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Since Cornholio managed to dig himself out of debt and zaurg's last thread got gassed we haven't had the opportunity for much 'this was a bad idea financially' discussion. So, tell us cautionary tales about your friends, acquaintances or relatives whose little money mistakes spiralled out of control or who just made one big mistake that cost them dearly. If you're feeling particularly brave you can include your own stories about the dumb things you've done. For this sort of thread a few ground rules are probably necessary, so here we go:
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Jun 20, 2013 17:36
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:I get this from EVERYONE. I'm 26 and any of my friends/coworkers within 3 years of me in either direction say they just don't care. Or that they "should'nt do that NOW! I'm young!". OK it will be much easier when you have a house payment great job I have a friend who's a bit like this. Her story is that she invested some of her own money on top of the mandatory superannuation (Aussie retirement savings) contribution and reckons she lost it all in the 2008 financial crash. So she's fighting the man by shredding all the documentation that her various superannuation funds send her. Which is dumb, because she has at least 3 different superannuation accounts, all of which would be charging fees on her retirement savings and once the balance gets low enough (something like $2000) it will get sent to the federal government as an inactive account. She has the option of reclaiming it through the tax departments 'find my lost super' initiative, but in the mean time she's giving an interest-free loan to the Australian government and seems to think that this is a good idea as opposed to just accepting she lost a bit of money and just rolling all her super accounts over into the one that charges the least fees. If you live in Australia, don't ignore the letters your superannuation sends you, check to see if you've got lost super from when you picked up a job at uni and if you have more than one account, pick the one that best suits you and roll it over. You can easily lose thousands of dollars just from fees charged on old accounts you don't use anymore.
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Jun 21, 2013 09:09
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detloc posted:When the crash happened in 2008 I got to hear all sorts of stories from people in their 50s who were incensed that their high-risk growth super plan had lost a bunch of money and suddenly wasn't returning 14% anymore. As if 14% returns could be achieved with 0 risk. The thing is, we aren't that old (early to mid 20s), so she has time on her side to make it all back, which is what makes this attitude all the more inexplicable. Another thing I notice a lot of my friends doing is replacing their phones whenever their existing contract is up. While I won't comment on if anyone really needs a new phone every two years, a phone on a contract can cost up to $1800 over two years, including calls and data. The thing is, buying the same phone outright and getting a sim-only plan can be up to $900 cheaper. I guess there is a lot to be said for not having to fork out several hundred dollars upfront for a new phone, but I'm unsure if they can downgrade if their circumstances change.
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Jun 22, 2013 08:27
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johnny sack posted:My sister and her live-in boyfriend unfortunately fit the bill for this thread. They live in a mobile home, that's paid off. Their only bills are utilities, lot rent, and gasoline. Between the both of them, they could easily afford to rent a much nicer townhouse or to buy a modest house. They're trying to save for a downpayment but... The worst thing about stories like this is that you can sort of see how doing some of these things makes sense. If you live in an area with bad internet or TV reception, spending $60 a month on movies or a couple of bucks every few weeks to go out to a bar and watch the football is probably not too bad a plan. Then you realise that in context it makes no sense and you wonder what they're thinking. I recently heard about an acquaintance from university. He used to always complain about being broke, and how he owed so much money on his car (he owed something to the tune of AUD$10,000, which is huge when you're earning <$10k per annum), then he'd go and do something dumb. For example, he once blew an entire pay packet on remote controlled cars then we got to spend the next two weeks hearing about how he was behind on his car payments. He also wanted to move to Japan and ~learn Japanese~ and live there in happiness and animes forever. Four years later, nothing has changed! He's still in the same place he was previously (though hopefully he paid off that car) and still thinks moving to Japan will solve all his problems. 
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Jul 12, 2013 16:25
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FrozenVent posted:No jury would convict her, goddamn. That story is possibly the saddest thing I've heard. He's putting the money above everything, including his wife's happiness. Getting berated over a wedding dress, drat. Is it bad that I immediately thought after reading that 'at least when she divorces him she'll get half, which considering his attitude will be quite a significant sum'? As an aside, that really reads like financial abuse. Would anyone like me to do a post about the subject in this thread sometime? It might be useful for anyone worried about their friends or family I used to read "frugal lifestyle" blogs. For the most part they were normal people who were doing it for reasons such as they never knew any other way or they were worried about the environment, but there were some who obviously had some serious issues surrounding money and just kept stocking up their emergency funds out of paranoia. I stopped reading after I read a post by somebody who said they couldn't attend a wedding or a family holiday because she 'couldn't afford it' despite the fact she was completely debt free, stocking up her retirement funds to the max and had plenty left over. She admitted she told people she was poor and couldn't go because she didn't want anyone knowing she had money. I found it so sad that somebody was so willing to deprive themselves constantly for 'someday', yet never stopped to smell the roses. Family and friends don't live forever, enjoy the time you have with them.
