Their Spending Habits Driving You Nuts?
Posted by Cap in Personal Finance |Question from a reader:
Do you have a friend or relative whose spending habits drive YOU crazy? Totally wasteful with their money?
Let me start by putting on my hypocrite suit, because to be fair, I use to be quite a spender myself. Now let me put on the groin cup, because my sister might read this.
My sister’s spending habit drives me nuts. She recently bought a condo and she’s filling the place up in full force. I’ve already mentioned her big screen 50″ HDTV. Couple days after she moved in, my sister got another TV, this time a flat panel plasma TV—so you know, you can hang them on the wall.
Recently, I walked into her kitchen and found myself starring at two refrigerators. She bought a new one. It’s a really nice one, big enough to store a cow or two, but the old refrigerator was still in working order.
Argh. I tried to talk to my sister about it, but my poor attempts usually come out as if I’m lecturing. Which doesn’t end well. Which brings me back to that groin cup I mentioned.
Feel free to rant with me.
20 Comments to “Their Spending Habits Driving You Nuts?”
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April 24th, 2006 at 6:25 am
It’s pretty funny when people spend money on unnecessary crap, and it doubly funny if they put it all on credit.
However, it’s not as funny when family does it. Unless it’s that annoying richy cousin of yours.
:)
April 24th, 2006 at 8:06 am
My brother is that way. A spender instead of a saver.
He just got a new car(he needed it though) and could have paid cash for it if he’d had saved over the years.
Dave
April 24th, 2006 at 10:25 am
I have an Aunt who is very rich, who spends frugally. Lives well, but not extravagently. My grown kids spend it as soon as they get it. One just spent $40.00 on a pair of flip flop shoes! I think I spent that TOTAL on shoes for all of last year!
April 24th, 2006 at 11:07 am
Don’t rant – visit your wonderful sis a lot! And bring your XBox and DVD collection.
April 24th, 2006 at 11:33 am
Personal finance choices are just that–personal. You’re certainly entitled to lend your suggestions, but at some point you have to step back and let your sister spend her money on whatever junk she wants.
April 24th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
I never say anything to anyone in my family about how they spend their money. Maybe Cap is like me and just sits back and watches from afar in dazed amazement!
April 24th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
Cool title for your blog.
Your sister sounds like one of my kids. Earn big, spend big is his mantra, or so it seems to me.
April 24th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
ah. there’s just one problem, she’s not exactly earning big. Max’s right, it’s not funny when close ones spend themselves into bankruptcy—doubt it’ll come to that but you worry regardless.
Skye’s right, I don’t really try to say anything anymore. Like Tad said, it’s personal decisions, so the final decision rest w/ them. I’m glad I figured out before I was really in the pooper!
Lastly, I dont have a xbox or a cool dvd collection :P I do have urges to bring my receiver and speaker system over & rent the latest DVD release though.
April 24th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
If you have the money and can afford it, that’s one thing but people who don’t really bug me. I know people who complain that they can’t afford their bills/mortgage/car payment/rent/food/etc and then a few *months* later are going away on a vacation or buying a big screen TV.
Yeah, sure, it’s a personal decision but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t bug me; it just means I don’t have a whole lotta rights to slap them upside the head. :)
April 24th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
I saw a sign once on one of our small banks here in town, “Vacation Loans!”. It never occurs to most people I guess that if you need to take out a loan to go on vacation, you probably need to keep working!
April 25th, 2006 at 5:58 am
heh… vacation loans.
Confession: I did that before, ‘cept it was on a credit card. Trip to Paris when I couldn’t afford it. I eventually slapped myself back to reality, or rather, the debt did.
April 25th, 2006 at 8:15 am
Jeez, who am I to talk now that I think about it. We got a computer from Dell last year. And even with our excellent credit, we got a “Preferred” rate of 18% with their financing! Needless to say, after getting our first bill we transfered the balance over to a 0% rate card. A bad impulse purchase we could still be paying dearly on if we had not been able to switch the balance over. Lesson learned.
April 25th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
My brother sounds like your sister. He’s an ‘early adopter’ of all technology. So far, he’s resisted the urge to by a plasma TV. The problem is that if he gets in trouble, he knows that his parents or his good ‘ol sis will bail him out. Sigh.
