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ATP5G1 posted:Oh yes, and they're constantly complaining about how poor they are and how they need help from their parents to pay bills, while at the same time somehow having enough money to buy Macbook Airs, iPhones, and all the newest video game systems. I've got a couple good ones. Both are stories about two married idiots who have a bad relationship that isn't based in trust. This couple are both retarded with money, but have strict rules about who pays for what. E.g. she pays the electric bill, he pays the phone bill, etc. The wife is just incredible. We'll call her Nancy. Here are some of her exploits: This one is my absolute favorite. Nancy had an iPhone 4S (like a scrub!), and wanted an iPhone 5. She didn't have $750 cash to buy an iPhone. Her contract wasn't up for a new phone or upgrade for another 18 months. She thought $200 to get one with a new account and 24 month contract with data plan sounded like a bargain, because her husband pays the phone bill. She opens up a new line on their family plan at an extra cost of $60/month for the next 24 months that her husband will pay for, so she can get the discount on her new phone. That phone line doesn't even have a device tied to it  Yep, put her husband on the hook for almost $1,700 over the next two years with an extra phone line they aren't even using so she can replace her 6 month old phone.He didn't even know about this until he saw his $150 phone bill jump to $410 the next month.  Nancy has over $10k of credit card debt, much of which is from before she got married. Due to tax credits for education, she anticipated a large tax return, about $3,000 I think. She and her husband agreed that she should apply the entire thing towards her double digit interest rate credit card debt. When she got the tax return, she lied to her husband and told him it ended up only being $800, and spent the other $2k on a Louis Vuitton handbag. She hid the bag from him for a few weeks, and when he finally saw it, she lied and told him that it was a fake, and cost $50. edit: If you haven't already seen it, fire up Netflix and watch Queen of Versailles. It is, like, the height of noveau super-rich extravagance and arrogance canyoneer fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Jun 21, 2013 |
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johnny sack posted:I can second the grad students making terrible decisions. When I was in grad school, most other students went to the bars at least 3 or 4 times per week. Most had brand new laptops, always buying $4 coffees, buying sandwiches for lunch every day, etc etc. Granted, the stipend we received wasn't much, but it was enough for rent, books, and buying food to cook at home. I couldn't understand the purchases most students made. They must have been taking loans out to subsidize their coffee and laptops. I heard a guy on the radio interviewed during a news piece about the student loan rate going up. He's the student body president at the University of Arizona. He is an undergraduate Political Science senior at a public, state university with $70k in student loan debt  How do you even...?? Why would you go into $70k worth of student loan debt for a polisci degree from a school ranked #48 for that degree? How do you get to $70k in debt at that school without living in a hotel room the entire time?But then again, making poor decisions with government money is sort of the expectation on aspiring political officials. This next one isn't exactly 'bad with money', but more of 'a poor educational decision that happened to be very, very expensive'. I'm acquainted with someone who spent $80k+ on an MBA from University of Phoenix. After graduation, he had a hard time finding a job, even though his undergraduate degree was well-regarded and he had relevant professional experience. He started having success in his job hunt when he excluded the Phoenix degree from his resume 
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Jul 3, 2013 22:25
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Silly Hippie posted:weddings Blows my mind, man. You know there's got to be diminishing returns on those over-the-top weddings. Someone in the funding chain has to be thinking "that cake was cool, but it wasn't $2,000 cool." I know someone putting together a stupid-expensive wedding by most anyone's standards, especially since one of them is currently (and chronically) unemployed and the other isn't doing much better. It's going to cost more than my entire college degree did, and knowing these people, it's really all just to impress other people. Silly Hippie posted:e: WOW. Whoever recommended The Queen of Versailles, thank you. Holy mother of god, a 90,000 square foot house. I lost it at the stuffed dogs. Everyone watch this. It is beautiful. I have complex feelings about that documentary. The mom is such an interesting person to me. She was an engineer at IBM way back in the day, and left her high dollar technical career to strike out on her own and have a successful career in modeling and pageants. Now she's essentially retired from responsibility, and lives in a house with dog poop on the floor. It's weird how much money she spends to desperately avoid looking like you'd expect a woman her age would. The Filipino maid living in the 5'x8' shack outside that used to be the twins' playhouse was so much  when they had such a huge house. How could you do that to a human being, much less one who essentially raised your children for the last 14 years?And then at the end, where the guy is blaming the banks loaning him cheap money for his business problems.
