Worst Justifications for Spending You Have Ever Heard

[aukxsona]

I agree if my mom stopped drinking Mountain Dew and eating a full bag of Doritos everyday for lunch she would still be here. She had diabetes. She didn't even drink diet Mountain Dew. It was suicidal at that point. Plus she smoked with her asthma,

(side note, so did I for 7 years...but then I quit 6 years ago and stopped using 2 of my meds saving over 300 a month in medicine alone plus another 200 in cigarettes (2 packs a day).)

Disney Steve is right, at the lowest end a lot of people are pretty clueless. They will smoke with asthma, drink with liver disease, and eat junk with abandon with diabetes. Always claiming they can't afford the medicine, or food they need.

Another one I had to add, a person was asking on needy or greedy under a needy request for food to lose weight. I know it's not an excuse to spend, well for some people it is, but I found it so oxymoronic that I had to bust out laughing. I know from experience, if you don't have food you will lose weight QUICK! (Not that I ever suggest doing that it is hell) For anyone who thinks I am ragging on large people, I am large. I got this way by eating junk. I am eating healthier, by necessity, and am losing weight. I am not trying it is just coming off. But by eating healthier I end up eating less, a lot less. Too me it seems like too little, but when I compare it to standard serving sizes, it's about right. Anyway rant off.

[PrincessPerky]

Usually breaks even at best, loses more times than not and sometimes come back with some extra.

Oh, another one "I am getting a free hotel room" and "I am getting free meals from the casino".

It's a 200 mile drive down there, he's got a bed at home, and there is turkey in the fridge.

I'd guess the rooms go for $100 to $200 a night (I dont know). That said only expense the room would cost the casino, apart from lost revenue, for giving it away is cleaning/electricity/pillow mints, lets say $20 total.

The free dinner would have run $25 or so, but probably cost the casino $10 at most (guessing again).

So, he burns $80 worth of gas for what is truely only $30 free. In the mean time he stands to leave $200 or so with the casino which makes up their expense 6 or 7 times over.

K then he is avoiding the whole picture..

[sweeps]

Another bad justification is when someone says "I make $X an hour. It's not worth my time to <fill in the blank> for less than that."

Of course that logic only makes sense if you'd actually be missing work to do that task.

[asmom]

You're going to have bills to the day you die so you might as well spend it when you got it. (from my own mother unfortunately)

[LivingAlmostLarge]

OMG I gotta add in my early 20s, when health insurance for college students was NOT mandated, pretty much everyone I knew didn't have it.

And OF COURSE at some point in their stupidity of being a drunken college student they needed it!

And what happened? Trust me being smart and being stupid is a fine line. Especially when drinking.

[gamecock43]

I just remembered my mothers favorite line; "its an investment" when she was buying:
*diamond jewlery
*one of a kind dolls
*beanie babies
*loose gemstones
*collectors barbie dolls
*any knick knack that was a 'special edition number' and she had to pay the extra money to get as close to 'special edition #1' as she could because they are worth more than 'special edition #4997.'

(and if anyone is wondering, all of the above mentioned items are worthless. Even the jewlery loses value due to the extreme markup when you initially purchase it)

Oh, I got another one, and heres a weird one:

"But I'm bipolar, I cant help it" . yes. I heard that alot. How can you even argue with that?

[disneysteve]

*diamond jewlery
*one of a kind dolls
*beanie babies
*loose gemstones
*collectors barbie dolls
*any knick knack that was a 'special edition number' and she had to pay the extra money to get as close to 'special edition #1' as she could because they are worth more than 'special edition #4997.'

(and if anyone is wondering, all of the above mentioned items are worthless.

They probably aren't worthless (okay, maybe the beanie babies are) but surely the diamond jewelry and loose gemstones are still worth a fair amount, though it may be less than purchase price. If any of the jewelry is gold, it may be worth more today due to higher gold prices.

[gamecock43]

I tried to recoup everything after she passed.
*The gemstones might be worth a bit if they were not QVC gemstones with names like 'alexchrondrite'. Didnt stop QVC from charging her a bundle to get them.
*The jewlery was also QVC and some weird gold, not regular 14, 18, 24k.
I did melt down other stuff and that was worthwhile. However the jewler going through the pile just kept saying, "I dont understand, theres $20,000 here in costume junk and a real heirloom piece would have been half the price."
*I have been selling the one of a kind dolls on ebay for the past 3 yrs, and if I recoup 20% of the original price, it was a sucessful sale for me.
*I cant even get the collectible barbie dolls sold in garage sales. Nor can I give them away as gifts, how would I explain why I am handing a child a 1990 christmas barbie in 2008? I think I am going to donate the barbies and use it as a tax write off. I'm waiting for the year I need a tax write off.
*Swaraski crystal sells for about 20% of it's original price on ebay as well.