froglet fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Jul 22, 2013 |
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Jul 15, 2013 17:17
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 Warning: I'm going to be talking about financial abuse here, so if you dislike reading about that stuff, go look at pictures of hedgehogs or somethingWhat is financial abuse? Financial abuse is not always, but often associated with other kinds of domestic abuse, such as verbal or physical abuse. Financial abuse can include the following:
Who is most likely to be a victim of financial abuse? Sadly some of the biggest victims of financial abuse are the most vulnerable, such as the elderly or disabled. However, it can happen to anyone and in any kind of relationship, including between parents and children. Many cases of domestic violence involve some aspect of financial abuse, including holding assets such as cars or houses exclusively in the abusers name. Holy cow, that sounds like what's happening to me! Please get out. Go online and have a chat with a local counselor or social worker or talk to a friend or family member who would be willing to help you. Consider opening up a new bank account and having mail delivered to a friend or relatives house or to a P.O. box. Holy cow, that sounds like what's happening to my friend/relative! If your friend or relative is incapable of managing their finances themselves, you may need to speak to a social worker specialising in working with the elderly or disabled. They've most likely dealt with similar situations dozens of times before. If they're in a bad relationship, there is really not much you can do unless they want to leave. There's all sorts of resources online for people who wish to help friends or relatives, so I won't go into much depth here. Ensure your friend or relative knows that you're there to listen to them and hopefully they will turn to you or somebody they trust when they're ready to leave. How do I avoid this happening to me if I become unable to care for myself or my financial interests? Thankfully, there are lots of things you can do, such as set up a trust or a power of attorney to look after your best interests (I believe you can set it up so nobody can just unilaterally decide to siphon all your money away to the Canary Islands, but ymmv, check with a Real Lawyer, etc etc). Here in Australia we have the Public Trustees, who are often asked by the courts step in when a person is unable to look after their own affairs. However, plan for this so if you're hit by a bus and your family needs to take money from your account to pay the for the mortgage they're not left in the lurch. Comedy option: spend all your money so you don't have anything worth taking. froglet fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Jul 16, 2013 |
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Jul 16, 2013 03:05
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canyoneer posted:In the US, I believe every state has a public licensing program for fiduciaries. These individuals work under strict laws and guidelines and exist to ensure that the elderly and the disabled are not being ripped off. When somebody is obviously incapable of looking after themselves usually the family or social services will step in to ensure that nobody takes advantage, while I think the real danger lies for people who are functioning on a day to day basis but might not have the ability to make informed, complex decisions about their finances. Victimisers pick out people they know may be feeling a bit lonely or isolated, such as the recently bereaved or people with few friends or hobbies, proceed to earn their trust, then exploit it. Abuse can fly under the radar for months or years because it may very well look like normal activity - twenty or forty dollars might not seem like much, but it can really stack up over time. Trilineatus posted:Thanks for that post, Froglet. Oh yeah. I doubt financial abuse is any different from any other kind of abuse - there will always be people justifying their actions or blaming the victim for 'letting it happen'. I find the whole subject unsettling due to the very real possibility of somebody misplacing their trust and losing it all. froglet fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Jul 17, 2013 |
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Jul 17, 2013 11:44
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In the instances I've been involved in, financial abuse is often framed as "for the good" of the abusee and the abuser is seen as the "helper" - for instance, a mother ruining a child's credit with false accounts because "the lights need to stay on, food needs to be bought, it's for their own good." It's milder than the more controlling forms of financial abuse, but it takes advantage of an unequal relationship and exploits a child's love and ignorance of potential harm. It took me until I was about 20 to fix my credit, until this last year to fix my relationship with my mother, and occasionally a lost collections account still shows up.