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Jul 11, 2013 17:22
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I knew a guy who came from a family who was obsessed with thrift, frugality, and being utter misers about everything. The parents were some flavor of high-dollar engineers, and they were probably clearing close to $200k in an area with a low cost of living and where $200k can buy you a 4 bedroom house in a gated neighborhood. And they were utterly cheap, to the point where I cannot see them being ever satisfied with their finances. I have no idea what they do with their money. This guy was getting married, and in addition to being cheap, he's an insufferable douche. His bride was shopping for a wedding dress. Bride's father told her to literally pick any dress she wanted from this one store she liked out of town (which probably tops out at $3k or so). She chose one for $800, which those of you who have shopped for wedding dresses know that's about 'middle of the road'. On her drive back, this dude berated her to the point of tears over the phone and demanded she tell him how much the dress was. Once she told him, he freaked out and demanded she go return the dress, and that she was being selfish and vain for wanting a wedding dress. Well, dude, first off, you're not paying for it, it's a gift from her father and he didn't say "I'll give you $3k for a dress, buy what you want and keep the rest". So it's not like if she spent less, there would be more money available for other things. Second, it's none of your drat business. And what kind of weirdo looks at a bride and clucks their tongue at a $800 wedding dress? He also didn't want to buy her a ring. At all. Told her she was selfish for wanting expensive jewelry (like a wedding band?). They got married a couple years ago, despite protests from literally every one of the bride's family members and people who care about her. It's going to be the worst few years of her life. I think that's an example of someone who is bad with money on the opposite side of the spectrum. People like that set such ridiculous expectations that they cannot enjoy the fruits of their labors. It's possible to be a slave to an extreme, miserly attitude just like being a slave to debt. Bonus dickhead story: The wife had a miscarriage. He smugly said at a family dinner at her parents' house shortly afterwards, "Well, it's not MY fault. I did MY job  "
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Jul 15, 2013 15:55
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froglet posted: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. To me, that's just as sad as people racking up piles of debt in their early 20's on clothes, booze, furniture, and autos that will hobble them for the next 20 years. There really needs to be a balance between spending money like there's no tomorrow and saving money like there are only tomorrows. Why can't people just happily live within their means? For content: I know an individual who bought a car without telling his wife. He is a cop now, and his employment history was 3 years of no job (with 2 kids), and then 4 months of police academy and literally 2 weeks at a police department, then quit the PD and began another year of unemployment. During his years of unemployment, he would take 6 credits a semester at the community college, working towards a degree. He's just over 30. They were on public assistance and food stamps the entire time, with his pregnant wife finding babysitters for the kids when she'd go to work at a retail job whenever they had hours for her. He couldn't watch his own children, you see, because he had so much schoolwork to do for 6 credit hours of community college "intro to writing" and "vampires in literature and pop culture" courses (I am not making that up). After his first paycheck with the PD and with a new baby days away, he goes to a dealership in town and buys a 4 year old Expedition with 80,000 miles on it for almost $20k to replace their aging sedan. It's got all the upgrades, and a lot is broken in it. Power windows are not working, the back left door doesn't open, etc. That's about 7 months' net salary, folks. Fortunately, they were able to give it back to the dealership and instead got a sedan that 3 car seats barely fit inside. Good job?
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Jul 15, 2013 19:29
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froglet posted:How do I avoid this happening to me if I become unable to care for myself or my financial interests? 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. Here's a licensing page for Arizona, which explains part of the process. http://www.azcourts.gov/cld/FiduciaryLicensingProgram.aspx
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Jul 16, 2013 18:53
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froglet posted: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. Yeah, I understand. My intention is to say that if you encounter individuals who you suspect are victims, there are public resources out there to help that you can direct the victim or people who care about the victim to. Many people don't know that these resources exist.
