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Good friend of mine is a bright well rounded young lady who is a complete idiot when it comes to money. She ran up 30k on her credit card buying clothes, apartment stuff, vacations and other nonsense before she was even out of college. I took a little roadtrip to help her move once. She took me out for drinks the night before as a thanks. The next morning we went out to lunch and when she went to pay her card was declined. I offered to pay and she called her bank to see what's up. Turns out she just kinda "forgot how much money was in my account" when she was buying beers the night before. To make matters worse, she was swiping her card for each drink. a dozen or so $3 beers were each getting a $50 overdraft fee attached to each of them. This pretty much ate through the $600 deposit that she was supposed to pay on her new apartment that she had in savings. When she realized what had happened she freaked out and her first thought was "I'll just call dad for money". Because she was my friend, I talked her out of milking her old man, and dragged her to her bank kicking and screaming. After hours of waiting around and talking to different people we were able to recover most of the $600 in overdraft fees. The last time I talked to her, she payed off her CC debt and has the student loans down to a manageable level, so I guess people sometimes do grow up.
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Jul 5, 2013 19:17
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Silly Hippie posted:True story: someone I know spent hundreds of dollars on personalized M&Ms for her wedding. In an event that was already hilariously over the top (a $2000 groom's cake; not even the drat wedding cake!), that struck me as some particularly poor decision making. I remember at the end of the night they were pushing bags of the things on everyone while they left. Just looked it up and 10 lbs of the little bastards cost $250. Or for the low low price of $405.99 you can get 144 M&M filled business cards drat, maybe I need to raise my prices. I have so many friends and family members that are horrible with money that it's almost absurd. My aunt makes about 120k a year and has 2 teenage kids. She's a super cool lady, but she's always stressing about money. She lives in a 300k house full of expensive poo poo, has 3 car payments on brand new bmws (two SUVs and a coupe), takes lavish vacations constantly, and never ever cooks at home. It's sit down meals 7 days a week. Both kids go to very expensive private schools. I was recently chatting with her and she was talking about how much she hates her job and how much she wants to quit and do something more inspiring for much less money with a nonprofit in her field. She actually came out and said "I wish I hadn't bought all of this crap because now I'm a slave to it." I felt bad for her, but I don't think she's going to change her lifestyle. Speaking of wedding chat. My wife and I had a pretty nice wedding for $1200 total. She even made her own dress. That said, I kind of wish I had splurged a little more on the honeymoon.
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Jul 14, 2013 22:22
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froglet posted:
I'd love to see a financial abuse post. Maybe a new thread about raising kids to be smart with money or money and psychology or something.
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Jul 15, 2013 21:40
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moana posted:gambling's a bitch This reminds me of a surreal trip to a circle K I had a couple of months ago. I was in to buy some gas and, like always, I had a lotto connoisseur in line in front of me. This guy was no casual weekend powerballer, or even a steeley-eyes fantasy fiver, he dropped eight Benjamins on a Bible of scratch offs like it was nothing, pulled out a quarter, and went to town on those bad boys like a middle schooler who just found his first playboy. The cashier was cute and I was feeling flirty and curious so I started asking her about the lotto guy. Turns out he comes in several times a day and drops $500 - $1000 each time All she knew about him was that he was estranged from his family and had some sort of high level management or administration position at the local airport. Apparently he had won $15,000 on a scratch off at that gas station several years ago and has been coming by ever since and blowing his entire paycheck on scratch offs. I know it's not strictly being bad with money and there's probably some mental illness going on as well, but I have never seen anyone blow through money like that before. It was sad and kind of amazing.
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Jul 28, 2013 03:04
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I spend 55% of my income on rent.  My rent is only $800 per month for a 2br house
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Sep 14, 2013 14:30
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Just had a few beers last night with a friend from the neighborhood. He was telling me he's got 200k in private student loans for a graphic design degree from some private art school that he never completed. He's got 2 kids and is living paycheck to paycheck working a McJob, and they are about to start garnishing 10% of his wages. I guess he should have known better, but I still feel bad for the guy.
