What’s something ‘free’ that ended up costing$ way more than you expected?

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What’s something ‘free’ that ended up costing$ way more than you expected?

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  1. mynue Avatar

    Social media, time, energy, focus

  2. Key-Strawberry-9954 Avatar

    Forgotten subscriptions or subscriptions with hidden fees. 🙃. I only meant to try a free trial of adobe photoshop. I ended up being required to have a six month subscription or pay the early cancellation fee (which would have been hundreds of dollars). Such a shiesty buisiness.

  3. CivilKaleidoscope873 Avatar

    The free mobile game I downloaded. Ended up spending too much on gems and cosmetic stuff. Regret it so much

  4. monica-the-great Avatar

    Pay 2 win mobile games are predatory bullshit.

  5. Mountain-Match2942 Avatar

    Got my kids for free. Pretty darn expensive raising them though.

  6. apizzamymind Avatar

    Free trials of literally anything, because 9/10 times I forget to cancel

  7. Suitable_Bike_9484 Avatar

    “Enter for a chance to win a FREE ____”

    the endless amount of spam calls / emails. ugh.

  8. jellysally Avatar

    Children. Sex is free, but not the outcome.

  9. mschuster91 Avatar

    I’ amazed that no “inherited a timeshare” horror stories have cropped up yet

  10. Magnaflorius Avatar

    Chronic pain. It was free to develop, but it costs me so much money in medication and unpaid time off from work.

    The worst thing it costs me is time with my kids. They’re 4 and 1.75, and right now I am curled up in the fetal position instead of having supper with them.

  11. Jujusmithjitsu Avatar

    If it’s free, you’re the product.

  12. Key-Wonder-8164 Avatar

    Free insurance quotes sure as hell made my life miserable for the next month.

  13. Always_theNervous Avatar

    fortnite battle pass

  14. ProfitNo7496 Avatar

    Game of War Fire Age. Free to download the game. Most foolish decision of my adult life

  15. Inevitable-Web5155 Avatar

    A goldfish i won when I was in high school. A few hundred bucks later Mister Glitters lived a very long and happy life.

  16. lorenzo463 Avatar

    We got a free trampoline from our neighbors a few weeks into COVID. We wouldn’t have taken it, except that all of the playgrounds in town were closed, we had nowhere to go, and we had a kid at home with energy to burn.

    Kid broke her femur first day. $1,500.00 in medical bills when all was said and done. 

  17. Goodygumdops Avatar

    Had a friend install a new water heater for free. I had to pay a plumber a lot of money to fix my friend’s incompetence. I learned my lesson.

  18. Just_a_Ginger_Fella Avatar

    Online games that have micro-transactions

  19. peoplesuck64 Avatar

    That “free” goldfish my child won at a school fair…needed a fishbowl, food, rocks, decorative algae plants…then larger tank, lights,.filter….

  20. iamcode101 Avatar

    I got a free aquarium once….

  21. Key_Molasses4367 Avatar

    Friend of mine accepted a free horse for her daughter. Stable bills and feed were bad enough, then horse got some illness that required a $10,000 vet bill. That free horse cost her probably $40K before she found a way to rehome it safely.

  22. cozywanderr Avatar

    “Try this free game!” …Three hours and $60 in microtransactions later, I’m emotionally invested and financially betrayed.

  23. Cat-Mother666 Avatar

    My dumpster cat

  24. ChattingAtTheAqua Avatar

    Found my cat near a dumpster. She’s been an expense for sure

  25. Clawdee Avatar

    One of my cats. Little girl and her mom were in the Safeway parking lot giving away kittens. I snagged the last girl, bc ‘Free!’ lmao.

    Had to do first vet visit: shots, get her checked over, and set up an appt. to get her fixed. She was a pretty healthy cat otherwise, except for one time she ripped off one of her nails and it got infected. Another vet visit for that and antibiotics.

    Still cheaper than her sister who had teeth problems.

  26. Capnahab79 Avatar

    A friend of mine gifted me a ball python, in a cardboard box. They can’t live in a cardboard box. $400 in snake related accessories later, she now has a proper home.

  27. Firm_Acanthaceae6669 Avatar

    Friendship with certain people

  28. Algolvega Avatar

    Free Trade with the US.

  29. Capable-Fisherman-79 Avatar

    My friend gave me my first Magic the Gathering deck for free….it wasn’t free in the end

  30. Spicy_Enjoyer Avatar

    Being an adult.

  31. rosen380 Avatar

    My brother gifted me three expensive watches. I’m paying insurance on the more expensive two, which combined costs me about $300 per year.

    They all should get serviced regularly (like every 3-5 years). Two can be serviced here in the US and likely would be around $150-250 each. The third has to be shipped to Switzerland and the service is expected to be in the $500-800 range.