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Jul 17, 2013 13:26
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tiananman posted:I worked in sales with someone who, by a total fluke of luck, ended up with a $25,000 commission check one quarter. He immediately booked a trip to Vegas, bought ridiculous suits and within a MONTH was back to payday loans and asking friends for $5 for gas money to get home. I worked with a guy who was in his 40's and had literally never had a bank account or driver's license in his entire life. Any windfall commission he got would be blown immediately on expensive clothes for his kids, even though he was butt-poor. He lived in a sprawling western city with terrible public transportation and only a few poorly-served bus lines. I have no idea how you do that.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:30
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DwemerCog posted:You don't need to be a published author to teach literature, so you don't need to be a financier to teach finance. School subjects are taught from books, not the life experience of the teachers. Yep. That's why the creepy fat gym teacher can force you to run laps when he has trouble walking up a staircase. gvibes posted:I thought I had read somewhere recently that financial literacy classes do not seem to have any positive effect, and that what does help people is making people better at math. And I remember learning some nonsense in high school about how if you put $50/month into a mutual fund beginning at age 18, you'll have ONE MILLION DOLLARS in 40 years and could retire like a king! (no you won't, and no you couldn't). At least it's encouraging the right behavior (saving and investing)  The first time I heard about 401(k) or IRA was flipping through a copy of Money magazine in a public library. I was 20 years old.
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Jul 26, 2013 17:01
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My in-laws bought a timeshare. (Before anyone jumps in to defend their timeshare purchase, let me say that they are a very poor fit for a timeshare, and that just like leasing a new car, for 99.5% of consumers they are horrible, stupid money pits.) They went to a town 5 hours from their home for a fun little weekend, because they heard it was nice up there. While looking for a place to stay, they came across a  FREE HOTEL ROOM!, just got to sit through the slideshow after breakfast and you're home free.They bought one. And then gushed to us about how fantastic of a deal it is, and they're going to vacation at all these awesome places on the cheap, and isn't it great that it is heritable property so we can pass it on to you in our estate? I did my undergrad in finance, and they excitedly asked me to look over the paperwork and tell me if they got a good deal. "We had a nice weekend here, let's spend $10,000 today and $400/yr for the rest of our lives so we can have a couple weeks in a hotel that would normally be about $80/night." I outright refused to "look over their purchase" because I knew what the answer would be. Don't want to crush your dreams and all, but please, please, please do not give that albatross to me in your will.
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Jul 26, 2013 23:57
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quote:Financial Whoa. I feel bad for a lot of these people. Crippling debt and now they don't get the job 
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Jul 27, 2013 08:23
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tiananman posted:People selling lovely collector coins do this type of thing all the time. And I think I've seen people on QVC or whatever hinting at future price appreciation for things like baseball cards and other "collectibles." Bingo. The $25 real money limited edition freedom eagle patriot liberty GOLD COIN being sold for $24.99 USD (+$12.95 shipping and handling) is 25 Liberian dollars (LRD). 25 LRD is about 33 cents in US Dollars. Grandparents don't know this, and that's how kids end up with weird minted coins commemorating things like 150 years of model trains.
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Aug 6, 2013 19:02
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HooKars posted:Not really a bad with money story but this just happened to me so I thought I'd share:: I have some accounts from back in the day that I really never touch. Ones an investment account and the other is a high interest savings account. I get statements for them in the mail but aside from that, I don't have them set up to monitor online anymore (I used to but they changed their site and I had problems reregistering and logging on). Apparently there's been no activity related to those accounts for awhile now and apparently after a certain period of time, the state will try to seize it. I got a notice in the mail asking me to sign saying I'm alive basically or else they'd begin the seizure process. It scares me to think that if I hadn't opened that letter promptly (or my mom hadnt - it came to her address) - my money could potentially be tied up in some state action. It also annoys me - I pay taxes on the interest from those accounts every year - do they think some dead person is doing that? That's not the end of the world. Many states have an "unclaimed property" division that helps out there. If a business or individual owes some money to a resident of the state and they can't find the owner, it gets sent to the unclaimed property division. The state holds onto it for like 10 years and tries to find the owner (if they're still in the state). After that point, it's either returned to the original company (if possible) or tossed into the state's treasury. You can go search online and see if the state has some money owed to you. My dad checked a few years ago and got a $250 insurance refund from years ago. He had no idea he was owed that money, and he had somehow slipped through the cracks on his insurance company's systems. The process is about as difficult as getting a new social security card. Sort of a pain, but not really as Byzantine as you'd expect. Content: My parents bought an alarm system from a door-to-door sales guy (who happened to be a dirtbag I went to high school with). They got the equipment "free", with a contract for $55/month monitoring for the next 24 months. You can buy the exact same equipment from Amazon for about $200, and pay a company $10 or so a month to monitor it. Never buy anything sold door-to-door. If the product was that great, a company could get customers without knocking doors.