My mom did keep meticulous records of her purchases (reciepts stashed all over the house) and adding it up to get an idea of what I was dealing with; she spent over $300,000 in doll purchases. Yes. that was the correct amount of zeros. I have sold 90% of the collection and recouped $31,000.

Another sad thing is I have come across people just as financially crazy as my mom when selling the items on ebay. People giving me sob stories of having their wedding band for sale on ebay and once that sells they will have the $ to pay me, but can they send the money via money order because their husband has cut them off from paypal and doesnt know she's selling the jewlery. And I am confronted with the ethical question of "do I continue to sell to this person?"

[disneysteve]

*The gemstones might be worth a bit if they were not QVC gemstones with names like 'alexchrondrite'.

Gotcha. I thought you were talking about real gemstones and real jewelry, not stuff sold on QVC, HSN and infommercials.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Gamecock43, I know it hurts the most with your Mom, but the last part of your story was the part that made me say "Oh, that's awful." I hope at least your Mom was not ruining her finances or ability to take care of needs...An older friend of mine told me she'd gone through a period of buying jewelry through QVC and she kept being dissatisfied with it, but did not return it. She showed me a bracelet that looked no better than what I would buy taped to a piece of cardboard at Target for $8. But she did at least wear all the stuff she'd bought.

[gamecock43]

Well, if someone actually believes that buying the above items are a form of 'investment' then it also doesnt suprise me that they actually believe these overpriced knock offs will truly stop being produced and become a highly coveted item.
I think my mom thought she was being 'smarter' than the average person by 'investing' in these alternative collectibles that other people will overlook and in the end there are a million diamond rings floating around, but she was only 1 of 400 people to buy the QVC diamonique emerald cut ring that will one day become vintage and be all the rage in society.

[gamecock43]

Joan-
My mom was def imbalanced, and I do have stories of the things she purchased. I attribute all my spending habits directly to learning from her (luckily I tend to hoard money than spend it).
But what kills me is how just didnt see it. She thought the QVC and fake fur coats looked real. She thought investing in those companies that are pyramid schemes was her ticket to wealth. She thought there had to be an easy way to get alot of money. If she invested enough in something, she'd become a millionaire. But she didnt bother to research anything, she just let people persuade her to give them money.
The spokespeople on informercials? She believed them. Every one of them. "All I have to do is pay $300 for a fanny pack to go around my waist filled with a heating pad and I will lose 20lbs in 2 weeks? Well that makes sense. Let me buy one. No. Let me buy three because I'm going to try the other two on my legs."
And in the end, she drove herself nuts by the debt she racked up. I was constantly uncertain of what was going on because my mom would say she was broke and cant pay the bills, but its hard to convince anyone your broke when your house looks like the Nieman Marcus mecca of department store shopping.

[PrincessPerky]

*I cant even get the collectible barbie dolls sold in garage sales. Nor can I give them away as gifts, how would I explain why I am handing a child a 1990 christmas barbie in 2008? I think I am going to donate the barbies and use it as a tax write off. I'm waiting for the year I need a tax write off.

I think you could give them away if you put them in the toys for tots or the operation Christmas child boxes, kids in very poor countries who never get dolls wont mind. and I know operation Christmas child is a tax write off. Not as good as recouping the loss, but at least you would get something.

My MIL has tons of 'collectible' dolls, not sure what she thinks they are worth, but thank goodness she isn't in debt for them. I know after minimal research my vote would be to donate them to girls who need some fun.

[gamecock43]

My MIL has tons of 'collectible' dolls, not sure what she thinks they are worth, but thank goodness she isn't in debt for them. I know after minimal research my vote would be to donate them to girls who need some fun.


Yes. These items are worth far, far more to a child than they are to an adult.

I of course tried to recoup the money spent on the items, but selling them and recieving $5 for a $100 item was my way of;
1)justifying to myself that my internal radar telling me these items are worthless was right
2)having valid proof to 'show' my mom that all those years of me telling her to quit buying stuff only to have her tell me I dont know anything was actually me being right and her being wrong.
and 3) My whole life I have had a fantasy of throwing away all the broken items she planned to fix, throwing away all the old deteriorating and badly maintained things she insisted were still worth something because she paid alot of money for the item, and to sell of each of those ridiculous dolls off one by one. The house looked like a bag ladies house when I got started, but man was it liberating to go through it!

I filled up 3 extra large driveway dumpsters, had a garage sale and made 4 grand in one day, and still had to pay a moving company 6 grand to haul 2800sft of furniture, dolls and collectible items to FL so I could go through it piece by piece and try to see if these items were 'investments' or junk.

[rob62521]

My mom and dad were always buying and selling things, but after my dad died and my mom got older, she didn't really have an idea of what a lot of things were worth. She kept telling me, "when I'm gone, this is worth a lot." Like all things, collectibles go in cycles. However, most of her collectibles even if it was on the "up" cycle were ruined by all the years of cigarette smoking she did. And yes, "it'll be worth something someday" was a huge justicification I heard over and over.