Never Will I Ever...The Financial Edition

You've heard of "never have I ever" but this is a bit different since I have, in fact, done some of these stupid financial things that only served to drag us deeper in debt.  Suffice it to say, we learned from these experiences and now have an unofficial list of ten financial things that we will never do again including...

1. Buy a timeshare.  This is a HUGE waste of money (you can get a nice hotel suite in many vacation destinations for much less than the initial and annual costs associated with a timeshare), also it's virtually impossible to get out of a timeshare deal once you sign on the dotted line.
2. Loan money to anyone.  If we can't afford to give someone in need money as a gift, we don't give them money at all.  This is the quickest way to lose your money and your relationship with the person at the same time.
3. Sign up for a gym membership.  I know some people who use the gym religiously everyday and for those people, a gym membership makes sense.  For many people (myself included at one time), signing up for a gym membership when I had no track record of using a gym and after a few weeks, a recently-developed aversion to going to the gym, the long contract that is virtually impossible to break was a giant waste of money!
4. Leasing anything.  I did so many car leases and wasted so much money, it wasn't funny.  These days we save money to buy what we want with cash and NEVER lease anything (cars, furniture, etc).  We did buy our most recent car, not on a lease but with a super low interest loan, which we paid off very quickly.
5. Use a credit card to buy anything we don't already have the money to pay it off with in savings.  Currently many Americans are drowning in credit card debt and this often starts with small purchases because they don't have cash to pay for an item which then ends up being a massive, high-interest debt because all of those small purchases really add up!  
6. Use a payday loan/title lender.  I would beg for money at an intersection before going to these super high-interest, loan shark-esque places.  300% to 400% for a loan?? No effen way!
7. Buy anything that has ongoing expenses for the life of the item unless absolutely necessary.  Cell phones are a necessity so we pay for them in full initially then have a cheap Mint Mobile plan that we pay for once a year for the phone service.  Other things like boats, RVs, golf club memberships, vacation property, etc. are generally a huge waste of money because there are ALWAYS big initial costs followed forever by daily/weekly/monthly/annual costs for something that you usually only use occasionally.
   
8. Pay bail for anyone.  I had a relative that I hardly ever talk to text me once and ask for a loan of $10k to bail her kid out of jail.  Needless to say I declined this opportunity because #1 we never loan money, #2 paying for a bail bond means you don't get that money back and she is always broke so there is no way I would have seen my money again, and #3, after reading the charging documents, her kid really did deserve to stay in jail (he is currently serving an eight year sentence!).  Generally people who end up in jail deserve to be there and it makes no sense to leverage your financial future to bail a criminal out of jail.
9. Buy anything to "keep up with the Joneses" or show off how "rich" I am.  This includes fancy cars, huge houses, a Birkin bag, etc.  Small, minimal, and affordable is how we live.  We have no desire to pay out the ears for expensive, unnecessary things.  While I would love a $70k truck (yes, they are that expensive these days!), it would be unnecessary (we don't haul anything these days and live in a city), it drops in value the minute it is driven off the lot, and it just isn't practical or necessary for us when our basic, inexpensive, paid off SUV works just fine for our needs.
10. Take out student loans.  Student loans are massively over-priced for what you get (basically a piece of paper with minimal relationship to most actual jobs), non dischargeable ever (like even in bankruptcy, if you die, or if the industry you studied so hard for evaporates...eeekk), and they will accrue interest forever leading to many people taking 20+ years to pay them off!