I have a friend and I have never seen someone so careless with their money. She basically lives from paycheck to paycheck. Here are some examples of how her money spending adventures go:

- She can overdraft 11x in 3 days. Bank froze her account because she was -$400 in debt with them.
- Wamu blacklisted her b/c of overdraft fees that weren't paid.
- She & her mom have not paid their mortgage in some months. She's told me that she's received a bank letter asking for payment... ignores it and is telling me she's waiting for the 2nd notice before she takes action.
- Buys brand name clothes or anything that's on sale (today she bought 2 pairs of boots $50 total)

Etc. Etc.

I've tried to give her advice so many times about saving & what the consequences are if she can not build credit. Do you know anyone who has bad spending habits? How have you tried to help them?

yeah i dont know ANYTHING about financial stuff
APR
interest
WHAT?!

Me neither. I thought they were selling music CDs at the bank once.
The bank rep went into her banking spiel and my eyes just glazed over once I realized I wasn't going to get that eminem album after all. But when she got to the part about "penalty for early withdrawal", my attention span shot right back up. For a minute I thought she was talking about sex.

hahahaha!! penalty for early withdrawal... that's incredible.

I used to work at the bank so I saw a lot of these situations.

From your description it sounds like her mom has the same kind of problem with financial management.

She probably needs credit counseling, or if she thinks she still doesn't have a problem, she just might need to really get into a rut before she realizes she can't continue doing this. It's hard to change people if they don't think it's a problem because she can still keep doing what she's doing.

Yup, my siblings.

You do have to envy them sometimes though. They always get what they want, lol. I'm always hording my money.

I'm unsure but is it true that in the US the bank will let you walk away from your mortgage debt? If so, that could be why they don't place their mortgage as a high priority.

But yeah, I see so many people live like that, I don't think its due to be financially illiterate but rather, choice.

Mortgage has traditionally been at the top of the payment hierarchy. In general, mortgage defaults result in foreclosure + 7 years of collections. Some people manage to have just the foreclosure.

I have a friend just like that too. She used to live in public housing but she was kicked out because of being late on her payment for 2-3 months in a roll (She paid $50 a month and that included heat, gas, garbage, and electricity). Afterward she moved in with a couple of my other friends in a house. She was good with payment for awhile but then she just stopped paying everything. She would make up excuses months after months until they were late on payment on all their bills because of her (They didn't have enough money to cover her part). Also, she dropped out of college during Spring semester but she didn't mention it to anyone. Her roommates (my friends) figured she had dropped out since she stayed home all the time. In the end she just ended up moving back home, so now she's working to pay off the money that she owes her ex-roommates as well as the 10+ grand that she took out in loans.


I just feel like sometimes people like to live large even when they know that they don't have much, but I guess that's just how it is.

i think people being irresponsible with spending money is not cool because they will face the consequences sooner or later.. however, it bothers me even more when people are super cheap and try to save every penny by going through all these hassles..

i think the only way those reckless spenders will learn their lesson is to have everything taken away from them and be forced to live with a very limited amount of money. that way, they will realize why they need to save money.

wow.. i suck with all that crap too APR, interest.. omg.. *dies..

BUT i dont live paycheck by paycheck.. thank goodness.. i used to be really bad with it tho.. and had to live paycheck by paycheck BUT ive been careful and saving and i NEVER buy designer name brand things.. omfg.. i get my jeans from walmart lol and my clothes from the discount racks of rue21 or vanity.. damns.. i dont know how people can afford or even buy $200 jeans.. O.O ... shoes are understandable but jeans.. omfg.. get reall..

Ever since i've been working and had my own bank account (right out of highschool) along with my credit cards i've always been able to manage my money very well. I'm too scared of bad credit, debt, and all that junk. I always calculate everything and anything before I use money. Like right when I get my paycheck i'll calculate in my head how much will go into savings, how much for spending, and how much to pay bills. Kinda turned into a habit.

I don't know anyone THAT irresponsible... that's just scary irresponsible. It sounds like she might need a good kick in the ass before she started realizing what a horrible thing she's doing.

Ugh I know what you mean. I read this article in Marie Claire about this one Japanese girl that starved herself to save money in order to buy some Gucci watch or something. She ended up going to the hospital. There goes all the money for the watch. She could have just fed herself and would have had money left over afterwards too. Psh. People these days. I really don't get the obsession with brandname stuff.


Every little thing adds up~ Lol. What annoys me the most is when you're in line at the grocery store and the lady busts out with like 50 coupons. /dies. You do end up saving quite a bit though.

Yeeaaahh...same here.

I kind of splurge on things that I shouldn't...like books or...candy. *facepalm* But since I waste money on that stuff, I don't feel so bad that I wasted $50 on half a dozen books at Amazon whereas a friend of mine wasted $250 on a pair of shoes. O__O I really don't understand how people can get so hung up on designer brands or the latest tech savvy stuff when they're drowning in debt.

