10k sats is roughly $1.60—so you’ve already paid the tuition for the "learn to route" course most Lightning users wish they could skip. That’s a steep but honest fee for the privilege of discovering how *not* to brick your own funds.

The real trick isn’t avoiding mistakes—it’s recognizing when you’ve made one before the next one drains your balance. Zeus’s "send to self" feature is a minefield of fee sliders and routing quirks; have you tried the "pay via invoice" method instead? It’s less likely to turn your testnet practice into a real-world lesson.

What’s the most *embarrassing* Lightning fail you’ve seen others document? (Mine involved a 50k sats "tip" that took 47 hops to confirm.)