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ghostwriter80 posted:So back to my main point, why aren't we teaching financial literacy in school? I'd argue that financial literacy is third only to reading and math in terms of overall life importance (would be difficult to be financially literate if you couldn't read or do arithmetic). I honestly wonder if the reason it isn't taught in many countries is because if it was common knowledge, more people would realise that the minimum wage in their area is incapable of supporting an individual and would agitate for change. Just look at that 'budget' made for McDonald's staff that's been in the news lately - it's impossible to live debt-free unless you live somewhere incredibly cheap, or if you did you probably would not enjoy your lifestyle for very long. You often hear stories (particularly in America) of how 'back in the day' somebody's dad/uncle/local politician made $3 an hour and was able to live comfortably on it, but what they completely forget to mention is that $3 then would be about $12 now, and a lot of the credit problems people are experiencing now has a lot to do with wages not keeping up with productivity. froglet fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Jul 26, 2013 |
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Jul 26, 2013 07:09
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Nocheez posted:I'd say a lot of it is human nature in itself. The marshmallow experiment shows us time and time again that some people just cannot delay gratification. There's actually been follow up studies that suggest that a child's ability to delay gratification may be largely a product of their upbringing. At least one has found that children from low-income or 'unreliable' backgrounds won't delay gratification simply because their learned experience is to take what you get as soon as you can because there's no guarantees it's going to be around later. researchers posted:Consider the mindset of a 4-year-old living in a crowded shelter, surrounded by older children with little adult supervision. For a child accustomed to stolen possessions and broken promises, the only guaranteed treats are the ones you have already swallowed. At the other extreme, consider the mindset of an only-child in a stable home whose parents reliably promise and deliver small motivational treats for good behavior. From this child’s perspective, the rare injustice of a stolen object or broken promise may be so startlingly unfamiliar that it prompts an outburst of tears. One book I've been reading lately is Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia. It's a pretty interesting read and while I'm only a few chapters in it does mention issues such as how living in poverty can seriously affect your decision-making abilities. The book mentions one study where a group that artificially had a vastly reduced income in comparison to the control group were more likely to take out high-interest loans. TL;DR The point I'm trying to make is that I sincerely doubt there's any 'human nature' that means a particular person is destined to be terrible with money. froglet fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Jul 26, 2013 |
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Jul 26, 2013 15:22
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Orange_Lazarus posted:When my grandparents hear the world "collectible" they go insane and buy it all up. They'll always open up glass cabinets full of things they're preserving (stuff I would consider junk) and they'll happily note that the item is a "collectible" and may be worth something some day. I have two friends that are doing this. They're buying comics partially to read and partially to sell for a profit at some undefined point in the future (with one of them calling it a 'retirement plan'). Fair enough if you enjoy comics and want to read and keep them, but nobody should have any illusions about it being a valuable investment unless you happen to own the first comic Superman appeared in or something. Another friend of mine runs an 'ebay business' on the side, but refuses to keep records of how much time/effort her business is costing her vs the profits. So for all we know she's losing money on it if you account for the time and effort she takes in wrapping and posting things. This shouldn't be too surprising considering she's nearing 30, lives rent and bill-free in a multigenerational household and yet still never has any money (which probably isn't helped by her having a Masters degree but not applying for anything relevant to her studies). froglet fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 03:18
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Hip Hoptimus Prime posted:I am so afraid to ever have a child because of this. I mean right now we're on a straight shot to paying off debt, and can still put quite a bit into savings, but I feel like we have a kid, we won't ever save again because of all extra money funneling to the kid. Goodbye vacations, discretionary fun purchases, and maybe even Roth IRA contributions (which I'm starting next month and will increase once our debt is gone). Plus, at my job, I don't make enough money to justify childcare, so it's pretty much going to be goodbye 2nd income until they are school age, too. Yeah, you're not alone in that worry. It's really a matter of what you need to feel sufficiently secure to have a kid. Sad to say, but I've seen some people worrying so much about providing the "right" environment for their potential children (stable job, house, etc) that they leave it too long and need fertility treatments. Not saying that there's anything wrong with wanting the best for your potential kids, just that peoples expectations really need to be matched up with their biological reality, since fertility drops off after a certain point for both men and women. That said, an acquaintance of mine who goes from 'man, I'm so broke' to 'I think spending all this money to impress my girlfriend is a good idea' has been told he's going to be a father. He broke up with his last girlfriend because she didn't want kids while he did, but I really wonder if he could provide a stable environment for his family considering he currently lives the bachelor lifestyle and probably doesn't realise all the stuff he'll have to give up to have kids. Some of the parents in our social circle have tried to point out his current lifestyle will need to undergo a major overhaul to prepare for a new baby, but no idea if he's actually taken on any of their advice.