April 25th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
my aunt and uncle (legal guardians) have borrowed over $10k from a college fund that was set up for me by my mother. This was over 6 years ago (I’m 3 years out of college), and they’ve only paid me back $2k. I might be able to stomach it better if they hadn’t just moved into a new home, leased a brand new Jaguar or purchased a gigantic plasma tv.
April 25th, 2006 at 8:31 pm
I’m moving out with a friend in two weeks and I fear that she is one person who has spending habits I will cringe at! I will admit that I have been known to spend, but I have savings and I know that bills get paid first.
She has been complaining that our rent will be too high and that she can’t afford to put in money for a new fridge, yet the first thing she wants to get when we move in is internet and cable and of course a new tv. Nevermind that we will living 5 minutes from my folks’ place, with internet and cable available, but there’s nothing wrong with the tv – it’s a bit small and about 8 years old, but it works fine.
My suggestion was either to wait and see how she copes with the new rent etc (which was what I was planning to do) or she can get the stuff and pay those bills herself. I’ll bet they suddenly lose their ‘required’ status!
April 27th, 2006 at 1:56 am
abstraction: eek. early adopter of gadgets.
abby: the aunts and uncle borrowing from the college fund is also eek.. although I don’t really know the situation, it doesn’t sound too good.. leasing a brand new car and all too. sheesh.
mandy: ah moving in with a buddy that has different spending habit can be quite interesting. hopefully she’ll figure out eventually whats important and prioritize.
April 28th, 2006 at 10:19 am
So many TVs. My family has had 2 TVs. One from the 70s, with wood siding and such. Then in the early 90s we gave the old TV to a grad student my parents knew and bought a 27″ tv. It’s good enough for me. We don’t even use the picture-in-picture feature.
May 3rd, 2006 at 10:49 am
My former co-worker and her husband were the ultimate consumers. They kept the economy moving single-handedly, but since I no longer work with her, maybe things have changed. I doubt it, though. I watched this insanity for about 8 years:
They had no children and hadn’t planned to have any. They were constantly replacing their possessions with new ones: furniture, TVs, houses, cars, even pets. Rarely did any one item last more than a year in their possession. They bought and sold homes at least 6 times in six years. When the Mazda Miata came out, they had to be the first to get it, paying something like a $5000 premium for the privilege. When CDs (music kind) started being marketed in earnest, they got rid of all their cassette tapes and repurchased their music in CD form.
Her sister (also a co-worker) was driven crazy by this, but she was also the beneficiary of her sister’s nuttiness: she bought a huge-screen TV off Sis for $40, new beds for her kids, etc.
The saddest situation was the pets. They’d take in little Fido or even buy a purebreed kitty for big bucks, then find a new home for the pet within months for one reason or another.
Me, I was a single mother of three hoping my kids were getting enough nutrition from mac & cheese. This drove me crazy.
July 6th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
I’m currently in a hell like this at home.
I’m 19, started college recently, and have only had summer jobs(In one now saving like a maniac)
I’m a very frugal person, I rarely if ever spend on anything unessisary, hobby-wise Warcraft 3 is still my game of choice(No monthly fee for me!) But my father(And sister) are both spendaholics. They spend like there is no tomorrow. It amazes me as my father gets raises, he raises his spending in line. My sister on the other hand is broke all the time(She goes to a Starbucks/WaWa 1 or 2 times a DAY) even though we get the same checks(At college) and I had a ‘hefty’ surplus to enjoy this summer on.
Basically my problem is my father uses my credit card like it is his, which works both well and bad. The good is he pays on it every 2 weeks, the bad news is he insists on putting dinner on it, and even my sister’s books! He is steady with the payments, and has guaranteed me my cards come first when money gets tight, but I’m really afraid of him getting me in credit trouble over time. But at the same time I’m too young and not nearly sufficient enough to break out on my own… Leads to sleepless nights, I’ll tell you that, but it is good to know he considers building my credit a priority. I’ve found a lot of peace reading about other people’s situations.
Dosen’t life find a way tosuck and rule at the same time