Biggest Waste of Money?

Before DM or L4 hit my area I thought for sure that DM Macho Man was going to be next to near immpossible to find because it was his first WWE figure in 19 years, and I also thought L4 Ultimate Warrior was going to be hard because it was Mattels first Warrior fig, and technically the first Elite/Deluxe since Jakks never made a Deluxe UW.

$35 for Savage and $30 for Warrior via RSC. 1 1/2 Months Later... couldn't throw a stick at any Walmart, Kmart, Target, or TRU without hitting a DM Savage, or L4 Warrior. I basically paid a premium to have these figures before my stores got them. Ouch. This is why I am still fickle about buying from RSC, but then if I don't I can never find the figs I am looking for.

I'm from Italy and i'm in your same position.
But i try to make good deals.
For example, a want a BOPPV Bret, but i'll never spend 70€ (85$) for that figure on Ebay.

But every figure i get is a little overpriced from the prices of Kmart and other stores in USA.

I wouldn't say that out of all my figures, rings, accessories that I "wasted" my money on any of them. Sure, I've probably spent too much on them but never called it a waste.

My dad on the other hand tells me it's a waste every chance he gets.

definately the entrance greats because of how low they were on clearance

They only figure I spent a good amount on was elite 9 Ryder this past summer. I paid 34.99 for him and to be honest for what he goes for now...thats not a bad price. But I did end up finding him at tru like 2 weeks later so I bought it and now I have one open and one moc. One of the few figures I have a double of.

E12 Daniel Bryan. I thought Wal-Mart would never get E12... Bought it on RSC and literally 2 weeks later E12 is spamming up Wal-Mart.

I pretty much have to buy online since Canada's WWE selection is so terrible. To give an idea of how behind we are, we only just got Elite 8 a few weeks ago.
Luckily, I'm only a casual WWE fan and there's not a lot of figures that I need to pick up. Usually just 1 or 2 from a series, sometimes none at all.

But even then, it's a personal rule of mine to never pay more than what I would be paying at retail when shopping online. I also take sale prices into account so that I don't end up kicking myself if I happen to find an item I got online a while back during a sale in stores. I always compare the online shipped price to how much something would cost locally if, say, Toys R Us had a weekly sale -- which is usually 20-30% off.

The only exception I've made is Elite 12 Kane, hands down my most favorite WWE figure. I wanted it so badly and was not willing to wait until who knows what century when Canada finally gets Elite 12. I paid $25 shipped for it on eBay which I felt was pretty high at the time as I just got into collecting WWE figures and wasn't familiar with the figure lines and their prices yet, but it's actually pretty much the price of an Elite figure in Canada not excluding sales tax.

When shopping locally, I am no doubt a deal hunter and always watch the weekly flyers of my favorite retailers. Ever since I started doing this, I never pay retail for 99% of my figures (the 1% being more uncommon stuff like video game figures, e.g. Mortal Kombat comes to mind, which I notice never go on sale) since I always keep all my receipts until the return/exchange time period is up. If there's a sale, I simply go get a price adjustment done or buy it again and return it using my old receipt. And lately, Toys R Us has been treating us well with a good sale pretty much every other week.

I paid £24.99 for Layla and then everywhere I see it now it is £7.99!

Paid $40 a piece last summer for the Nexus Two packs Slater and christian, Tarver and Shefield, Young and Otunga, a month later they were all warming pegs in my TRU and Walmarts