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Aug 7, 2013 18:17
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Socialized posted:I bring in $1900 a month working a full time job along with a second, part time job. My wife doesn't work. She tries to sell stuff through one of those Mary Kay-style companies, but has very few customers and has spent much more on updating her stock and placing orders to keep her account active than she has made in profit. She has earned less than $1000 in the past two years doing this. So, this isn't very much money at all for two people. We even decided against enrolling in my company's 401k program because having so much taken out of my check every week would be disaster. Would it be cheaper for you if she just quit the Mary Kay thing? I know a lot of these enterprises involve buying your own stock and it sounds like she's buying in more than she can sell, so maybe it'd be cheaper if she just stopped buying stuff and allowed her account to go inactive? Maybe she could get a job with regular hours instead? This brings us to a topic I find really fascinating - MLM and dodgy door to door sales companies. Let's talk about MLM! What is MLM? Multi-level marketing (MLM) is a business model where you don't really make any money selling products, the real money is in recruiting others and duping them into selling things because you get a slice of their profits. Ideally, you are at the top of the pyramid and everyone else is selling beneath you so all the money is trickling upwards. Like a pyramid scheme. The long and short of it is that it is nearly impossible for anyone to make a living out of MLM if you're only interested in selling the products and not in recruiting others unless you have hundreds of friends who all love MLM-brand orange juice and supplements. To illustrate the point, here's a choice quote from a MLM discussion thread from 2011 (needs archives to view the post in context): ToxicSlurpee posted:The difference between most companies and MLM, though, is that MLM is a scam. It's dishonest and an outright lie. While no company is truly 100% honest, the big difference is, if I go to a retail store, the prices are there, the products are there, and I can buy or not buy. If I decide that I don't want to buy anything for really any reason, nobody is there calling me a quitter. MLM, if you quit, you're obviously a lazy loser that doesn't want to make a billion dollars an hour. Why do people get sucked into these things? The usual reasons. Optimism, naivety, desperation. If you've been unemployed for 8 months and are desperate for work the odds are you won't ask too many questions when you're invited to a 'job interview' for a company that you've never heard of that are selling things you know nothing about. A thread on GBS seems to spring up every now and again and is usually filled with completely insane stories about how they or someone they knew went to a job interview and found the fire escapes blocked so you couldn't leave their pitch, or they'd drive you out to the middle of nowhere in a van at 6am, then tell you they wouldn't take you home unless you met either their [usually impossible to achieve] sales target or until 9pm, whichever happened sooner. Further reading for your enjoyment:
And a story to satisfy moana - the only time I've heard of anyone successfully selling anything door to door was a vacuum cleaner salesman that showed up the day my parents were moving into their new house. The vacuum cleaner was actually pretty good and it worked for at least 12 years without an issue. I'm really surprised that the vacuum cleaner was of decent quality since door to door sales seems like the perfect way to shift substandard goods without any messy repercussions. froglet fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Aug 15, 2013 |
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Aug 15, 2013 07:59
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Gothmog1065 posted:My friends are pretty terrible with money (Not that I can say much). It's the little things that bother me, like when they get 6k back in taxes, rather than spend it on paying off their car (like they kept saying they would) he had to build a huge deck with the money. 3 months later, the car threw a rod. So now they rolled that 6k loan onto a brand new Chevy Malibu, so they now have this huge loving upside down loan. I have one or two friends who I've had to stop seeing as often because I find their constant financial worries really taxing. While my friends are great people and I'm definitely not saying 'I can't visit my friends because they're too poor', it's quite difficult to maintain a friendship when they can't go out anywhere that costs money because of their latest (self-inflicted) financial crisis, and they don't want to go out to anywhere free or reasonably cheap because of reasons such as 'I don't like public transport' or 'picnics are cheesy'. The thing is although I'm happy to pay for a friends movie ticket or dinner from time to time, after a while you begin to wonder if they are taking advantage of you. It's hard having a friend tell you all about the latest console they bought the other day, only for them to turn around and say 'oh sorry I can't go out with you to the cinema/museum/whatever, hahaha I'm so broke'. Once or twice you can accept it, but when it happens more often you have to wonder whether or not they value you and spending time with you over having the latest gadget.
froglet fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Aug 25, 2013 |
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Aug 25, 2013 07:20
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johnny sack posted:If someone moves out of country, are they still liable for student loans? I know generally they are the one thing that will follow you just about forever, but not sure about this. Still liable as far as I'm aware, just that collecting becomes that much harder because they'd have to track the person down in Korea, find a local lawyer who speaks the language as well as English and possibly hire a translator to translate any relevant documents. Even then there's no guarantee the debtor will pay up or even have enough assets worth seizing or placing a lien upon (plus most countries have laws about what can and can't be seized in these kind of proceedings). It's probably easier and more profitable to just put the screws on some broke single parent in the same country as the lender than it is to try chasing these people internationally. froglet fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Aug 26, 2013 |
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Aug 26, 2013 05:13
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razz posted:My husband's cousin never wears a pair of socks more than once. He puts on a new pair every time, and throws the dirty ones away.  What? Does he have some sort of a bulk-buy deal from a wholesaler? Does he do the same for underwear or t-shirts? Are microwave meals like the kind you buy in the refrigerated section of the store okay? What about tinned soup or baked beans? This intrigues me far more than it should. 