    If it was just one watch, even the most expensive of the three (and the one with more the expensive servicing), assuming the every five years and $500 ea plus the insurance, that is $275 per year on average.

    OK, fine… since the watch was free, I guess not too bad to ~always have a nice watch on my wrist.

    But for all three, it is ~$460 per year… I’m still only using one at any given time, but the costs are roughly double.

  32. inactivelywaiting Avatar

    Taking up jogging as a hobby. Totally worth it, but for a sport that should be basically free, it will surprise you. Running shoes, running clothes, entree fees for races to stay motivated. Doctors visits for muscle strains, plantar fasciitis, shin splints…long term cardiovascular benefits outweigh these…and it’s possible to just put on the shoes you have and go out…but it’s surprisingly expensive 

  33. blokedog Avatar

    A guy I knew got a free kitten. He had it for less than a day and noticed it wasn’t doing very well. He took it to the vet and when he went in later that day for an update, they told him there was nothing they could do and had to euthanize. Then they handed him an $800 bill. He was like $800 for a free dead cat? FML!

  34. Frolock Avatar

    A free motorcycle or car. Just empty your wallet right now.

  35. oaklandRE Avatar

    8 CD for $0.99

  36. Aggressive_Range_695 Avatar

    League of legends, free to start but I’ve spent hundreds on it over the past decade.

  37. hanson3519 Avatar

    The “free oil changes” when my wife bought a new car. 🤦🏼‍♂️

  38. G-Unit11111 Avatar

    The “free” games they advertise on Android / iOS.

    Yeah they’re free for the first level, then they get loaded up with in app purchases.

  39. xMasochizm Avatar

    Relationships. Fuck that shit, never doing that again.

  40. scallionshavesecrets Avatar

    Accepting “gifts” from disingenuous people.

  41. Original_Newspaper11 Avatar

    My dog, especially when she likes to have medical emergencies on Sundays only

  42. AvailableSetting0 Avatar

    Working out and camping

  43. ChocolateMartiniMan Avatar

    Domino’s “free pizza” deal……..nothing was free about it. Had to buy another pizza to reach the cost level for delivery. 18$+here so I had order a second pizza to do so. I really only wanted 1pizza to give to someone who just had surgery.

  44. GoddessOfReverie Avatar

    FREE fairy princess photo shoot…..
    the shoot was free, the pictures were 🥵
    The most expensive package $7k
    The cheapest option $300 😭

  45. Slackerwithgoals Avatar

    Canadian healthcare

  46. Organic_Bat_1489 Avatar

    A car. Within 6 months, we had to replace the engine.

  47. MerryWidowMaker Avatar

    Volunteering. I’ve volunteered at a hospital, at a nursing home, at an elementary school, for city events and for emergency management. In every case, it was more $$ than I expected. Whether it was birthday parties or uniforms or special events or trainings, there was always some extra cost.

    I still volunteer, but now I go in with eyes wide open.

  48. CattonCruthby Avatar

    Dinner theatre. A friend of mine was in a show, invited me to see their dress rehearsal for free, I just had to pay for my food. It turns out they were only serving their limited holiday menu at fixed pricing, which I couldn’t opt out from. Ended up spending about $100 I didn’t have on underwhelming food. (And the show was pretty crap too.)

  49. Pur1wise Avatar

    Got given a delightful, blind,and completely adorable, white toy poodle. She costs a lot in anti allergy meds and grooming products but she’s worth every cent and then some

  50. Psychotic_Breakdown Avatar

    My mom gives her grandkids a free car when they turn 16. My daughter’s needed a new tranny. That and other stuff was like $7000.

  51. comfy_rope Avatar

    Invisible condoms

  52. No_Frost_Giants Avatar

    Casino food comps

  53. flakzpyro Avatar

    Government aid

  54. CitizenHuman Avatar

    I got my first dog from a special the animal shelter ran for $20, so not free but cheap. After we got him, we took him to the vet and he had ticks, some cough, and something else I can’t remember. Walked out with a $1200 bill. Signed up for pet insurance not long after that, because I felt it wouldn’t be the last time we had to take him in.

    14 years later, he’s still around, being a regular grumpy old dog who wants our new dogs off his lawn.

  55. WTFpe0ple Avatar

    My Ex Wife. Was like 25.00 for a marriage license and over the course of 10 years and the cost of the divorce cost me about 250,000.00

  56. Fishshoot13 Avatar

    Fishing, specifically fly fishing.

  57. Stickyfingerstay Avatar

    I was the recipient of a free basic Internet program during Covid. They did not notify me they had ended the program until I got a bill in the mail for $120. The equipment plus a month of internet I had unknowingly used. I have worked in customer service for a VERY long time so I always treat workers with respect. But not that time, and I didn’t end up having to pay the bill after I channeled all my postpartum critically impoverished rage towards a manager.

