Asklemmy

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.

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.

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.

Don't invest in crypto.

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

Always wear a condom. Never get married.

Tried shipping my motorcycle cross country without insurance.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Looong long distance relationships are not worth it.

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).

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.

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.

Don't go with the low bid.

College isn't for everyone.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Dining out isn't a substitute for therapy.

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.

I have ADHD.

Bought a Jeep!

Don't screw around with stock options on Robinhood. Also ideally don't triple your first purchase overnight because then you've fooled yourself into thinking it wasn't a fluke even when you know it was a fluke.

Don't ever trust a friend in business. Maybe it works out, maybe you almost lose everything.

Don't get married

Don't try to update the BIOS of a generic x86 mini-server if the manufacturer does not offer it on its website. I didn't learn the lesson the first time but I certainly did the second one. $200-ish down the drain that way

Education? I guess I learned a lot from it?

Don't know if it is that expensive for others or not but just sharing cuz it might help someone.

You don't need to be a dad in order to make dad jokes.

Don't take 4 pills of molly in one night. And don't make that mistake more than once.