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Jan 23, 2014 21:12
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Orange_Lazarus posted:I don't have a problem with them receiving help but it does just blow my mind to see a family with 3-5 kids and a slammed grocery cart when I have anxiety issues over having just one. Kid expenses are like furniture, cars, computers, or any other expense. You can spend as much or as little as you want. Most areas have a facebook group for passing around used baby stuff as well as a few young mothers' social groups. Between those groups and our friends we have spent zero dollars on our son beyond food and medicine the one time he was sick. His budget category is $200 per month, and I don't think we've ever spent the full amount allowed. The best part is: He plays really well with other kids, so my wife and I get asked to babysit a lot. (for $$$ of course) It's not really much more bother to watch two toddlers than it is to watch one, so at the end of the day our kid pretty much pulls his own weight in the family finances. We have plans to send him to work at a textile factory as soon as he turns eight. Joking aside, I get kinda annoyed with people who say "so-and-so shouldn't have kids because they don't make enough money." Reproductive choice is a basic human right. Also, I don't think that having or not having kids really makes much of a difference to people who are bad with money. They'd either be broke with kids or be broke without them. In the interest of this thread: I just went with a friend of mine last night to buy a car. He makes significantly more than I do with no kids or pets, but his car broke down, and he told me he only had $300 to his name. I'm not sure where his money goes, (actually I am: it's expensive food and booze) but he was about to go to one of those no money down, your job is your credit, shady rear end places to get a car. I told him I'd mock him relentlessly if he takes out a used car loan, and let him use my work van for a couple of weeks. He was finally able to get a clean '96 escort for $900 cash yesterday from some old dude who used to be an airplane mechanic. 
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Feb 19, 2014 17:35
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Tigntink posted:Kids, with out private school, with out college, cost on average upwards of $250,000 over 18 years. According to the US dept of health and human services the cost of raising a child is only around $72,000 and that takes into account 3% inflation.
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Feb 19, 2014 17:49
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Someone I've posted about in this thread before just bought $50 of Australian currency from one of my employees. We're in the US. He has no plans to go to Australia. This is the guy who is always complaining about how he can't buy food at the end of the month. Why the gently caress do you need Australian Dollars? Oh wait, he showed up today with a fistful of lottery tickets. Of course he needs those sweet ozzie clams for when he wins the lotto and goes touring down under. fake e: I think this guys just can't really think of anything to talk about other than the weird poo poo he buys. Every conversation I have with him starts something like "so I just bought this totally awesome cast iron skillet with a skull and crossbones on it. ... ... isn't that just totally awesome?" Maybe he spends himself into a black hole because it helps him breifly overcome his crippling social anxiety. I have no idea.
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Feb 21, 2014 06:48
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I suppose it could be. My dad has bought cars with his credit card for as long as I can remember. He immediately pays it off 'tho and I think it's so he can get free plane tickets and stuff. He even built a house on a credit card once. He had some kind of 0% apr for 12 months thing and just paid it all off in a year. Of course, that old man is the guy who didn't upgrade from dialup until 2006 because he was too cheap to pay the extra $20 per month. I'm pretty sure he has well over a million bucks stashed away, but he spends none of it. I guess that's it's own kind of bad with money. fake E: I should cut my dad some slack. I have benefited greatly from being influenced by his miserly ways. Also, he has started to travel a little, so I guess he is finally enjoying the fruits of his labor.
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Mar 18, 2014 02:46
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EugeneJ posted:canyoneer - I'm afraid the only way to settle this is to post pics of your sister no the littlest prince posted:Holy poo poo, nobody cares. Post money stories. yes and to get this money story train started: The acquaintance of mine who I posted about earlier in the thread who had engine troubles in his Toyota matrix and rather than fixing it traded it in on a used Subaru forester just had the head gasket blow on his forester. He asked me what I thought he should do. He in debt the cost of two cars (about 20k) and has no car and about $200 of liquid cash at any given time. I told him to walk away from the car loans, take the his on his (hosed at this point) credit, ride his bike for a bit and save up 1000 to throw on a beater. He decided to put $2000 on his credit card to fix the forester. The poor sap is going to be paying over $500 a month for god knows how long on a car worth no more than $7000. I feel for the guy because it's starting to affect his relationship with his fiance, but drat dude. Get a clue.
