divvy up, not too many hard feelings. Agreed on (invented) reasons to tell the court, no problems, formalities only. Change from a couple of hundred quid, 11 years ago - nice!
Moment of largesse (I had a better job) "Don't worry - I'll look after the plastic" (I thought one card, nearly maxed at ~ 3,400).
Reply "Oh, great, here's all the paperwork - bye!"
One folder full of nasty paper - evidence of world-class juggling skills of ex-wife - and a total of GBP 17,575.
Length? 9 years.
( blyerkit e k trilby, Thu 13 May 2010, 19:22, 3 replies)

My mate G can't trust himself with money.
The moment I realised this still stands out. Over 10 years ago, it was a Monday if memory serves me correctly.

Now G used to worked in a computer game shop and I, liking computer games, hung around alot. This Monday G came in wearing a new jacket and carrying his new portable CD player which he had purchased with the bank loan he had recieved last Thursday. G showed off his new goods and I was his audience. I asked him what did he do with the rest of the loan.

"I paid off my debts and had a damn good fcuking weekend." was his reply. "Now I'm here for a sub on my wages to get me through the month."
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Thu 13 May 2010, 19:06, Reply)

A few moons ago
I was dating a girl from birmingham, she was a bit classy a bit posh.
We decided to go away for the weekend as it was her birthday, i booked a fancy posh hotel,l had everything arranged paid for etc presents, bubbly, resturants booked etc etc.

However a few days before hand she dumped me.. So I went off on my own being had paid for it all I had forked out about £800 already. So i returned her presents got money back flew up to scotland and spent her birthday money on private dancers in a strip club total spent about £1300 and I had a really good time.

I think as I don't remember much
( The invisible ham Fig rolls are the best, Thu 13 May 2010, 19:05, 3 replies)

Thing is...
...when I first met Mr Livingstone, he thought really hard about things, and never gave an answer without some serious pondering.

After he was shrunk by that mystic shaman from Papua New Guinea though, he couldn't be arsed with all that any more.

He's an Ex-pensive wee Ken
( milkybarnick is calming down Boris on, Thu 13 May 2010, 18:55, Reply)

Ro-MANIA
Apologies if this is a pearoast..can't remember or be bothered checking. More of an expensive night than weekend also...

Anyway - while working for a videogame publisher I was required to travel to Romania 1 week in every month to check on a development team's progress.

A wonderful thing about Romania, or at least the part where I frequented was that instead of getting uppity about businessmen bringing ladies of the night 'home' with them, they just decided to cut out the middleman and get a piece of the action themselves and set up a 'strip-club' in the basement.

One trip I was given a EU 2.5K bonus by the developer for helping them get their game through submissions and approved for release.

To celebrate we of course headed down to the 'Galaxy Bar' and decided to get a few drinks, then a few more. My companion left after about 5-6 overpriced vodka's and I decided to stay rather than retire upstairs to my room. Soon girls were asking if they could sit with me and get a drink - "of course!" I replied.

This went on for several more hours whereby I was convinced the women were all in love with me and I must be King Party of England in their eyes.

I finally decided to settle my bar tab and head on up to Bedfordshire and was somewhat surprised (and wholeheartedly sober again in about 0.3 seconds) to find out it came to oooh...about EU 2.5K

After refusing to pay as I had obviously been conned by the girls as they were buying bottles of Bollinger on my tab without me knowing, some 'larger gentlemen' persuaded me it was in my best interests to pay with cash instead of bits of my body.

I walked to the elevator and then to my room doing a great impression of Nick Moran when he loses the card game in Lock, Stock...

The next morning I was still so gutted I decided to empty the mini-bar. The funny thing is, the whole lot only came to about £40. Next time I'll just stay in my room drinking from the mini-bar and have a posh wank.

I still feel guilty for blowing that much of a bonus on not even getting any, when it could have bought me and the ex a cracking holiday or even paid off a credit card.

Apologies for length (of bar receipt).
(Galahad is out of his gourd on yellow bentines, Thu 13 May 2010, 18:42, Reply)

expensive weekend? expensive year! a cautionary tale.
Okay to you maybe it's not much money but I only work part-time and for the first time in my life I'd actually managed to save up some money. Over the course of a year I managed to stash about £760.
Took it to the bank - paid it in over the counter - sorted.
Except they lost it.
Won't even talk to me about it!
Really don't recommend banking with Santander...
(boduchess, Thu 13 May 2010, 18:24, 10 replies)

brighton last may bank holiday
hotel (my half) - £300
food (3 days of eating out) - £200
booze etc (conservative estimate) - £200
clothes shopping - £400
shoe shopping - £200
jewellery shopping - £100
pointless funky things shopping - £150
parking tickets - £80
psychic (when in rome) - £30
second psychic (didn't agree with first one) - £30

fucking addictive seductive brighton - think we're going again this bank holiday now...

however. on the massive plus side, i got ID'd in about 3 different pubs. this totally made my weekend. i hadn't been ID'd in years!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 13 May 2010, 17:49, 19 replies)

Apply suncream thoroughly! I'm still paying for it (sort of)
I was in New Jersey over a year and a half ago visiting friends. On a very hungover Sunday, the plan of action was tubing on the Delaware river as it was a scorcher of a day.