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Aug 29, 2013 15:31
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tiananman posted:Yeah I think this is more a case of someone who has some kind of mental illness, not necessarily a bad with money thing. The leftovers thing is a bit odd but not entirely unheard of, and I've met people who toss/donate clothing for really trivial reasons, so it's not completely out there. Thing is, even if he was spending just $1 on a pair of socks a day that's still a reasonable amount of money. Rexfumado posted:Reading this thread makes me think I might be bad with money as well. I'm 28 and single, and even though I have a good income of around 100k, I have almost nothing to show for it. I have less than 15k in the bank and this is maybe enough to qualify as an emergency fund, but not much else. I don't really try to save much money; instead I opt for a very high standard of living. I pay over $2500/month in rent to live in a really fancy apartment in the nicest neighborhood in Chicago, I have a nice car, and I spend quite a bit on entertainment, restaurants, vacations, etc. I have excellent credit and no debts, so all of this spending is not necessarily out of my means, but it still feels kind of irresponsible. Considering you appear to have been earning around six figures for a few years and yet have nothing to show for it I would lean towards that you are being a bit dumb with money (but obviously not too dumb considering you have retirement savings and no debt). Don't get me wrong - there's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to live in a nice part of town, dining out or going on holiday, but there is a lot to be said for the peace of mind gained from knowing that should you lose your job or if you need to suddenly relocate, you won't have to worry too much about money. In your situation you probably don't even need to make any significant changes to your lifestyle to spend less money. froglet fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 29, 2013 16:23
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melon cat posted:Heh, interesting that you mention that. In my line of (previous) work I found that financial "professionals", from Accountants, to advisors, to fellow account managers, actually had the worst personal finance habits. The worst part of it all is that many of them were giving people advice on how to handle their money. "Do as I say, not as I do" is something that happens in a lot of fields, so this doesn't really surprise me. That said it's probably easier to be a bit looser with money when you're aware of the financial tools available to you. I've been reading through that FINRA disciplinary action site and the complaints I've read tend to be either really outlandish, like the guy who took out $100,000 from his clients accounts and transferred it to himself, or really petty in contrast, such as the "personal banker" (I'm guessing that's code for 'bank teller'?) who was done for forging a customers signature and taking out $8500.
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Sep 2, 2013 02:22
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Overheard today: If you don't have a car loan, you don't have a nice car
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Sep 5, 2013 17:32
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oldskool posted:When they come into a windfall they buy that frivolous stuff they always wanted because they honestly don't trust the concept of "Pay down debts and the amount of money you can spend on frivolous stuff will increase" because it's never worked for them. I've touched on this a bit earlier on in the thread, but the marshmallow experiment is often oversimplified as 'poor people can't delay gratification which explains why they're poor'. This routine by Chris Rock explains it quite well about the difference between being rich and being wealthy. Speaking of Lotto winners, Michael Carroll is probably one of the more memorable winners. He won £9,736,131 on the National Lottery in 2002 and styled himself as 'King of the Chavs' (I suppose the best translation for "chav" would be redneck, bogan or ned?). He proceeded to buy a massive house in a posh area and use it for various anti-social purposes such as racing cars, substance abuse and prostitutes. As of present he's effectively broke and is back on unemployment benefits.
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Sep 27, 2013 19:46
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Lightning Zwei posted:Poor people buy cars and jewelry when they receive a windfall, and wealthy people invest windfalls into assets that are intrinsically valuable and in turn create more wealth. Yeah, that's the main point I took away from it. Also regarding your other comments, it's kinda hard for some kid in highschool to "choose to value their education" and "break out of poverty and rise above their surroundings" if their parents are struggling financially and getting a part time job would really help them put food on the table. It's hard to study when the only thing you can think about is food or if you're feeling stressed out because the electrical bill is overdue and you're not sure if the power will be on when you get home. After doing a bit of volunteer work and talking to people who work with the long-term unemployed or people living in poverty, the conclusion I've come to is that it's the sort of nebulous, multi-faceted problem that can't be fixed by just one thing.
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Sep 28, 2013 09:52
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I've been undertaking an apprenticeship for my work and have now been introduced to the strange world of terrible financial choices: tradies edition. Here in Australia the government encourages apprenticeships by providing incentives to both businesses and apprentices that stick with the program. Recently some of us were given a lump sum from the government intended for tools. Cue people in my class admitting they spent it on things like holidays, a sweet sound system, etc.  Not sure I want to see what happens when they require something expensive for their apprenticeship later on.