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Mar 26, 2014 04:31
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I do all of the budgeting and make most of the money in my household, but my wife does the most spending. We have a bi weekly finance meeting and that pretty much let's her know where we are at budget wise and what categories she can spend money in. She grew up dirt poor so she usually goes under budget thank heavens. Speaking of my wife and bad with money. My father in law has most of his net worth tied up in various worthless collectables. I once asked if he has every hot wheels car ever made and he just said "try me". I'm not looking forward to the day when he passes away and we have to go through piles of beanie babies, cabbage patch kids, precious moments figurines, and who knows what else. He is still under the impression that these things are worth a lot of money and I just don't have the heart to argue with him. At least he has stopped buying more stuff several years ago.
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Apr 16, 2014 16:53
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We have only CL used furniture in our house. The dude we got the couch from has a pretty good bad with money story. He is 70, had been divorced years ago, and meets this great lady at church. They fall madly in love, get married, and then he spends all of his money on a house 'cuz that's what you do when you get married, right? Well, after 5 years they decide they hate each other's guts and she leaves. The poor guy was stuck with the house and no savings. He was selling everything he had in the house so he could go traveling. I asked him if he was going to sell the house, and he just got a sad look in his eye and didn't say anything. Anyhow, the moral of the story is: The couch was awesome and didn't have bedbugs because no one had sat on it in the 5 years since it was new.
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Apr 22, 2014 04:24
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I just got hit with an autorenew bill for $150 worth of webhosting and domain name registration for poo poo I never use, as well as a $25 subscription fee for an online service that I never use, and a $30 fee for someone else's webhosting that I will never get reimbursed for. That $205 could go a long loving way this month. This is not the first time this has happened either. I am bad with money. These autorenewing things really kill me because I think "I'll totally cancel this" and of course I never do. Now I get to go spend god knows how long on the phone trying to get this poo poo canceled and at least some of my money back.
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May 30, 2014 17:57
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Blue_monday posted:I've got a Google calendar set up with all of my annual things. I've got a two week reminder, a week reminder, and a 48 hour reminder for everything to either renew/cancel. The worst part is I had technology reminding me about these charges. I just put it off and then forgot because I am an irresponsible golden manbaby. Maybe I need to get back on piracetam. In good news, I just got the $30 charge back. E: And there's the $150 charge 
Leroy Diplowski fucked around with this message at 18:49 on May 30, 2014 |
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May 30, 2014 18:43
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When I've been strapped for cash biking has always been a real lifesaver. I agree with pig slut lisa. Get a $250 bike and then just ride the wheels off that thing. You can even take the bus when the weather is really lovely. I'm not sure where you got the idea of leasing a car for $250 a month including insurance. That seems like wishful thinking. Once you factor in registration, gas, down payment on the lease, parking if applicable, etc you are looking at more than your current transportation expenditures. If you just saved $300 per month then you'd have enough money in a year to buy a more expensive car than I've ever owned. I agree with the other posters 'tho. You should face the world and post a thread.
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May 31, 2014 02:16
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pig slut lisa posted:one click and "boop, you just lost thousands of dollars"? Isn't that how bitcoins work 'tho?
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May 31, 2014 16:39
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Dawncloak, have a nice sit down with her like you said, and phrase things in a way that sounds something like "I love you and I want this relationship to move forward, but your poor financial habits are standing in the way. Let's address this issue together, mature through the process, and become happier more successful people. rather than "I can't be with you unless you stop being an idiot with money"
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Jun 20, 2014 17:52
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RommelMcDonald posted:Whoa, my mistake. I assumed Ranbo was quoting the OP of that Reddit thread. The OP actually seems to be learning something. The guy who jumped in to defend his employer is straight up bow tie wearing libertarian nuts. Where can I hire a guy like that? i pay all of my workers more than that to make goddamn candy
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Jun 26, 2014 05:46
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Since we're on the subject of Disney chat. My cousin is blowing her inheritance by getting married at Disney, and then going on a European honeymoon. She is a secretary for a company known for massive layoffs and her husband is unemployed and in firefighter school. By my reckoning this wedding is going to cost nearly 2 years combined salary. They could have had a really nice amount put away for a house and a decent start on retirement savings. The kicker: Both of them still live at home, and have never lived on their own.