This was to be a very pleasant day of drinking on the river and lying in my own piss - only I had just put on suncream a minute before jumping in the river. It washed off my legs instantly it seems, as after 8 hours of basking in the 35 degree sun, my legs were pretty toasted. The next day my feet had formed blisters, and swollen to twice their normal size. They looked like swollen slabs of bacon that had been left out in the sun for weeks. When the peeling eventually came, I could make tennis ball sized lumps with my own skin.....mmmm

So I ignore the burns, and spend a day walking around New York on my swollen feet - which only made things worse. The next day I fly to LA to meet some friends, who after much laughter at my misery, tell me I really should go to the hospital.

Hospital visit 1 - get treated briskly (as I was considered a priority one patient) and referred to a burns clinic in downtown LA. Cost - $300 + $50 on taxis. Diagnosed with first and second degree burns! Hurray! They also tell me that my feet were about a day away from getting infected.

So the next day in the hostel, before planning on going to the burn clinic in some dank LA hospital (it actually had prisoners in chains in the waiting area), I check the internet for directions, so I don't get ripped off by the taxi driver. Un-noticed to me, my wallet falls out of my pocket, and is stolen (within 2 minutes of me noticing it is missing) along with $150 and all my cards. Not good considering I was one week into a 15 week trip; but luckily I had some cash stashed in my bag to last me a little while longer.

Then comes the burn clinic, where I get visits by random nurses from different wards, with nothing to do with me but to laugh at me. "He are you the Irish guy with the sun burn?". One of the senior burn clinic nurses informs me that she had never seen anything like it in 15 years working there. They remove the blisters by applying soap and water to a towel and gritting away at my feet until the blisters were gone. That was a sure method to get rid of my semi-erect penis, the result of led to a bed by a slightly hot younger nurse. (even in drab-blue overalls, I still have a thing for nurses)

Anyway, after enduring the ordeal of scraping off my blisters, I'm given cream, bandages and dressing.....and another appointment (which I ignore) So apart from another $100 worth of taxis, I'm home free....Or so I thought.

14 months later, a bill of $1500 arrives to my house, which I choose to ignore. 2 weeks later, another arrives - so I send a letter asking them to include the details of my treatment so I can claim off my health insurance. They refuse to provide me with this info, as they are "not required to".....the shit-heads. So the letters keep arriving, and I keep ignoring until yesterday, when they send me a letter saying that they have forwarded the bill to debt collectors. I now live in fear of "Dog" the bounty hunter arriving at my door to hack off my legs.

Total cost: credit cards, debit cards, 6 weeks of ridiculous Western Union exchange rates while waiting for my cards to be sent to me, $600ish cash in hospital bills, taxis and being robbed; potentially $1500 more, along with my legs - and possibly being sued American style. I'll remember suncream next time...
(El_diablo_blanco, Thu 13 May 2010, 17:31, 2 replies)

Marriage
I am getting married on Saturday.

It's costing me when everything is put together and combined, something around €40,000 (flying family to London from Denmark, Norway and Germany included).

THAT's an expensive weekend.
(JohntheDane, Thu 13 May 2010, 17:27, 10 replies)

Drugs are bad, mmkay???
Not me, but a close mate. A mate who happens to be a drug dealer. Not a schiller of random 16ths, but someone who rarely has less than a few kilos in his house... or on his person. A pro, in other words. While these days he sticks quite religiously to weed, our story takes place back in the days (2001) when he was into coke, before it was a matter of strict necessity to possess a gun in order to be a coke dealer.

Like other mid-to-large scale dealers I know, his social circle largely consists of either customers or other dealers. I'll also point out at this point that, despite what you may assume, this story involves no exaggeration - you'll have to trust me on that one.

So on this occasion our hero was pottering about his flat one morning - probably having not slept - when one of his dealer mates happened by. The man in question had just obtained a large quantity of crack cocaine on credit. Several thousand pounds worth, in fact. The pair decided to have a pipe to take the edge off while the telly blared on in the background.