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Aug 8, 2013 21:59
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naughty_penguin posted:...What do they do inside of their buried school bus? Bury more school buses  Some people in my family are very automotively stupid. One family member is selling her sedan to upgrade to a minivan, as her family size is increasing. This is a good idea. The better idea would have been to just go for the minivan 9 months ago when she bought that car. This is what everyone told her. But she was insistent back then that new minivans were too expensive, they couldn't afford one, and that there's no used market for minivans because everyone buys them and drives them into the ground. Uhh, you know how rental car places sell their cars at about 24 months or 40,000 miles? Minivans make up a large part of rental fleets. Also, your best friend is a resale sales manager for an enormous rental car company and can hook you up like crazy (which is what eventually happened) Her better and more affordable idea than a 2 year old used minivan? A brand-new, $28,000 Honda Pilot. Thankfully, they couldn't qualify for that loan and they didn't get one. She's thrilled to be getting a 5% interest rate (on a 7 year car loan) for that year-old van they just bought. Why? Because the loan on the car she's getting rid of is at a 16% interest rate  How bad does your credit have to be to get credit card-esque interest rates on a car?
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Aug 22, 2013 23:59
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Sudden Infant Def Syndrome posted:Buying an ex-rental is a terrible idea. That in itself is a bad with money story. Only if you believe the Seinfeld stand-up sketch is reflective of reality. When rental cars are retired, they are either sold to people directly from the rental company or sold in lots that end up at normal car dealerships' used car lots. Many people end up purchasing one and have no idea.
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Aug 23, 2013 02:45
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particle409 posted:Just met a guy who applied for an apartment. I checked his credit history and there is no way he can afford this place, as he makes less than $30k a year and has other obligations on his credit report. For example, I saw his multiple late car payments, probably for the shiny Lexus SUV he rolled up in. I make multiple times what this guy does, but I still drive a 2006 Accord with a scratched up front bumper. To be blunt, I come from a privileged background, and it never once occurred to me to do anything with my money other than invest it. I treat myself to nice things, but the people who spend money to let others know they have it, are always the ones with the worst credit reports. I had a family member accuse me of being vain and stupid for renting and apartment in "a complex for people who want to pretend to be rich." I rented the tiniest 1 bedroom apartment in a nice complex in a very safe part of town. For what I was spending, I could have gotten another 400 square feet in a crappy part of town. I had a friend that did just that, and had his car windows smashed in three times in a year and had terrible neighbors. This individual who was sassing me about my apartment bought a 60 year old house in a really run-down part of town. The cops are on their street every day, and there has been at least one homicide within 50 yards of her house less than a month after move-in. They've had tools and aluminum siding stolen out of their yard. They've had strangers wander into their house. They gutted the house to do renovations, ran out of money, and now 80% of the indoor space looks like a meth house. To think, instead of living in a shoebox in a nice neighborhood I could have been living in Murdertown instead!