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Jul 12, 2014 16:27
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Barry posted:Anyone else in favor a general moratorium on car/truck chat? I vote that anyone who mentions cars itt outside of a story about people bad with money has to watch this entire youtube video or get probated. http://youtu.be/kzim1iYhmGA To add to content: A buddy of mine got a DUI last year. He couldn't get his interlock off until he went to therapy, and he couldn't go to therapy because all his extra money went to the monthly interlock fees. Poor guy paid ~$80/month for months longer than he was legally required to before he was able to save up enough money to go to therapy and get the interlock removed. If he could have stopped buying weed, booze, MTG poo poo, and videogames (or just one of those things) for a couple of months he could have saved himself hundreds of dollars. That said, it's amazing how much a DUI can screw you over if you're poor or living paycheck to paycheck.  E: Just so no one thinks I am defending driving drunk. The Door Frame posted:gently caress anyone who actually drinks and drives. This is what I told my buddy. Leroy Diplowski fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Aug 20, 2014 |
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Aug 20, 2014 18:08
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I'm about to buy a 90yr old house with no down payment. Oh, and I support a family of 4 on 24k/yr. it would be bad with money, but a good chunk of it is coming from grants.  E: living in the rear end in a top hat of the south makes for a whole different set of rules when looking at property
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Dec 9, 2014 22:35
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Devian666 posted:
I have to pay back some of the grants if I move out, but the mortgage payments will only be a couple hundo per month. It's only 3 acres but the neighbors seem cool. Well, one of the neighbors' daughter was murdered in the house, but perhaps she drinks to forget.
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Dec 9, 2014 23:05
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Switchback posted:You know what's bad with money? Central air. Hey let's cool a massive amount of air that I'm not even using right now. And then pay thousands to replace it. The answer is mini splits. They have em all over Europe. Not sure why they are not more popular in the USA.
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Dec 10, 2014 13:53
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TLG James posted:I'm surprised no one has started buying large tubs of gasoline yet. My dad did this before Y2K. He had about 500 gallons sitting on his property. It all went bad. It's kinda sad because he's normally really good with money, but he went through this really impressionable phase for a couple years where he would buy into pretty much any bullshit he read on the internet. I paid for my first car with a sack of silver coins that he gave me for my birthday when I was like 12. I was kinda puzzled when I opened them. I thought it was cool, but what the hell does a middle schooler want with silver coins?
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Dec 16, 2014 19:40
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I just hired a guy who was homeless for two years. He's done a pretty good job getting himself cleaned up and turned around. The guy has an amazing work ethic, but it's like he never really figured out how money works. If he has money in his pocket he has to immediately spend it on whatever will make feel good. Booze, cigarettes, random crap from bed bath and beyond, you name it. He has no bank account so he puts all of his money in his girlfriends account. This is because it helps him not immediately spend it. It would be all well and good but his gf blows it on thousands of dollars in vet bills for their menagerie of decrepit animals.
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Jan 15, 2015 14:54
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So, a buddy of mine just started doing sales for this company. http://www.platinumonellc.com/ It's basically a POS cash advance system. A brand new way to gently caress over the ignorant poor. He was trying to sell me this thing for my B2B customers, but I was like  Apparently Vets and Dentist offices are eating this poo poo up because they get paid right away and some poor gently caress with a sick dog or messed up teeth is now trying to pay 200% in fees and interest. bad with money
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Jan 24, 2015 04:25
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Was about to engage in a debate about smart spending with Centripetal Horse Checked Rap sheet first Only have one thing to say "Drop It"
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Jan 27, 2015 19:28
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Everyone is different. I'm a car guy so I like wrenching on $1000 deathheaps and I run a positive cash flow on my cars because I like to flip them. That is not everybody. Most people hate being covered in grease and rolling down the road in a vehicle made before they were born, and the cars = good/bad with money argument is absurd because everyone has a different value system. I think we all can agree that buy here-pay-here lots and truck equity is bad with money. Speaking of bad with cars and money, ya'll might find this piece about the subprime auto lending industry fascinating. http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2015-01-28/concerns_about_the_rise_in_subprime_auto_loans
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Jan 29, 2015 17:18
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Thesaurus posted:A family of  
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Feb 11, 2015 22:18
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Nibbles the Shark posted:I'm sorry this is so late, but JFC this is not okay. Woah there, tiger. I agree for the most part. (try living in Florida. Onions sprout in days) I work 60hrs/week and still find time to cook a hot meal eveny evening. It's usually something simple like tonight we had potatoes pan fried with bacon and veggies with a egg over easy on top. It took about 25 minutes to throw together and was hearty and healthy if you're reasonable active. However, I don't really judge people who don't. I've spent well over a decade in the food industry. Most people have never done menu planning or pricing out meals by the serving, and don't have a repertoire of hundreds of recipes committed to memory, and don't get the joy and satisfaction out of cooking that some do. Efficient and tasty home cooking is a skill that takes time to develop. I think it's totally worth it, but not everyone can have every skill. There just aren't enough hours in the day. I save money by cooking, but I pay someone to do my graphic design for me because I decided to spend my afternoons chopping onions instead of learning photoshop. Everyone has their own value system. Being bad with money is spending large amounts of resources on things that yield disproportionate amounts of value. Most often we see this manifested in situations where someone will sacrifice their future happiness for a brief thrill. (buying a truck is quite the dopamine hit) For a lot of people, eating out ends up being a really big sacrifice to their future, but they are addicted to it and make all sorts of excuses to justify their behavior. They should probably at least familiarize themselves with Marie Calendar's offerings if they are dead set on not learning to cook (oh god, so much sodium), but for other folks, cooking on a daily basis just doesn't make sense.
