Money is a sophisticated subject because some people save it, others spend it wisely, and then there are those who end up wasting it. In this collection, we have found a series of short stories about people who lost their money in unpredicted and surprising ways.

Story 1:
A guy I worked with had a long-distance relationship with this girl he’d yet to meet in person. Then, suddenly, she told him she could fly out and meet him in a month. At the time, he lived in the basement of his folks’ place—not something he had disclosed earlier in their chats. In a panic, he got a new apartment.

Then he went to one of those furniture rental places and rented an entire apartment’s worth of furniture: a couch, tables, a dining set, a bedroom suite, a TV, etc. The whole apartment was filled with rental furniture, which, if you don’t know, gets expensive really quickly. So after all this, the girl finally showed up. They went to his apartment, and that’s when she told him that they should break up.

She didn’t want to do it over text and without meeting him at least once. She thought it wouldn’t be fair to him. She stayed one night and got on the plane the next day. Apparently, her stop in our city was just an extended layover as she was heading to Europe to tour with friends.

She slept in the rental bed, and he slept on the rental couch. The next day, he drove her to the airport in his rental car. I don’t know how many thousands he dropped for that one breakup date, but man… what a waste. © aussydog / Reddit

Story 2:
I decided to fulfill a childhood dream and install a single-lane bowling alley in my basement for $50,000. It sounded like the perfect way to host parties and keep myself entertained. But after the novelty wore off, I realized no one wanted to bowl more than a game or two.

Now I just have an incredibly noisy, space-hogging reminder of my poor impulse control. I could’ve gone on 20 amazing vacations with that money instead of sitting alone in my basement, throwing gutter balls.