To do data backups

I once set an S3 lifecycle setting that accidentally affected 3 years worth of logs to Glacier. The next morning I woke up to a billing alert and an AWS bill with an extra $250k in charges (our normal run rate was $30k/month at the time). Basically I spent my entire add annual cloud budget for the year overnight.

Thankfully after an email to our account rep and a bunch of back and forth I was able to get the charges reduced to $4,300.

Before buying your fitst home:

• bring someone with more experience than you to have a look at it, maybe even a professional
• scout out the area (on foot) during the day, evening and night
• visit local businesses like cafés, restaurants, bakeries etc.
• look at statistics like crime and air quality
• have a talk with the neighbors, get a sense of the community if you can, otherwise just observe while taking walks
• if applicable, call the home owner's representative (or whatever the equivalent is where you live), ask them about the home, neighborhood, community, expenses, plans for the future etc.
• have a set budget of how much you want to spend on it before you move in, don't overstep that amount

That starting the work is half the work. I wasted a lot of time procrastinating, it took me shamefully long to realize that if I could just start an activity for 5 minutes, taking it to completion is then relatively easy

was hanging out with friends getting some drinks, we decided to walk through our old campus.

there was a roof I always used to climb up while in college to chill on, so I did that.

after finished, while hopped up on liquid courage, I decided to jump down.

did so and shattered my heel.

spent the entire summer immobile and required a surgery that ended up costing me about $5k out of pocket.

have mostly recovered now, but it's still not as good as the other foot, and I know it's going to hurt like hell when i'm old.

don't be like me, don't do stupid shit while drunk.

Damn bunch cynical people saying don't get married. Maybe don't get married to someone unless you're sure, and get a prenuptial. There are advantages, legal and financially, of being married.

Never let the car run out of gas. I was on the highway and the destination gas station was in sight. Well, even after putting more gas in from a Jerry can it wouldn't start because debris clogged the fuel filter. Getting it towed + repaired was like $1000 when I could have just stopped at a gas station earlier.

Art school isn't worth it, period. I got a far better art education through my local community college by far, from instructors who weren't incrediblely stuck up and full of themselves.

That was an 80k expense that I'm still paying off almost 20 years later, and I didn't even finish my degree.

I went back to get my AS at a CC and took some art classes there. 10/10, far better instruction for a fraction of the price.

Not all landscapers can "landscape". Hired a guy to build a pad for a shed which included a small retaining wall. The guy doesn't own a level, and the end result is visibly not level. I showed him with my laser level what was going on, and he didn't believe me. He started adding MORE material to the high spot.

He was aggressive about needing to be paid. Very aggressive. I paid him since he knows where we live. Unless we sue him and win, we're out $4800, and to have it done correctly (with a fancier wall) will be $6500.

TLDR: Don't hire a lawn service company to build anything.

As an IT-worker, it's not uncommon to test technology and scrap it due to bad results or unfit implementation. Usually this isn't considered a waste, since there are a lot of things to learn in the process.

However, this one system which was designed for testing applications was a bit different. From the day we were told about it, basically every developer knew that this would be unfit. However the customers were firm on that it should be implemented. I'm not sure if it was because of the looks of the sales person or if it was a genuine incompetense that the decission was landed, but I felt a bit too junior to stand up against it. So about a month of work with 2 developers went down on something that every other developer knew would be scrapped. 2 devs at ~$100/hour, 4 weeks of 40 hours, so roughly $32,000.

The lesson was that I need to be more direct and firm when things like that is decided.

When I was a student I kept my books beside my bed on the floor. Got hammered one night, went to bed, felt sick and ended up being sick on all of my books on the floor. Probably about £500 worth of books which is a lot when you’re a broke ass student.

The legal system.

After having 3500 dollars worth of stuff stolen by my shit landlord. I went to court. Again And again And again And again.

Not accounting for my time, gas, parking, I spent over 5000.amd even after I "won" I still wound up goj back to court several times because this scum sucking asshole claims to be 100000 in debt to the government.

I hate the legal system more then I hate the guy who stole from me!

As Eisenhower said,

beware the engagement-wedding-genderreveal-kids-mortgage-divorce-childsupport-legal-industrial complex.

I may be mis-remembering exactly what he said. but I think that was the gist.

Looong long distance relationships are not worth it.