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Sep 30, 2013 04:54
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Overheard today: "Well I have to have two TV's, because if you don't have two TV's you've failed at life!"
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Jan 3, 2014 08:11
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Konstantin posted:This is actually a major problem. Even if a homeless person gets a job, a lot of cities have a serious shortage of affordable housing, especially if you have to be near public transportation and don't have a car. Someone who has little work history and lists a shelter as a previous address isn't exactly going to have a competitive rental application when housing does become available, so you end up with a lot of people going to lovely motels, living out of vehicles, or staying in shelters even after they have found employment and can actually afford reasonable rents. Even here in Australia there have been cases of people who have had to bounce between friends and family's houses and shelters because while they had steady jobs, they weren't earning enough to support themselves because of situations such as earning minimum wage in small mining communities where rental accommodation is now extremely unaffordable unless you're working in the mines. While I'm not in a small mining community, I admit that if it weren't for my partner I my options for housing would be extremely limited simply because housing is extremely unaffordable. The median wage can no longer afford the median house and more and more people are being pushed to the fringes. And a story for the thread: I have a friend who is a really smart person, just that she seems to be a bit shakey when comes to money. Her parents gave her a car, nothing fancy, but it did the job and if I remember rightly the mileage wasn't too bad. She sold the car about a year ago and got a loan for a car alarmingly similar to Cornholio's albatross of a vehicle. It costs about USD$80 to fill the tank as it needs special fuel, the services are really expensive so she didn't take it in for services and about a year after buying, it broke down. Then she finds the car needs new tyres ($250 per tyre), so even if the engine was functioning she might not be able to drive it.
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Jan 9, 2014 15:43
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CapitanAmerica posted:Booms in large cities aren't usually Booms. Lack of space and location cause high demand and high prices that rarely go down. The only problem with this argument is that it ignores how policies such as negative gearing ultimately distort the market by encouraging speculation. As it stands, our taxation system is set up to provide huge benefits to those wealthy enough to afford multiple rental properties while first home buyers are being edged out of the market.
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Jan 20, 2014 00:58
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Tony Montana posted:Another part of it is 'rent money is dead money' which was a very memorable marketing campaign on Aussie TV for.. guess what, a builder. I love idea that rent money is dead money. Money is alive and we must keep it that way! It's an escort mission where you must guard your cash! The problem is that I have a few friends reciting this as if it's gospel. I have one friend who's up to the eyeballs in debt on a four-bedroomed house (she's single and has no kids, I'm somewhat puzzled at the reasoning behind buying a 4-br house), but claims it will pay off because she plans on getting housemates. I haven't tried asking her what happens if she can't find anyone to rent a room, it seems just mean spirited in light of the fact she's already signed the paperwork. froglet fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 05:03
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Tony Montana posted:I'm starting to realize this is like a therapy thread. A friend of yours does something loving stupid, you either can't tell them because you're not that tight or you try and they don't listen to you, then you can come in here and we can all agree with you and you don't feel like an idiot. Pretty much this. I doubt anyone really wants to see their friends and family in trouble, which is why it's so frustrating - you don't want them to suffer or go through unnecessary stress and you know what the outcome is likely to be, but they do it anyway. Similarly, there's a reason "what did they expect to happen?" is the title of the schadenfreude thread. I'm finding it hard to just passively sit by and listen to some of my friends talk about their problems because a lot of them are to do with them buying more house/car/whatever than they can afford and are finding the adjustment really hard because they didn't really think that the payment would be that arduous. On the flip side, I think the happiest person I've known was a guy who worked a few evenings a week and spent the rest of his time working on his personal projects and playing music.
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Jan 22, 2014 05:11
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On the other side of 'bad with money', there's this guy: Ottawa’s cheapest dad: Abusive man convicted of criminal harassment after depriving family of heat, water and food OTTAWA CITIZEN posted:OTTAWA — An abusive Ottawa father who ruled his home’s finances with a frugality so extreme that he deprived his family of heat, lights, water and sometimes food, has been convicted in a rare criminal harassment and assault case. TL;DR, guy is so frugal he gets arrested for assault in 2011 for depriving his family. Doesn't want to spend money on a lawyer so has been been in gaol since then.
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Jan 22, 2014 07:32
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MickeyFinn posted:This picture should have been painted (?) by Normal Rockwell. Here's a comic similar in concept. I live about an hour by walking/transit from my work. Then again I live in Australia where we have only a few cities with sprawling metropolitan areas, so moving somewhere closer to work isn't really an option. I know a few who travel 4+ hours a day to get in to work because they live so far away. Then again, Australia has a massive housing affordability problem, so no surprises why people live so far away when the average house price nowadays is 6x the median salary. Twenty years ago it was just 3x the median salary.