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Feb 13, 2015 04:36
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Devian666 posted:In fact I just posted a similar thing in the newbie finance thread. People talk about not paying rent on a house. That's great if you can buy a house outright, however pretty much everyone gets a mortgage and the interest cost is the rent replacement. If you save a lot and put down 20%+ deposit you may even get your interest below rental costs (then cross your fingers you don't have any expensive maintenance to do). Depending on where you live rent can be artificially inflated. 25% of the population of my town is college students. Going from renting to buying (with a 5% dp) will save us $200 per month (yes that includes property taxes, insurance etc) and we are going from an 800sqft house to a 1200 sqft house that is much nicer. I think that's why it's so important to know your market rather than just rely on some prevailing wisdom.
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Feb 19, 2015 23:58
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Mantle posted:Do you define cheaper in terms of monthly cash flow or in terms of gain in net worth? I don't think I used the word 'cheaper'. We will see a decrease on expenses as long as $2,400 of home ownership expenses don't pop up per year, and an increase in net worth over time as long as we aren't somehow unable to pay our mortgage. Mr.Radar posted:Speaking of renting... I thought about buying a 5th wheel and a cheap piece of land to park it on. My wife gave me the 'no loving way' laugh. Laughing wives are not bad with money. Cockmaster posted:As I understand, that's what most churches actually preach - give what you can when you can, and don't feel bad if "what you can" isn't much. The only groups I've heard of directly asking for a specific quantity of money are as follows: The bible says give 10% bro. Do you want to be a sinner or what? Small business owners can be the worst with money. One of my acquaintances who owns a bar got a restaurant liquor license instead of a bar permit to save money. All was well and good until he got audited and they found out that he was not selling anywhere near the required amount of food. Now he has a stack of fines and can sell no booze. Whoops. Another local coffee shop owner did 1m in sales his first year in business. He was so excited that he went ahead and opened 3 other locations as well as a bar and restaurant all on a ludicrous amount of credit which he used his house as collateral for. The next year things did not go well at all and he ended up losing his mind and taking his own life. My old boss ran into a 450k surplus several years ago. He put pretty much all of the money into tripling the size of his 1920s bungalow and turning it into a garish mess. Then a better, cheaper competitor popped up and his sales dropped by 90%. The guy had to take out a HELOC to keep his business afloat and of course his house was appraised at less than half of what he put into it. He could be a thread in itself. The guy had no ability to deal with paperwork. He would just let mail pile up on his desk and then shove it all onto the floor where it would get trampled on top of previous mail. When he moved his office the folks cleaning it out found hundreds of dollars in cash among the rubble and thousands in checks. Not depositing your checks is bad with money.
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Feb 20, 2015 02:19
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Armacham posted:I will fight you. I will back up anyone defending the honour of stand mixers. My kitchen aid has paid for itself in pizza crust alone.
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Feb 21, 2015 01:38
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Comrade Flynn posted:I'd love to see you use a bicycle pump on big tires. Jesus. Used to pump up a chevy g20 van tire from dead flat every morning before work and every night before i went home from work. Thats why poor people have good pecs.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:31
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