There’s nothing quite like the Boxing Day sales to whip you up into a frenzy.
Each year, we stumble out of our homes, bleary eyes and turkey drunk (or just you know, regular drunk), and head to the shops, ready to grab a bargain.
But amid the mile long queues, messy shop floors and other wild-eyed shoppers, any sense of logic quickly goes out the window.
A Rudolph ornament that’s lost his nose? Yes please. Cut price bath salts you’ll never use? May as well. Clothes you know are the wrong size? Yes, you’ll have those too.
So in a bid to help you retain your senses this Boxing Day, we asked readers about some of the most ridiculous items they’ve spent money on – take note…
Clip-on fringe — £30
Carolyn Pearson, 58, from Yorkshire, already has a fringe, and yet, that didn’t stop her from buying a clip on version.
‘My fringe is a nightmare, it’s always separating and looking flat,’ she tells Metro. ‘I thought this would be a magic bullet to a perfect, full and pretty fringe.’
Only, after buying it seven years ago, it never saw the light of day, as she was so ‘terrified it would fall out in public or that people would be able to tell it was fake’ to wear it.
Despite it costing £30, Carolyn has finally given up the ghost (or fringe), saying: ‘I gave it to a charity shop. Maybe somebody out there can ace the clip-in fringe look!’
Fake paparazzi photos — £500
Duncan Killick, 28, says that since 2018, he’s been ‘living a double life’. He hilariously ‘moonlights as a faux celeb’ on his satirical Instagram account @whoshotduncan, where he mocks up front page headlines, and fake screengrabs from chat shows, all featuring himself.
Duncan tells Metro: ‘I figured that by now everyone knows social media is pretty superficial, so why bother sharing endless pics of my lunch when instead I could play a disgruntled superstar, sharing fake pap pics beneath funny headlines.’
Even our very own Metro has featured on Duncan’s profile. But, things went a step further when Duncan had a particularly expensive idea.
He says: ‘Celebs like Kim K and Paris Hilton – even the Royals are always being accused of tipping off or paying the papas – so I thought, why don’t I do it too? I have no idea how much Kim Kardashian paid for hers but mine cost around half a grand.’
But Duncan immediately had ‘absolutely huge regrets’, explaining: ‘I only brought one set of clothes with me [to the shoot] and famous people do not outfit repeat. Once we’d snapped a few, we were done.’
‘We took the pics in a few spots around London, hitting up some old school celebrity haunts like The Ivy in Covent Garden,’ he says. ‘But if I did it again I’d go all-in. Full security detail. Drivers trying to get me into the car safely. “Fans” begging for autographs.’
After seeing the finished images, Duncan was somewhat underwhelmed, saying they looked ‘pretty much the same as the others [he’d] posted before.’
‘Either that means I hired the wrong person, or my previous pap pics were just that realistic,’ he adds.
Murano glass — £550
When Deborah Hastie, 53, from York, went on her honeymoon to Venice, she had to visit the island of Murano, famous for its glass, which has been made on the island since the 13th century.
‘We got carried away by it all and ended up spending around £550 on a small piece of glass that has fish in it,’ explains Deborah.
Only, back in Venice, they realised their piece of Murano glass wasn’t quite as unique as they thought, with Deborah noting: ‘We started to see other very similar pieces of glass in souvenir shops for about 10% of the price.’
To make matters worse, the newlyweds couldn’t even pack their glass in their suitcase, and had to have it shipped home because it was so heavy. And although the seller promised to inscribe their honeymoon date on the bottom, it arrived without the inscription.
Now, 21 years on, the expensive ornament sits in their downstairs loo.
Deborah adds: ‘It delights our guests every time they see it as they know the story behind it – and my husband isn’t known for splashing the cash at the best of times!
‘It makes me smile every time I go into the washroom and see it.’
Zorb ball — £550
Sometimes, when you spot a bargain, you can’t resist. So when Ben Thornbury, 18, from Wiltshire, spotted a Zorb ball on eBay, for ‘such a good price’ of £200, he snapped it up.
‘I had to also buy a portable battery to be able to inflate it when out and about, that cost about £250 on Amazon – more than the actual Zorb ball itself!’ he tells Metro.
‘I was excited about it when I first purchased it but I did have doubts because I didn’t know how easy it would be to inflate and also how safe it would be. I first managed to get it up in the garden and then on the river.’
Only, it turns out, Zorb balls are a bit of a faff.
‘I’ve only used it a couple of times, as it is a pain to get it inflated and takes such a long time because the portable battery isn’t powerful enough to get it up quickly,’ Ben continues.
‘You have to wait inside of it while it inflates which can take 10 to 15 minutes. If you come out of it then you have to start all over again.’