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Jan 25, 2014 08:12
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I'm sure somebody will find this interesting. For those of you who know nothing about Australian superannuation, here's the rundown: About 20 years ago it was put into law that every employer had to set aside 9% of their workers salaries into their nominated superannuation fund. That money could not be touched unless you meet one of several very specific circumstances (such as retirement, have six months to live, etc, although I hear there's ways to draw on that money through Centrelink if you're in a lot of financial trouble). You can manage your superannuation money yourself, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to spend it. You can invest it how you see fit, but you're not allowed to, say, withdraw $20,000 and go to Vegas. Self-managed Superannuation basically means that you're the trustee to your client, the client being yourself, and as trustee you're subject to all the harshest penalties if you cock it up. So the friend of the poster on the page I linked to above gets himself a self-managed super fund, completely ignores all the scary paperwork you have to sign to get one, and proceeds to spend $15,000 of his $40,000 retirement savings on a rental bond and a car. He's going to be so hosed when the Australian Tax Office is notified as similar actions to his in the past have lead to gaol time. froglet fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Feb 9, 2014 |
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Feb 9, 2014 07:51
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Rudager posted:Hahaha, that guy is hosed big time. The poster said he'd update when he had more information, but I checked his post history and there wasn't any posts saying 'so now my friend is in gaol/has been fined $100,000'.
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Feb 9, 2014 11:22
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Mikl posted:Goddamnit. I love my sister, but I wish she'd notice what he's been doing and sever already. I said something remarkably similar to this about a friend of mine a few years back. When we were about 16-17 she started dating this 24 year old guy. She stopped talking to me for a few weeks after 17 year old me pointed out that a 24 year old guy wanting to date highschool girls is creepy as gently caress and to find somebody her own age. Well, she ended up staying with him in the end and it became a bit of a sore point in our relationship, although I did agree to be a bridesmaid at their wedding a few years after our argument. This only came out after they broke up, and this guy was a broken manchild for myriad other reasons, but my friends breaking point was about 6 months before the wedding. Her condition for marrying him was that he'd have a job or be studying (even a Certificate I in floral arrangement) at least 6 months before they got hitched and she found out that he hadn't been looking for jobs and that he had no intention of ever getting a job or studying. They were together for five years and he had not once had a job. I'm honestly not sure how he managed that, it's pretty hard to cheat welfare here in Australia. You have to submit evidence that you've applied for ten jobs a week every fortnight to get your payments. froglet fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 12:53
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FrozenVent posted:So wait, she reached her breaking point and then stayed with him a few more years? Nah, they announced they were going to get married and she asked me to be a bridesmaid, then dumped him a few weeks after we'd done the dress fittings. Edit: this reminds me of another hilarious detail - she used all the money she got back from deposits for the venue, rings, etc to have a massive party to celebrate after kicking him out. froglet fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 14:00
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tuyop posted:Why would that matter? There's no shortage of musicians but most people don't view paying for music they like as "bad with money"*. Somebody told me I was bad with money for still buying CD's when I can just torrent it or get a streaming subscription. On the one hand, I do listen to a lot of music and paying for a streaming service might be a net saving on the entertainment item on my budget. On the other hand, I still use CD's in my car and my mobile phone bill would probably end up more expensive just from the increased data usage. I think it's one of those things that's really context dependent. And I won't even touch the torrenting thing, it's one of those discussions that pretty much always ends in a massive argument.
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Mar 18, 2014 05:06
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At work today somebody reminded me of a former coworker. For the purposes of this story we'll call him Roger. Now, Roger was a uni student who worked with me when I started out in technical support. One day while at work he started talking about his 'side job' which was entirely online and how he got interviewed over Skype. Curious, I started asking him about it. He said it was just processing paperwork for a business and something about this started making me really suspicious, especially when he mentioned the word 'escrow'. I told him it sounded like those schemes you hear about on CrimeWatch, where some person desperate for a job answers a job ad, gets interviewed online or over the phone then it would later turn out all that 'paperwork' they were processing was accepting deposits of hundreds or thousands into their personal bank account then send it on, not understanding the consequences of what they were doing. He claimed it was a legit business, though, so I figured maybe I was being a bit harsh and it was all on the level. A few weeks later when I asked him how the side job was going, he said that they tried to escrow some money to him on the understanding that he was to escrow it back. He apparently told them that it sounded a bit dodgy and wasn't eager to do it. He said his boss called him a 'pussy who didn't want to make money like a real man' and then blocked him on Skype. I told him to report it to the police because it sounded really suspicious, but he said he didn't want to get in trouble so didn't report it. TL;DR Coworker was hired by money launderers, seems to have gotten "fired" before causing any real damage or getting in trouble. Edit: I am going to put this here because I think this thread should be a friendly warning as well as your daily dose of schadenfreude, but if you (or anyone you know) apply for a job like Roger here did and they want you to 'work from home' by transferring large sums of money it is at best a scam. Read this website for more details. Although it's mostly focused on Australia, all the things listed are almost universally applicable when it comes to online scams. IF IT'S TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE IT PROBABLY IS!