A couple of pipes in, both were beginning to reach the advanced stages of fucked-ness when the news came on. Apparently, someone had had a rather serious accident in New York, flying their plane into the Twin Towers...

You can guess the date, can't you?

As the pie-eyed pair digested this news with another pipe, a secomd plane went into the towers, and it became clear that this wasn't an accident. Their reaction?

They decided civilisation as we know it was coming to an end, and realised that therefore they wouldn't have to pay for the crack.

By the time they had gotten very high indeed for a considerable period, then eventually succumbed to sleep (some days later), and subsequently reawoken in a more sober state, they realised three things quite quickly:

1) Civilisation had survived largely intact, if somewhat more nervous than before
2) They had made their way through two grands worth of crack
3) There was a very strong possibility that this would get them both killed.

Postscript: Due to an unusually understanding dealer and their willingness to work extremely hard over the next month flogging naughty substances to pay off their debt, both survived to tell the tale...
(rampants, Thu 13 May 2010, 17:16, 10 replies)

Don't play with drugs!
This is a pretty long story so bear with me!

Do any of you remember back a few years there was a major fucking weed drought? Like seriously nobody had anything. It was as dry as your grandma's cunt out there. Anyway one Friday I get a call from this girl I know, she’s got a tonne of the stuff only she's shit scared of offloading it herself so she's asking me to sell it. Well I wasn’t going to go through all that hassle for no reward so I told her I wasn't going to be the silent partner, I would take a little bit and sell it to my close friends. She was cool with that. We did a deal 10%, free weed for me, as long as I was selling her shit. Anyway next thing I know she's got a buyer lined up for Saturday for the bulk of the weed, she had a whole brick of the stuff wrapped up in black plastic and she didn't want to go alone so muggins her gets roped in. Some shit about her brother usually does it but he's in jail because like a cunt he hasn’t paid his parking fines.

Anyway next thing I know there I am sitting at the train station waiting for this bloke who I don’t even know to come along and take this weed off my hands and he's late. And I need a piss. Do I go for a slash and risk missing this guy? I wait it out a bit longer but eventually I can’t wait any more so I grab the bag with the weed and head for the gents.

Now we all know that train station pissers are fucking disgusting and that you're liable to give yourself some fucking disease just by breathing the air, I was expecting it to be covered in filth, and it was four fucking boys in blue and a massive great big dog. OH FUCK. My brain is going a mile a minute, are they there for me? Do they know what is in the bag? Should I just fucking leg it? This is the worst weekend ever I’m going be in jail for the rest of my fucking life!

Anyway nobody says anything, though the dog is barking like a lunatic, so using every once of self restraint I manage to stroll over to the urinal, have a wazz, wash my hands and get the fuck out of there without shitting myself, but that it the true definition of a brown trousers moment and how I narrowly escaped the most expensive weekend of my life.

Strangely a few weeks later I did actually have the most expensive weekend of my life when I was shot dead following a bungled burglery.

Length? I don’t know what is the maximum term for possession with intent to supply?

Mr Orange.
(Psymon_Spark Jesus Saves! The rest of you take 4d6 damage, Thu 13 May 2010, 16:39, 14 replies)

This one is made for me.
Back in December, Mrs G and I decided a weekend in Cambridge would be nice. We'd stay in a nice-ish hotel, have a nice meal or two and pop down to that there London to spend a day with our fully grown sprog. The only possible thing that could go wrong was that our car was on its last wheels - it was over ten years old and had over quarter of a million miles on the clock (no exaggeration). Each MOT I'd cross my fingers and hope that it wouldn't cost me too much to coax it through - last time it needed a catalytic converter fitting just to get the emissions to a low enough level. It leaked oil wherever it was parked etc. etc.

Mrs G didn't like the thought of it conking out on the motorway, or even worse, being seen climbing out of an ancient, scratched, rusty Toyota Carina. So, I did what any sensible person would do, I decided to hire a car for the weekend. Only £78 which was about the same as train tickets for the two of us and much more convenient.

Worst mistake of my life (or in the top ten, anyway). Sunday morning, we parked at Cambridge station and got the train to London for a pleasant day with the daughter and her boyfriend. We went to the Tate, had some lunch then went to see their new flat - met the Aussie flatmates etc and then we took them out for an Indian meal in Stoke Newington, got a bus back to the station and arrived at Cambridge at around 10 pm.

That was when I discovered that I didn't have the car key any more.