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Aug 28, 2013 22:17
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Acquilae posted:Got a semi-angry call on Wednesday with friend's wife telling me I gave him "bad investment advice" Uhm, I'm going to agree with the wife (for different reasons). Telling someone who has no idea what they're doing to buy individual stocks is the very definition of "bad investment advice". Content: I was a retail slave a few years ago with a guy who was in his late 50's. He would always boast about how he is such a savvy investor, and he's making all kinds of money with his side business and his investment portfolio, blah blah blah. I found it hard to believe. Why would someone work a crappy, boring, unfulfilling job folding clothes and working every single weekend/holiday if they didn't need the money? (He got health insurance from his wife's job, so that wasn't it either)
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Sep 13, 2013 17:46
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paperchaseguy posted:Search for a thread by Aurora Borealis (?) in archives, she also had a large inheritance and it might be of interest to you. The TL;DR of it is "Don't invest in your friend's dumb video games bar"
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Sep 27, 2013 22:29
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Engineer Lenk posted:Over the cost of manufacture, or including R&D expenses? Dogpiling on this, I once heard someone say the same thing about software. "It only costs Adobe maybe $4 to print up a box and discs for the new Photoshop, only a rube would spend $800 on it!" Related dumb with money story: People who use  software to earn an income. There's so much risk there. Consider the difference between how Microsoft treats a home user and a business violating software licenses. One of them gets a "please buy a legit copy" and the other gets nailed for cash damages.Then again, there are people who hire dirt cheap contractors to do work on their home and those individuals aren't licensed/bonded/insured. Have fun being liable if one of the painters falls off a ladder and splits his head open or if someone lops their thumb off with a tile saw.
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Oct 14, 2013 16:45
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turp-o-matic posted:Here's what a friend of mine is currently doing: miners.txt or cubs.txt for  I know a number of people who moved to crappy mining towns chasing big money mining jobs. That's all they can find to do in the middle of the desert, spend money on things with engines or things that go boom.
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Oct 18, 2013 23:36
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particle409 posted:FYI, on the other side of the coin, Netflix just added "Extreme Cheapskates" to streaming. It's one of those TLC reality shows like hoarder, so I can't wait to dive in and see what hot messes they have. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z68tH-lnK60  This looks like it will be a hilarious ride. 
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Nov 5, 2013 23:49
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Timeshares are horrible, terrible ideas that are financial albatrosses for 99.5% of timeshare owners. Similar to timeshare chat: I've known people who bought a house with an extra bedroom or two more than they needed expressly for having a guest room that gets used maybe 6 nights a year. It has zero use the entire rest of the year. The incremental cost of buying/owning/maintaining/insuring/property tax on an extra room that gets used one week a year means that you could put your guests up for a week each year in a resort-level hotel nearby. Sort of an extreme example of how when you buy more than you need of [good or service], it gets expensive. Or do what my family has always done: make one of the kids clean their room and sleep on the couch for a week 
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Nov 7, 2013 01:03
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MrKatharsis posted:Nothing unlucky about two vehicle loans when your take home is $2300/mo. Also, his non-child expenses are higher than mine and I love in a major city. $600 rent for living space on a family of 6 doesn't get much in most places. In the cities I've lived in, that's on the barely habitable end of the housing spectrum. The real headscratcher is how he is spending an extra 75% on top of rent for utilities. I wonder if we eventually find out that it was a STDH story after good-intentioned redditors send a few thousand dollars to his paypal account. The internet has made me suspicious of everything. Fake edit: Whoa those comments.  : "Buy some used cloth diapers on Craiglist"
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Dec 6, 2013 22:45
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There's a show on Netflix streaming called My First Home. It's a "reality show" from TLC, and each episode follows a first time home buyer. A lot of the stuff is pretty obviously fictional or embellished for TV. However, there are some things that make me roll my eyes. A lot of real estate myths perpetuated, or just really dumb personal/relationship decisions. For example: - A couple who had been dating for less than a year, have never lived with each other, decide that they should BUY A HOUSE TOGETHER, cause hey man, it's a really good time to buy right now! - Banks will approve you for hilariously high amounts if you have decent credit. Most people (who aren't crazy) realize they cannot afford that, and buy at like, 60% of their approved top-end. Some people were buying right up next to that, such as the couple who gross $80k combined as retail managers buying a $350k house in some boring suburb. - Nonsense about buying "fixer-uppers" to flip in a couple years. Basically, the antithesis of the smart stuff discussed in the homebuying thread here.