froglet fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Mar 27, 2014 |
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Mar 27, 2014 15:24
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Volmarias posted:Not necessarily. It could be straight up money laundering, although there's usually other steps (launderer deposits check, withdraws cash, uses cash to buy prepaid cards, gives card info to OG). I think it has more to do with the scammers actively preying on the desperate. If you've been out of work for a few months or require flexibility in your working arrangements and the perfect position comes along, you probably won't ask too many questions.
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Mar 28, 2014 02:24
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Volmarias posted:It's not just that. I wish i remember the paper, but some researchers (with the guidance and blessing of the FBI) put up those "work from home" advertisements and an email address for people to contract. Some of the people who responded were clueless, but a few pretty much called called it out as laundering and then said that they were OK with it, saying they've done it before. That's not surprising, considering white collar criminals like inside traders are often seen as "less harmful" than drug dealers or burglars, despite the fact the cost of their crimes is often significantly higher and can cause more misery than your average criminal.
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Mar 28, 2014 05:22
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ExtrudeAlongCurve posted:Might depend on where you are/who you hang around? Not to overgeneralise, but I find that the confidence you'll find another job quickly is prevalent in tech jobs like software engineering. So it might not be a male thing, just a tech thing (and sad to say there is still a massive gender imbalance in the field).
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Apr 16, 2014 16:28
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MUST MAX ALL RETIREMENTS AND WATCH SPENDING!! It's a good thing most of these men are then paired with these women.
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Oh_Yeah posted:Been a lurker for a while now and I feel it's now my time to post! Here in Australia I think everyone has heard stories of a friend or acquaintance who gets a job in the mines, gets a large salary because they end up working 12 hour days in the middle of nowhere for weeks at a time and blowing it all on boats, motorcycles, etc. It's really odd because talking to them they don't seem to realise just how lucky they are to be earning that kind of money while young and so appear completely detached from reality. One person I know who works on the mines used to talk about how people like me and her were 'strugglers' or 'battlers' when in reality she earns twice as much as me. It's to the point where you sometimes read articles in the local rag about how there are people who had these highly paid fly-in-fly-out roles, lost their jobs during the economic downturn and are now in financial difficulty because there's no equally highly paid work for them and they have nothing to show for their years in the mines.
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Apr 20, 2014 17:03
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fruition posted:Damnnnn, at least the dead owner's wife is cool. Fun story; here in Australia popular band The Whitlam's greatest hit is most likely Blow Up The Pokies. The song was written about bandmate Andy Lewis, who had a gambling problem and ultimately committed suicide after he blew an entire weeks pay on a poker machine. If you or somebody you know has a problem with gambling, get help. On a more lighthearted side, I think my grandmother's complete unwillingness to adapt to new technology makes her bad with money. I get that that she's a pensioner and is probably somewhat resistant or scared of change, but even my other grandmother has an ATM card. In some sort of bizarre hangover from Depression era England my grandmother still receives her pension in cheque form and takes her money out manually each week at the bank and is only getting an ATM card because the bank is phasing out whatever retro system she currently uses (and she's really upset with them daring to change things).
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May 20, 2014 00:03
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fruition posted:Only a week's worth of pay? Sheesh...relatively speaking that's not that big of a loss; most people spend that much money on Starbucks coffee in a year. I imagine that loss was probably the last of a long string of losses and the final straw. The story goes he had a partner and child, which probably makes a bad situation even worse. It's not like people wake up each morning and actively decide to let welfare look after them in their old age, it's more that people don't think about their long-term wellbeing and sort of assume they can carry on working forever. Even I have a hard time caring about my retirement, to the point where I was a bit slack about setting up a voluntary contribution. That said here in Australia not saving for retirement isn't quite as much of a problem as we have mandatory retirement savings in the form of superannuation. Currently 9.25% of your income has to be sent by your work into a special account you can't touch which is then invested. It's why our economy has don so well - because everyone of working ages in the past 20 years has been invested in Australia. FrozenVent posted:How are you going to be able to afford the plane ride once you turn 70? Put it on credit card, obviously.
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May 20, 2014 03:20
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