I still, to this day, don't have any idea what the hell happened to it. I was wearing a warm coat with deep pockets. The car key was in the same pocket as my house keys, which were still there, but it had gone. We searched every pocket and section of my manly man satchel several times. Nothing. I searched the ground between the car and the station, looked under cars. It hadn't been handed in at the station.

I won't bore you further with a blow-by-blow account of the following day, but it involved a lot of hanging around, phone calls, AA man, tow-truck, waiting for dollies, Vauxhall dealership, and eventually a train back to York. The car hire people wouldn't let us take a different car from Cambridge and insisted that our locked one had to be returned to York. I arranged to return to Cambridge the following week, once a new key had been ordered from Vauxhall and delivered.

So, I got an early train and got to the dealership at about 10 o'clock in the morning. I thought that it would be quite nice to listen to Jonathan Ross on the journey home...

It was the wrong key. Some idiot had given the wrong key code and the key didn't fit the lock. I was still being charged for the hire of a car I couldn't use, I'd paid for train tickets, I had to pay for a new key (about £90).

After much complaining, they agreed to charge me only the hire fee to the following Saturday and diesel to get it back to York, and the new key. I accepted the extra £200-odd plus £70 for return train fare (twice) and one-way for Mrs G. as a 'stupid tax' and tried to put the whole thing behind me.

What I wasn't expecting THIS MONTH was for £300-odd to be taken from my credit card by the self-same car hire company (sound like: You-hope Car). This I discovered was for getting the car from the station to the dealership! [I've told the card not to pay it and put in a well-crafted complaint].

So, total cost for hiring a car that was less than 80 quid? About £650. I couldn't have bought a reasonable, second hand run-about for that, and I wouldn't have had one of the worst weekends of my adult life. And I wouldn't have had Mrs G bravely not blaming me for losing the key.

By the way - I have NEVER lost a key before in my entire life. I'm still cross with God about this and will be sure to mention it next time I see him.

Happy footnote: we took advantage of the scrappage scheme and got £2,000 of the price of a new car - our first ever car newer than six years old. It's a black VW Beetle and lots of fun (smugs).
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Thu 13 May 2010, 16:27, 4 replies)

I must be tight
I'm grumbling about buying an Acer tree for 12 quid.
That will be the sum total expenditure for this weekend, though I grant you it's not very entertaining, it can't do tricks.
(SpangoTheWonderBadger is brewing beer, Thu 13 May 2010, 16:21, 2 replies)

I took my wife to Paris
Before she was my wife - before I'd proposed in fact. The Eurostar, the hotel, the food and drink, the tourism, we spent a good few-hundred quid. But that's not the expensive bit, that was worth every penny.

Before we left, we went into a supermarket to buy wine, beer, and crucially, cheese. We picked up 6 different lumps of France's finest, and took them and our other purchases to the checkout. The till rang up an amount, and we paid it without much thought, as we were rushing for the train.

One of the labels was printed wrong. Instead of the 150g we had bought, it had charged us for 1.95kg. We paid about 40 Euro for a medium sized, unremarkable lump of emmenthal, or something like that.

True, 40 Euro isn't a patch on some of these stories, but at least you got
-a train journey
-a weekend's clubbing
-a lap dance
-a free bar for your friends
..out of it - something that might have been worth it in different circumstances. We got £2 worth of mediocre cheese.

I wrote to the supermarket and complained. They said write to the branch. I wrote to the branch. They didn't reply.

Paris was lovely though, and well - reader, I married her.
(sabre-tooth monkey, Thu 13 May 2010, 16:18, Reply)

Early 90's and the then missus and i are off on a coach trip from Cornwall to Paris to see Pink Floyd in the Division Bell tour. Tickets and travel werent bad, not cheap but hey its Floyd in Paris FFS, there is always going to be a bit of a mark up on these all in coach tours.

FF however many hours on the coach and we wind up in some utter shithole of a motel miles from fucking anywhere on the outskirts of Paris, and staffed exclusively by dour faced cunts with sarcastic smirks (what do they have to be so smug about,one wonders). We have about 4 hours to kill before gigtime, so the coach empties into the "bar" (or a bare room with a few patio chairs, fridge and dour faced cunt keeping an eye on it all. Being poor studenty types on a rather restricted budget, we ask for price list before ordering (unlike some of the other table who just steam into a round of beers and munchies) .

as we left having shared a burger and chips, and treated ourselves to a tiny beer each, one of the "tattooed spokespeople" on the other tables was "negotiating" their final bill and informing the staff that, having read the small print, "Tip not included? I should fucking hope not. You are fucking lucky i dont punch your teeth down your throat you robbing froggy cunt"

Turns out that a tiny bottle of "biere d'alsace" type industrial shite was 8 quid a bottle, and that the lamest burger and chips you ever saw with a smear of ketchup on hte paper plate was fucking 20 quid. And the nearest other place you could get some grub or booze was "in town". The beer was actually cheaper at the venue, and you cant say that too often.