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Dec 8, 2013 07:19
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Baja Mofufu posted:Oh thank you for recommending this, I had a sick day yesterday and binge-watched maybe 6-7 of these. I think I've only seen one down payment break $10K. Most of the couples buying are not married. People are actually vetoing houses over bad paint colors and even because of a mirror hanging on the wall. It's like a series of case studies on how not to buy a house. Did you see the one of the three single siblings buying a house together? The older brother and sister both work as account managers at the same company, and their college student younger brother is going to live with them rent free. Yes, that will certainly not cause any resentment.
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Dec 11, 2013 23:32
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Saros posted:That's not so much bad with money as it is intergenerationalpoverty.txt Want to talk depressing poverty? Watch "A Place At The Table" on Netflix, about hunger in America. It is heartbreaking to see those kids who don't have enough to eat, and the parents working two minimum wage jobs that can't provide enough for them. Baja Mofufu posted:Yes, I just did! One thing that really surprises me about this show is that they give guests' full names and where they live. I just did a quick search on Facebook and it looks like the sister just got married--doubt she's living in that house now! The prodigal son little brother who had to have a gigantic house for his rent-free study pad didn't even end up going to medical school in the US. The older brother was right to act like he was going to get stuck with the place. That is hilarious. Especially because the little brother and the sister were so demanding about what they wanted in the house, and now neither of them are paying for it. The sister was pressuring the brother to go to the upper range of the budget HARD in that show. There's no way that guy can afford that house on just his income. And of course, you have to have the extra bedroom for when mom comes to visit!
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Dec 16, 2013 17:38
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Bad with other peoples' money, at least.
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Jan 7, 2014 18:32
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Volmarias posted:I'm amazed that this guy even got on Dragons' Den. The executive producer must have passed out from laughter. Maybe the executive producer wanted to show the show's loyal viewers how genuine wealthy entrepreneurs feel about get rich quick/MLM schemes, in hopes of dissuading anyone from ever doing it. Call it a public service.
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Jan 8, 2014 16:42
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Jeffrey posted:Even non-scam colleges have programs that are for-profit. Like they have programs they care about, and others that only stay around with low admissions requirements for the easy money. A number of big schools care a lot about undergrad and PhD programs, while treating terminal masters programs as cheap sources of income to pad their budgets. On the other hand, there are huge revenue generators that subsidize the rest of the university that they DO care about. The dean from my alma mater's business school came and spoke at a conference I went to. He told us about how there are only three "cash flow positive" colleges at the university, and those subsidize the other ones. (law, biz, med) Public funds and tuition combined only provide about 40% of the operating budget. They are "cash flow positive" because of alumni gifts. So it's sort of unsurprising that some of the business school grads end up hitting the lottery and becoming bazillionaires and kicking some back to the school. That's why almost all the buildings at universities in Oklahoma and Texas are named after oil tycoons.
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Jan 24, 2014 23:05
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TheDeviousOne posted:On top of the bad spending habits, he recently got a DUI, his second, as it ends up. I was thinking to myself, "well, surely now that he's going to be out a lot more money, he'll cut back on the lunches/coffee/whatever." But, no, they've continued like nothing ever happened. I only know that he got a DUI because he missed work for a couple days that he spent in jail. This time was spent in jail because he couldn't afford the bail, which was said to be around $1000. Driving drunk, in addition to being an irresponsible and stupid life choice, is really being bad with money. Doesn't the average DUI cost like $10k or something after lawyers/fines/fees?
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Feb 19, 2014 06:59
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Family member is in the Army (first mistake), and bought a condo in an Army town (second mistake) with his wife and daughter. Now, guess what? 2 years later it's time to move! They can't sell it, and can't afford to make payments on their old condo and wherever they're moving next. So his parents help him out. Dad's a lawyer and makes a decent living, but is not wildly wealthy. Mom and dad buy the condo from them for whatever they owe on it, and continue making mortgage payments. It's about 2500 miles away, and they have no use for it. So they rent it out. Within a few months, they have tenants from hell, who cause $30k worth of damage (!!!) and disappear. At the same time, another daughter is getting divorced after 12 years of being a full-time stay at home mom, and is in dire need of the family safety net for herself and her 5 kids. Also, they need to help out another daughter who is finishing up a teaching degree, because they didn't realize that her final semester of student teaching is unpaid (to be fair, they are not from the US, and had no idea). Sort of just a crappy situation. One son makes a bad housing decision, parents choose to intervene to help out, and crisis after crisis comes up. They could have handled either the condo thing alone, or any of the other stuff together, but not all of them at the same time. 