He admits it’s a ‘hassle’ and he ‘can’t be bothered’ to use it anymore, meaning ‘it’s now in the garden shed.’
Mini trampoline — £150
Julia Slack, 55, thought a mini trampoline would get her into exercise.
Julie, who is the author of The Road to Somorrostro, and lives in Barcelona, Spain, tells Metro: ‘I was convinced I’d found the perfect solution for an exercise-procrastinating, lazy-arse!
‘All I had to do was pull out it’s little legs and jump on it, in the lounge, everyday for 10 minutes. I’d be like the lovely sculpted lady on YouTube whose “rebounder workouts” I’d subscribed to.’
Only Julia’s only bounced on her £150 trampoline three times… ‘It’s currently lodged behind the lounge table, covered in dust, and I have to look at it every single day!’ she says.
‘It’s going on Vinted in the New Year,’ she says.
Raleigh Dutch bike — £500
Evie Richards, 24, isn’t immune to a misguided purchase, spending £500on a Tiffany green Raleigh Dutch bike back in 2021, which was her ‘most expensive purchase ever.’
‘I lived in Dulwich at the time, and had visions of riding home from the market with local produce in the wicker basket,’ she tells Metro.
However, things didn’t go quite as planned for Evie.
‘The dream lasted all of two days when I was hit by a car (not my fault!), flinging me onto the road,’ she says. ‘I chipped my front tooth and got a massive bruise on my chin.’
And what’s happened to the bike?
‘I still own the cumbersome vehicle, it takes up way too much of my corridor and hasn’t really been ridden since,’ Evie adds. ‘But I hope one day to pluck up the nerve and live my best biking life once again.’
Race horse — £1,800
‘As a child, I’d longed for a pony,’ novelist Natalie Meg Evans, 62, tells Metro. ‘I bought Benita as a 40th birthday present for myself.’
Natalie planned to get herself a cob – a type of short-legged, reliable horse, perfect for a first time owner.
‘But when I saw Benita, who was thin and clearly scared, a gun-metal grey thoroughbred, I fell in love,’ she explains. ‘I was sick with excitement! I’d finally done it, got myself a horse.’
That all changed when Benita arrived in her new home, and when Natalie realised the animal was ‘totally crazy’, she felt ‘absolutely horrified’ at what she’d done.
‘Benita was rearing, bolting off, going backwards far more than she went forwards,’ Natalie explains.
‘I had trainers come, I had chiropractors, I had everybody try to find out what was wrong. I’d dreamt of having a nice safe horse to go hacking on, and I ended up paying £400 a month livery for a horse I couldn’t ride.’
Eventually, Natalie had had enough, saying: ‘There came a day about six months after I bought Benita that I crashed to earth, literally, and thought, “no more”.
‘Benita showed me I was not the rider I thought I was – but what can you do at that point? When it’s a real live creature, you have to live with your mistake and make something good from it.’
Despite the bad experience, there was a silver lining: Benita became the catalyst for Natalie taking in other rescue horses. She sold her house and moved to to the countryside, to a home with fields for her horses.
Benita spent her final days there, before passing away in 2015.
Natalie adds: ‘If I hadn’t bought Benita, I would probably be in a house worth a great deal more than my present one. I would be a whole lot richer but I would have missed out on the joy of being with horses. I’m grateful to her. And I still miss her!’
Dog lamp — £40
Metro assistant lifestyle editor, Jess Lindsay, 31, was freshly 18 and just about to move into a new flat when she decided to treat herself to a cute new lamp from Next.
‘I wasn’t really looking when the transaction went through, but when the money didn’t come out of my bank I initially just assumed there was a glitch and either it’d come out shortly, or I’d wangled a freebie,’ she explains.
Only, Jess’s luck wasn’t quite that good.
She says: ‘It turned out I’d inadvertently opened a credit account. All the bills were being sent to my parents’ house, being left on a pile of unopened mail.
‘When I eventually realised, it had been passed to debt collectors and the price had more than tripled due to penalty fees.
‘I tried to explain the situation but they weren’t having any of it, and I was skint so couldn’t fork out hundreds for a £40 purchase (which I annoyingly actually had at the time of buying).
‘It ended up going on my credit file and tanking my rating for the next six years – I couldn’t get a student bank account, a credit card or even a phone contract for ages.’
Despite the story behind it, the dog lamp serves an important purpose, withJess adding: ‘I’m a lot more careful checking the Ts and Cs nowadays, but still keep the infamous “dog lamp” as a reminder to never be so stupid again.’
Do you have a story to share?
Get in touch by emailing [email protected].