A lot of people I know are having a lot of financial problems...like HUGE problems and they all just go, "Well, it'll get paid off one day *shrug*." I mean...I try to not let finances become my life, but I know not to drown myself into a financial mess. One of my friends had a checking account that was -$1000 or something, and she had to wait a whole year for her tax return to pay it off.

I am one of the worst people with money. I make a decent amount, but I also spend a decent amount too. The sad thing is, I understand all of the things about APR, Credit, etc, and while I'm not living pay check to pay check, I get a lot of things I can't afford. I always somehow come out ahead, but I know I can't keep living like this. It's so hard to stop though...

I'm not a spendthrift, but I just can't be bothered to take so much care of my finances. Often I honestly have no idea how much money is in my bank accounts. Thankfully I have a job that pays me much more than I'm typically prone to spend in a given month. Tonight my friend and I are planning to drop a bundle at a friend's going-away party, showing him a good time Korean style (i.e. Korean *guys* style) and it's effect on my (non-existant) budget isn't even a consideration.

I'm still a student, so I have to watch my budget carefully. I know what I have in my bank account and I make payments on time to avoid fees. I still splurge/spend on nice things occasionally. Recently I found out I have great credit, and I don't want to do anything that could ruin it.

I'm not a saver, but I haven't ever done things that would put me in serious debt. I always pay my bills on time and, if I do overdraft, it's always because I forgot to calculate the tax on something or other and ended up 11 cents over what's in my checking account or something similar. I do have a credit card but I only use it on things I know I can pay for. Also, I don't eat a lot. I do, however, spend quite a lot of money on clothes and shoes. It's probably my one main weakness. However, I never buy something that I know I can't afford and I do manage to save a couple hundred every month.

I started working at 15 and spent all my pay as soon as I got it which wasn't much since I got paid max. $12 an hour and I also had to go to school. Now 5 years later, I'm studying full time and I have a decent job in my spare time so I've managed to only save 2k the most even though last financial year I made nearly 10k, I don't know where all my money has gone.

I do have a credit card with a $500 limit. Which I usually max out every month so there's $500 gone each month. Once I max it out I don't spend anymore and wait till the due date to pay it all off, during the time I put all my savings into a high interest account and only withdraw from I really need it. I like to use my credit card for everything because I get points and so after you save up enough points you can trade it in for gifts or gift cards or even money back to pay off your credit card. I know my dad saves up his points to pay off his annual fee which is really smart of him.

I only have 2 bills to pay off: credit card and phone bill and I'm never late.

So I guess I'm good with paying off bills on time and such but I'm really bad at saving. Sometimes most of my money goes towards gifts for people and maybe a little bit of shopping but I always try to buy on sale.

In australia we have something called HECS for uni, so we basically don't have to pay off our uni fees until we earn I think 30k+ a year and then they take that out from tax however if you do pay upfront it's a 20% discount. My dad wants to pay it upfront but I feel bad because this is my education but maybe I might consider it as a graduation present when I finish because it's a lot of debt and interest on it as well.

I asked stopped this girl on the street to inquire about an ATM and she slapped me in the face. I think she thought I was asking about something else.

That's awful...

*raises hand*

I used to be like that, but them I sort of am... I live on my pay cheques only because I don't get that many hours for work it's kind of hard for me to find one because I'm a student and I believe most employers are looking for some one that has an open availability. I still live at home *thank goodness*, I hardly splurge on myself. It's hard though when your paying phone bills that are at least ~80 (john teshing sys acess fee) and have a dog to take care of =/

i only rely on my mom's allowance
i have to watch out every cent i spend.. everytime i save money i'll end up spend it all..
example.. in mid august my mom gave me $300 for my trip and i managed to save up $100..
but then 2 weeks later i spent $100 on novels+cd..

most definitely agree. i don't mind people being cheap in a frugal way (where quality comes first); but if they become unreasonably cheap like crazy (asking for $1 on a $5 item; or asking 50% off on a high quality diamond)- it just gets out of hand, almost revolting.

anyway onto the OP: your friend is terribly careless & she more than likely needs to learn from her own bad experiences. because she can't seem to listen to reason, she'll have to take it as it is the hard way.

i used to be a big spender; i would jack/be given an allowance up to $1000 max and spend at least half of that within a week on useless mini cooper. see, the thing about money for some people is that when they are given it, the temptation to spend on something just rises. learning how to save money IS hard, in some cases, but it does have its benefits. nowadays i save my money for worthwhile invests and just spend 1/4 on things that i believe i deserve to buy after a couple weeks of hard work.

did you know it's actually bad to max out your credit card even if you're paying it on time?
when you use up all your available credit, it tells lenders you are risky because you are using 99% of what is available to you which means to them that you are hard up for cash and running out of money to pay the other lenders. (even tho this might not be the case.)
hence a lower credit score.

just passing the info along.
(i didn't know this myself till a few years ago!)

i had horrible money management skills as well last year when i was living on my own. whenever i was too lazy to cook (which was 90% of the time) i would go out and eat! i was living paycheck to paycheck too...

i've only recently learned about budgeting and saving money (i started working in the financial field)! i'm just so surprised how many people actually don't know anything about their money and how it works!