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Feb 19, 2014 18:57
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tuyop posted:I need to get a laptop at some point soon and I still don't know how I feel about the 0% interest payment plan thing. Like 1200 bucks is a pretty small sum of money either way, though. Not for something as disposable as a laptop.
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Mar 8, 2014 00:36
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FrozenVent posted:I know Reddit is cheating but this popped up in PYF and uh  That's right, dude has $131k of student loans for a degree in "3D Art" from a for-profit college. That's what happens when you don't work through college at all and live off of loans. This is probably the winner for "worst educational decision" ever.
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Mar 9, 2014 01:52
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0cl1JkWv-k&t=381s There's a video of a guy who lands a job right out of school with Intel as a software developer, probably making at least $60k/yr according to glassdoor.com. He's discussing in his video game live streaming how he left that job after a year to move back in with his parents and pursue his passion: playing video games online and relying on donations from his stream watchers. Actually, those stream watchers are bad with money too. Who paypals $50 to some internet stranger because they like to watch them play video games?
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Mar 16, 2014 19:49
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Never thought I'd see someone in the Business, Finance, and Careers subforum defend quitting a software engineer job to go play video games full time, but here we are. Content: A girl I work with went in to the Toyota dealership for an oil change on her 2010 Avalon last week. She drove out in a brand new 2014 Toyota Avalon.
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Mar 17, 2014 21:31
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razz posted:That's pretty much what my mom did. She just came home one day with a brand-new Camry. She did ask me if I wanted to buy her old one, in a "I think I might sell my Camry soon" sort of way. It was a nice offer and she was giving me a huge discount but I couldn't afford it (plus I like my current car). Then a couple days later, boom. $30,000 new car in the garage. Also my dad upgrades his motorcycle every time one of his friends does. Consider it as your parents giving you portions of your inheritance early
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Mar 17, 2014 22:46
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They're actually really good with money, their huge impulse purchases just freak me out.
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File this under "young and dumb and maybe depressed": My sister. My sister get a pets with every new boyfriend. She works at near minimum wage jobs, and cannot afford booze, weed and pet food at the same time. For her cat and previous dog, she had to have my parents bail her out and buy her cat/dog food every month. In both her previous apartments, she wasn't allowed to have a cat or dog, and had them there anyway. Then when they break up, she ends up stuck with the dog and has to find a new home for her dog. She found a home for the dog, but I think the cat went back to the shelter. She just got a new puppy today. The cycle will surely repeat. She got fired from a restaurant job she worked at for a year while in high school for letting her dumb friends goof off in the closed store while she was cleaning up and counting the register. She was getting paid almost double minimum wage while still in high school, and very well liked by the owners. She also blew a manager promotion at another restaurant because she is constantly late for work. Even though she was a top performer, she was 15-30 minutes late for her shifts at least once a week. She eventually got fired for it. Then she got a great, cushy desk job for a busy medical office through a family hookup. It was high responsibility, and she had keys to the building and everything. She needed to be the first one there in the morning, at 6:45 AM to unlock the building for the other couple dozen people working in there. Also got fired from that one, because as it turns out, it's hard to stay out past midnight drinking and partying during the week with your stoner fast-food worker friends when you have to be at work and alert at 6:45 the next morning. She was evicted from her last apartment, having not paid rent for two months and fled the city. Probably has debt collectors hounding her for that or a judgment out. She was driving a 10 year old vehicle in pretty decent shape that was given to her, and didn't even need to pay insurance on it. But it was "ugly" and she didn't like her free car. She didn't want to pay the $40 for an oil change every 6 months, and let the engine seize and turn the car into a total loss. A perfectly serviceable car, totally destroyed through neglect. Probably could have sold it for $3-4k and bought something different if she really wanted to. She frequently gets speeding tickets. Her car insurance is insanely expensive. I think it's about $200/month for her car. I carry full coverage on two cars (both are nicer than hers) with two drivers and I pay less than half of that. Then she bought a nice used Celica for a great price from a family friend. She liked having a sort of flashy car... until 3 months later when she drove it while (underage) drinking and wrapped it around a light pole at 4 AM, totaling the car and losing her only way to get to work (mooch boyfriend doesn't drive). Through some miracle, the police responder must have been either the most sympathetic cop ever or on a shift change, and she didn't get arrested for DUI or underaged drinking. I have no idea how that worked out. She still drinks hard and I'm sure still drives while drunk or buzzed, but at least she's now of age  She gets really cheap tattoos picked from the wall of the tattoo shop. There's a shop that does $13 tattoos (about 2 square inches) on Friday the 13th that she goes to all the time. They look exactly like you'd expect a $13 tattoo to look like. I'm sure she regrets most of them, but that doesn't stop her from getting new ones!