All told, the weekend cost 18 yr old me about 400quid. But it still remains one of the finest gigs i ever went to, so fuck it.
(Matty73, Thu 13 May 2010, 16:15, Reply)

Not even a whole weekend....
A mate of mine got married at Stapleford Park Hotel in rural Leicestershire, top quality place, Michael Jackson once had a birthday party there.

The wedding and recepyion cost just over £15,000 bearing in mind this was about 10 yaers ago.

He was still paying for the wedding long after his divorce!
(Barnetboy, Thu 13 May 2010, 16:13, Reply)

Hiring a van....
...last time, I decided I'd waive the extra 25 quid insurance premium to cap any excess at 250 quid. I've been hiring vans for the weekend on and off for the last 8 years and never had a problem. Well, this time was the time I decided to misjudge a left turn and scrape the entire passenger-side against a low metal fence. Cost me 700 quid. At least I was able to put this into perspective -- measured against the standard metric of financial outlay arising from a single illjudged moment of madness, it's only 0.03 of a milliBecker.
( drdavej, Thu 13 May 2010, 15:58, 1 reply)

Money back guarantee...
Usual Vegas extravagance story...but with added bonus.

The Wynn Hotel, Las Vegas, NV - one of the finest places on this earth. They have a new club there called 'XS', which is built around a huge, shallow swimming pool, which without fail, 100's of scantily clad American bimbo wannabes throw themselves into every night. The trick is to hire a 'cabana' by the waters edge, so the dripping wet girls have a place to enter and exit the pool, they really appreciate the free towels and drinks that cabana owners can supply them with.

My mate and I, just the two of us, hired a cabana and put down a $1000 min drinks tab with my Amex card. What a night. We were outnumbered 8-1 by desperate, stunning, nubile girls. They LOVED our cabana, they ordered vodka by the bottle and champagne by the magnum. My friend and I sat there resplendent, the stars of our very own hip-hop video, fully satisfied and content that a few of their American dollars could purchase such a wonderful, short-lived fantasy.

But all good things must come to an end. And end they did, with the addition of a $2,400 drinks bill. The waitress brought my card on a silver tray and asked me to sign (no chip & pin in the US of A), I drunkenly pointed to my far drunker mate, who grabbed the receipt and duly signed it. I was too pissed to care. Plus one of the girls had accepted my invitation to come use one of the luxuriant Wynnn bathrobes that I had in my room...

Picking over the bones of the evening the next day, we struggled to remember our total bill. A brief search of my mate's wallet found the copy receipt and the enormity of our overspend hit home. But closer inspection of it revealed a get out clause. I immediately called Amex and complained that I'd misplaced my card between 1am and 6am, somewhere in the greater Las Vegas area.

Back home I was sent a pack by Amex. It contained a list of all my expenditure during that time, plus photcopies of my signed receipts. And there it was. The biggie.

A receipt for $2,400.00 spent at XS Club, Wynn Hotel.

Agreed and signed, clear as day, by a 'Mr M. Mouse Esq.'

They re-credited every cent onto my next statement.
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Thu 13 May 2010, 15:55, 13 replies)

Credit is bad m'kay.
A few years back, my girlfriend at the time and I used to have a fucking magnificent time every now and then going clubbing. We were both hopeless with money and living well beyond our means on loans and credit cards...using one card to pay off another, paying the rent by card and so on. I cant really explain it, it was the time when banks were throwing finance at everyone willing to sign on the dotted line and we took all we could get. We were just really stupid.
We thought nothing of popping down to London for the weekend. From Aberdeen. We would drive down on Friday, spend Friday night and Saturday on the lash, then go home on the Sunday. We did this quite a few times and it never cost less than about a grand, by the time fuel, hotel, parking, drinks, restaurants etc were paid.

Whilst a grand on a weekend is pretty excessive, the long term effects are much worse. We both ended up being declared bankrupt and I still feel the effects of this now.
(dave likes cheese, Thu 13 May 2010, 15:50, 2 replies)

Last weekend
A new kilt and all the associated gubbins - £650
A holiday for me and the kids in July (Croatia, thanks for asking) - £2500
Buying the wife out of the house, plus associated legal fees - £125000
Getting rid of the sour-faced old crone and getting my life back (including gorgeous new girlfriend) - priceless.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Thu 13 May 2010, 15:48, 1 reply)