Don't buy salvaged vehicles unless you are dead sure you gonna keep it for life. And don't cotumise it if you intend not loosing that money. I've bought my Harely salvaged 10 years ago, put a lot of work and money on that. Now I want to sell it and I just can't, even taking a 20% loss on the market price. And that is without adding the parts money I've spent. Bike original goes for 40K. I've put around 12K on parts and upgrades. I'm asking 32K and can't sell it. Furthermore, the dealership don't accept that bike on a trade cause of the salvage mark it has.

Don't invest in crypto.

College only makes sense economically if you have a plan.

If you’re a naive, idealistic, scatterbrained, autistic, traumatized, brainiac redneck raised into terrible character by a spineless single parent who drove off the good one, like I was, then your best bet after high school is some entry level job, heath insurance, and therapy for a few years.

I had an emotional system the equivalent of a broken pair of legs. I basically signed up for a walking journey with broken legs, because (a) I had no conception of what the “legs” were that carry a person through college successfully, and (b) I had no idea they could be broken, and (c) I had no idea mine were broken.

I was like “sweet! big journey!” and the kids from healthier backgrounds and I got along fine, and they got their shit done and I mostly tore my hair out and cried and took super long walks and experimented with drugs. I had been led to believe that the journey through life was like driving through a country. I didn’t realize that traveling in this journey meant transforming the self. I had no conception of self transformation as an aspect of life, of directed growth, of evolving consciously. All I had was this feeling that life was like a river and I was kayaking down it seeing new stuff.

I don’t really know how to say what the lesson was. It was the most expensive lesson I ever learned, because not only did it cost me a huge amount of money, it also cost me about twenty years of my life.

Not to buy a game's merchandise from the other side of the world (shipping price was around the same price if not more expensive than the product itself)

I wanted a newer car, so I rolled my existing auto loan into the newer vehicles loan. So easy right?

I was upside down on it for years and years. It's so disheartening to drive a vehicle that's falling apart and stranding you everywhere but still owe $10k on it. It was an awful decision that took years of pain but that was my lesson on buying things I can afford.

Not a massive expense. Turned 500 € into 250€. Learned a lesson nonetheless.

I followed the GameStop (GME) hype to late and halfed my money in 4 easy steps. Follow and don't repeat.

• invest (feel like robin hood ... hehe)
• panic (notice why I shouldn't daytrade and why I was in therapy
• withdraw my money at an awesome 2:1 ratio
• not fall for internet hype that quicky again and delete my invest account

Tried shipping my motorcycle cross country without insurance.

Do not trust financial advisors when they live from the contracts they sell. (Most do, don’t trust them).

They work for their own interest or for that of their employer, yours is only second to theirs.

Our mortgage brokers, we had a broker that told us it would be best to go with variable because you always end up paying less. We had a choice between 1.35% variable or 2.05% fixed. We had 1.35% for 2 months and it is 6.1% now. We could be putting so much against our principal but instead we are paying 3k+ in interest and 1200 in principal.

Not me personally, but one of my career mentor's friend's took down the entirety of Google Ads as an intern for like 10 minutes. Apparently it was a multi-million dollar mistake, but they fixed the issue so it couldn't happen again and all was well afterward.

Never buy and piece of hardware that stops work when you cancel your subscription.

First car. I had no idea about anything or how to cars or anyone providing good advice.

I put e10 once as the only other option was 98 and too expensive.

About a month later I get a rattling sound from under the car. Replacing the catalytic converter was really expensive.

Always wear a condom. Never get married.

College.

If you lock yourself out, don’t call the first locksmith you can find in google. They are a scam.

When buying a house people tell you to make sure the roof is in good condition because that'll be expensive to replace. What they don't tell you is that is all the other things that you may need to replace and how expensive they are. Fence, paint, siding, water heater, washer/dryer, AC, heater, kitchen appliances, etc. Some this might show up in the inspection report, but it's hard to get a good idea of what it'll cost beforehand. Also your realtor will have an incentive to downplay any problems to get the deal done.

Dining out isn't a substitute for therapy.

Not to go to the strip club when drunk. I blew like $5k in one weekend, never going back again (at least, not when I'm drunk).

Not to lend money to anyone and expect to ever see it again.

I'm not actually an investment genius, I'm just gambling like the rest of them.