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Mar 25, 2014 17:59
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FrozenVent posted:Alternatively, the check you got was fake and you're going to be left holding the bag when the bank catches on. That's usually it. You're not helping someone get scammed, you are the mark.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:21
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Dumb with housing: A family member bought a foreclosure 3 years ago in a major municipal area in a western state that got hit hard by the housing crash. This house is a 1500sq ft 5br/2ba built in the 80's, in a run-down neighborhood about a mile from downtown and two miles from the university. It backs up almost against a major cross-country interstate, and you can hear traffic all day. They bought it for super cheap, about $60k, and got all kinds of great incentives from the state and government for first time homebuyers contingent on living there for 5 years. They also could not be talked out of a 15 year mortgage. "But the interest rate is 1% lower! And I'll pay less than half the interest compared to a 30 year loan over the life of the loan!" With a 30 year mortgage, you can always make double payments toward principal, but with a 15 year mortgage you can never make half payments when money is tight. What happens if you lose your jobs or have a baby? (both of these things happened and caused financial disaster). They also wiped out almost all of their savings on a 30% down payment. What's even worse than the house is their motivation for buying. Renting is "throwing money away", "we can rent it out later", "great time to buy", "fixer-upper", etc. The trouble is, the neighborhood is *really* bad. As in, if you look at one of the crime maps for a quarter mile radius, you get more than 300 police reports for a 14 day period. Including some homicides and sex crimes Many of the neighbors have 8 foot fences, large dogs, or both.Even their realtor begged them not to buy it. But buy it they did, and the renovations begin! The linoleum was torn out of the kitchen, living room, and hallway and the bare concrete was painted instead. One of the bedroom had its walls demolished to extend the living room (removing a bedroom almost never adds value to a home for the next buyer). They also demolished one of the two bathrooms to extend one of the bedrooms. So now they have a four bedroom home/one bathroom home, and to get to the only bathroom you have to go through the master bedroom. That only bathroom is a 3/4 bathroom. Sink/shower/toilet. There is no bathtub remaining in the home, which makes bathing the baby harder than it needs to be. Try to find renters that want a four bedroom house and are totally OK with having the only bathroom accessible by walking through the master bedroom. They had a lot of tools and building materials including aluminum siding stolen off of their porch by their neighbor's drug addict grandson who just got out of prison. They started to run out of money for materials, and ended up having to postpone a lot of their renovations after having done a lot of demolition. Any other house they would have bought at the very bottom of the housing depression in that market would have doubled in value by now. I think they'll be lucky to break even on this thing when they are finally free of it.
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Mar 29, 2014 00:24
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 05:29 |
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We've talked often in this thread about MLM/Pyramid schemes. Here's a decent blog post about why they are garbage. http://www.fairgroundmedia.com/the-truth-about-mary-kay It even goes into forums-approved other legit online moneymaking (blogs for bucks, dropshipping, handmade art) Read the comments for bamboozled people shamelessly and desperately defending their "business"
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Mar 31, 2014 23:27
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