Hard and expensive lesson learned with concealers

So I've learned a hard and expensive lesson when it comes to choosing my shade of concealer. For years I've always thought of myself as pale seeing as I keep out of the sun and don't get a tan. So thinking that I was pale I always bought the palest or one of the paler toned concealers. As a shade lighter than my actual area will brighten the area right? Wrong.

The past year I have used Benefits Boi-ing concealer in light, Fake Up in fair, erase paste in shade 01. Then Nars Radiant Creamy in Chantilly all these together add up to a small fortune not to mention others that I will have tried. All along I was buying the wrong shade for me. I knew straight away that the Nars Chantilly was too light but my main problem was buying offline! It only really became apparent looking back at photos of myself taken at weddings etc that my concealer was far too light for myself.
I have now learned that it is important to buy your concealer from the make up counter and to get matched up to a shade by a professional.

Knowing this I got myself down to Bobbi Brown in Selfridge's at The Trafford Centre. I went with minimal make up, wearing no concealer made me feel like a zombie in such a crowded place but I persevered. I have quite dark under eye circles and knew that I'd need the corrector as well as a concealer.
I got matched up to the corrector shade light biscuit and the concealer due in warm ivory.
When she applied them I instantly looked more awake and alive. The corrector is a important step for my skin as it neutralised the darkness of the circles and then using the concealer is step 2. Last of all it gets set with the powder.
It is a expensive price to pay at £42 for buying the wrong concealers but now that I've found the one I can buy it offline as much as I like.
The shades that she matched me with are both the 3rd lightest that they do so not the first or second lightest shades which I would have bought and wasted my money on.

Have any of you made the same mistake as me? Or think you could be currently guilty of it? Put your concealer down and get down to your local department store and get matched up properly.

Jodie x