  58. tteejj123 Avatar

    Free game app.When my child was young and somehow my credit card got connected to it. She spent.
    $800 on extra coins.And I didn’t realize until months later. Credit card refused to take it off.

  59. Jealous-Argument7395 Avatar

    Free used mattress. Spent hundreds getting rid of bed bugs, plus the subsequent PTSD and scars on my body

  60. haleontology Avatar

    Sense of peace. Priceless, yet I’ll never have it if my homeland doesn’t get its shit together. Which it won’t. Sorry, world.

  61. egnards Avatar

    I started streaming on Youtube and Twitch – Not to a general audience, to an audience I had already established through Reddit/Text posts. . And just thought it would be a fun thing I did on Sunday mornings before my wife woke up [I’m an early morning person, and she’s a late sleeper].

    I do still hold to the ethos of it not affecting my home life as best as possible, and only do it in my free time, but the idea of “leveling up” your gear/stream/stuff is too real.

    Day 1 you’re streaming using a spare work laptop that you just had laying around in the house, hooked up to your old dinosaur of a PC’s monitor.

    And then you’re buying a $100 logo, but also a $50 mic – And at that point you’re totally done. Except for the fact that you’re paying $19/m to multi-stream without having to deal with any hassle.

    . . Until you buy a brand new gaming PC [to be fair, actually my community and I were able to crowd fund this with StreamElements sponsored goals, so really it was paid for by corporations, not me]. . .Though you realize your old computer desk isn’t going to be able to support all this stuff, so you’re on the lookout for a totally new desk setup, and you might as well get a dedicated second monitor.

    And at that point you’re fine. . .Until somebody mentions they hear an echo, so you’re buying a rug for the home office. . .And acoustic panels to go on the wall.

    And that’s not to say that you CAN’T do it all for free, or at a barebones cost with stuff you already have laying around the house. . But it is to say it’s a deceptively expensive fun hobby when you want to keep improving yourself.

  62. DoubleYak5265 Avatar

    Does anyone remember the 8 track or cassette deals that were 12 for $1? Then you had to buy 1 each month for 2 years at full price, making the deal a complete ripoff.

  63. fulltrendypro Avatar

    “Free trial — cancel anytime.” Now I’m in month 14, too emotionally attached to a service I forgot I had, paying $12.99 to keep the guilt away. Haha, pain.

  64. hardzoup Avatar

    a horse. I have a family member that got 2 for free. she should have gotten a boat. She would have saved a ton of money.

  65. L_Ront Avatar

    Got a free LG washer/dryer when my business bought an old house to retrofit into an office. Brand spanking new. So my wife and I sold our old and dusty washer/dryer and welcomed our new ones with open arms.

    First, they wouldn’t fit into our house. We tried the front door first and the units wouldn’t fit down the stairs. We tried the basement next and they fit through the door but wouldn’t quite fit around a corner. We decided the bust a bit of the wall to fit it in.

    Cool. It’s in. We’ll fix the wall and it’ll still be a win even with the cost of the repairs, right?

    Wrong.

    We get our new washer/dryer positioned. We plug them in. We run the wash and it’s great but the dryer won’t get anything dry.

    Why?

    Cause it’s a gas dryer. I didn’t even know gas dryers existed.

    Goddamit.

    Cost of getting a gas line extension into our basement laundry room was about $2500 which is what the new washer/dryer would have cost new. Drywall repair was another $500 in supplies.

    So our free appliances cost us $3000.

  66. Dogandcatslady Avatar

    A puppy that had been dumped that I took so she wouldn’t go to a shelter. Sooo much money but she was worth it.

    The dog my husband and I got from the pound 6 months ago was only $90 and came fixed, microchipped, and fully vaccinated

  67. Ztflana Avatar

    Fortnite! 😂😭😭😂

  68. fraughtwithperils Avatar

    Smudge the cat.

    So our neighbours moved and left their cat when I was a kid.

    It started meowing and scratching at our kitchen window, and we started leaving out food and water as it was getting so thin and they had been gone for over a week at this point.

    Now we had never had a pet, and my parents weren’t planning to change that.

    Mum tried tracking down the neighbours, started talking to the Cats Protection League, everything she could do to resist letting this cat into our house but eventually she gave up.

    This cat was covered on fleas. So we got a full on flea infestation.

    Expensive.

    We took Smudge to the vets who wern’t too happy about her so they took some blood. They recommended getting her groomed as she was pretty matted.

    Expensive.

    Tests came back.

    Feline Aids.

    Yep.

    Two years of antiviral meds.

    Expensive.

    Then she had to be put to sleep.

    You guessed it.

    Expensive.

    But for those two years she was the best cat a little girl could ask for.

  69. Ok-Expression2781 Avatar

    being unvaccinated

  70. EddieRando21 Avatar

    Years ago a buddy and I went to the junk yard to find parts for his car. He found a Milwaukee bit driver in a back seat and I kept it since he’s not a mechanic. I go to buy a charger for the battery and see that they sell bundles where it’s cheaper to buy 2 batteries and a charger together. Okay great. Then I see that for another $100 I can get 3 batteries, charger and two tools. I’m almost about to buy then I see that for another couple hundred I can get 6 tools, 4 batteries, and a charger, including a newer version of the bit driver I already have. Anyway, finding that bit driver cost me about $600.

  71. TheUnknown285 Avatar

    Using any Free Credit Report dot Com. No, that is not the government website, and they’ll layer in fees for “monitoring” services. The real one would be Annual Credit Report dot Com.

  72. Timeskippin Avatar

    My old job. I technically got paid to be there but fuckin hell did it cost me a lot of physical and mental abuse. Getting out was the best thing that happened to me but I still see what it does to my former coworkers

  73. Sauterneandbleu Avatar

    Not me, but in general, winning cash prizes or even worse, physical prizes like cars or appliances on game shows. First of all, the game show is going to be withholding federal tax and state tax of the state that it’s filmed in. Second of all, you’re going to have to be paying state tax to your home state. If you’re in canada, you have to pay state tax and federal tax to the us, then you get taxed on the winnings in Canada as well. And if you already make enough money that it pushes you into the next tax bracket, then you make even less. Say you win $10,000, there’s a good chance you’re only going to go home with $2,000 of it.

  74. Lonely-Tumbleweed-56 Avatar

    Trust in other people. 

  75. MiggyFly Avatar

    A puppy followed my wife’s coworker home a year ago. We took her in and between vet appts, food, grooming, toys, etc. yep…she’s costs money.

  76. cwsjr2323 Avatar

    My ex wife paid for the marriage license…

  77. catelijoy Avatar

    Medi-cal dentistry

  78. MajesticDeeer Avatar

    The generosity of a narcissist mother. Ended up indebted to her for life

  79. TheRexRider Avatar

    Letting my mom back into my life. It’s been miserable.

  80. hometownredditor Avatar

    Covid vaccine. Ended up suffering adverse side effects. Gaslighting from doctors for 2 years that it was all in my head.

    Ok, Doc, I’m sure all the rectal bleeding that mysterious started less than 12 hours before, and prolonged for years is in my head. As with the frequent autoimmune flare ups I mysterious gained shortly after. And the loss of muscle and tissue in my body. And the year-long chest/heart issues.

    Damn thing cost me 3.5 years of my life and thousands of dollars buying supplements and treatments hoping for a remedy. As well as transportation to multiple doctors that all ignored me to save their own ass.

  81. raccoonhippopotamus Avatar

    Pets. All the pets I’ve had were strays and rescues we took in, they were free to bring home but cost tens of thousands in vet visits and other care over the years. Not complaining, they are worth every penny and more, just be aware if you’re thinking of getting a pet how expensive they are.

  82. Strangely_Kangaroo Avatar

    My cat was free to adopt because she was over 9 years old. We ended up spending $2k on a radioiodine treatment for her thyroid disease. Otbs, it cured the thyroid problem.

  83. Fedupgranny1959 Avatar

    My divorce lost everything

  84. auntiepink007 Avatar

    Family member helped with laundry. Felted my one- of-a- kind indie-dyed, hand-spun, bespoke hand-knits. Did not apologize.

    I acknowledge that I should have made it a point to mention special care items and to be more careful of my things so that my laundry wasn’t mixed up and to have had myself more together in order to be able to do it myself. But it still hurts.

  85. Conscious-Top-7429 Avatar

    I heard the first weed I’d try would be free and then I would be hooked for life. Turns out it was opposite day.

  86. thescooterg Avatar

    Puppies- brother/sister pair.

  87. Chris_Golz Avatar

    Being poor is very expensive. You can’t afford a Costco membership, and it doesn’t matter because you can’t afford to buy in bulk. In fact all you can afford to buy right now is toilet paper from a convenience store by the 4-pack, so are getting overcharged. Your car is making a funny noise, but you can’t afford to have it looked at, so you hope it stops on its own. But it doesn’t. It gets worse. Same thing with your tooth that hurts. Now you’re short on rent, so you go to a shady same-day loan place. On the way there, you get pulled over because your registration is expired. But it’s December, and you have Christmas to look forward to.

  88. maddylime Avatar

    Cat… Free stray cat currently running about 5k with food and vet visits…