who's the most frivolous spender you know?

[97guns]

i have a cousin that absolutely bleeds money. he has a house in arizona that he is a little upside down on. its a beautiful 5 bedroom house with pool and the works. he got laid off around 4 years ago and was unable to find work, his unemployment ran out and was stressing out. he decided to move back home to ca. for work, left the house with his 3 sons in college and rents a house here, still making payments to az. his job is good for 80K but has the mortgage and $1800 rent here.

in the mean time he closed down his 401K for 240K. he got the funds and bought: a new truck, 8 foot wet bar for the rental, some chrome for his harley's, new carpet/flooring for az., furniture/tv's for 2X households and more chrome for his 3 harley's. when tax time came he finds that he owes 17K so he gets a loan, an "easy" loan in his words, took him 10 minutes at a rinky dink loan office while i waited in the car, so they must have dinged him hard on the interest rate.


the week he moved back we went shopping at both lowes and home depot, he bought every tool you could think of on their store credit. he tells me "if you think i need it throw it in the cart" he comes home with 2 chest high roller chests full of hand tools, electric tools, saws, sanders, jig saws, you name it. they drop $500 a week at costco and are the only family of 4 that i know of to eat $1000 worth of steak at a fine restaurant, not every week but they did it once and thats 1 too many for me.

his poor sweet little wife has her head in the sand, she lets him run everything and questions nothing.
.....and then he just tells me this a few weeks back "every guy wants to be like me"

[dczech09]

He must be following an example from the most frivolous spender in our country- CONGRESS!

Seriously, that is pretty crazy. And not at all surprising. I am sure he is just one out of many!

[Blessed]

I must lead a sheltered life. I really don't know any that are totally frivolous or reckless besides a coworker. she is losing her house and has problems galore but still eats out daily, smokes, drinks and gambles. My friends might say me when it comes to spending on rock concerts That's my weak spot and my teens love it.

[Shaabenanizer]

My brother-in-law's friend who is also my contractor. He's one of the sweetest guy around but absolutely lousy with money management. He's a compulsive decorator and seems renovate and change out his furniture every year when his style change. Brother-in-law keeps hoping his friend will get married (girl or guy, at this point it doesn't matter) to a partner who can keep a lid on the drain and give the friend an allowance.

[phantom]

My husband has a friend who once complained that he spent an entire paycheck just on taking a girl out to eat. I'm not sure how often he gets paid and whether that covered a month's worth of dates or a week's. But, even assuming weekly paychecks and a month's worth of dates, that's still about a quarter of his take-home pay spent trying to impress a girl. If he were a teenager working part-time, I'd give him a pass. But, this is a 36 year old who constantly complains about how much he hates living with his mother. So, I can't help but think he needs to get his spending under control and grow up.

[papa_squat]

I could go on about either my father or my sister. My sister has improved a bit in recent years because she was out of work for almost a year and tanked her credit not paying bills, but she floated through it getting "loans" from my mother and grandmother (loans that have never--and likely will never-be repaid).

My father had a great career, but a shopping addiction that continues to pull the rug out from under him. He used to spend whole paychecks at high-end clothing stores and go on shopping sprees for the latest gadgets from Sharper Image and Hammacher Schlemmer. My parents divorced due to financial stress and my father filed for backruptcy, but then remarries and turned around and bought a very nice house and SUV that same year. He tried to file for bankruptcy again just two years later because he was already under water on everything! I had hopes his behavior was improving after he changed jobs and rented a house instead of buying and appeared to cut back for about 4 years. But a couple of years ago, just as he started to get ahead, he bought the house he was renting, ended up renovting half of it and then bought a brand new Audi A4 with probably no more than $3k down, all the while maintaining a mistress on the side. Then he divorced his wife; she's never worked more than a a few days in her life and he never set up any kind of retirement account for her, so she managed to get HALF of his retirement plus alimony payments for the next 4 years. Now he's struggling to keep a job and asking friends and family for loans again, all while driving around in a A4.

I will never understand why he does it to himself. He asked my husband and I for money less than 6 months ago and I'm worried he's going to ask again soon. We want to help, but anything we could could give is likely just a drop in the bucket for him, and may even go toward something totally superfluous instead of something he really needs.

[bjl584]

Hands down, it has to be toocheap?

[BuckyBadger]

Hands down, it has to be toocheap?

I agree 100%!!!

[Blessed]

I agree 100%!!!

[heyaim]

I have several in my immediate family.

My brother - if he has any money it has to be spent! Has no savings, I basically forced him into contributing to IRA (we work together in family business). Every month he talks about not contributing anymore...

My brother in law - Same thing...spend spend spend! Always has to be the biggest and best. Get this...the only way he will work overtime is if HE gets the money!! It's his, not for the family (wife and daughter...they also have 2 grown children). The most selfish person I've ever met!

Mother in law - Oh my! She's been an RN for 25+ years...makes great money. Gambles it all away! Does nothing but complain about having no money. I couldn't even tell you how many times she's refinanced her house to get rid of her credit card debt. Now she's talking about retiring next year!!! Could be scary...add all that extra time with gambling on a fixed income.

Yes, each of these people make fun of my budgeting and my envelopes! I'm sure I will be the one laughing in the end. (Not really, I hate to see what I know will happen in the end)

[dawnwes]

I have a friend whose husband makes decent money, but she blows it. Imported purses to the tune of $350 each, shopping for clothing over $500/mo, cell phone bills of $300/month for her family plan. Her car was down to its last payment and needed about $1,000 in service. She decided she didn't have the $1,000 for repairs, so we traded it in for a car that she now has to pay $400/mo for for 5 years.

The logic in her spending!

[Gailete]

I worked with a woman that spent money like it was water. She would talk about getting her car detailed weekly, going out to Red Lobster with her 7 years old several times a week, we would stop at a store after work and before I could even walked into the store due to my bad knees, she would have a complete armful of clothes to buy--never tried them on, just charged them, Made frequent forays to Niagara Falls to gamble and always talked about the rooms that she got comped. Funny thing we never heard about the trips after she lost big. She could never understand how I could make ends meet as I was living on just my income and she got the same amount plus child support. In the months prior to her filing for bankruptcy, she made sure she charged an entire summer wardrobe (I was still wearing my 10 year old clothes at this point). i have never seen anyone spend like her. Don't work with her anymore so I don't know how she is doing, but I'm sure she is in just as much debt as before.

[Wino]

I knew a guy who had no real debt, and a good income. Then, he lost someone very close to him two months after she was diagnosed with cancer; both of them were completely blind-sided by the diagnosis and her death. Coincidentally, the same month she passed away, he got an increase on his credit card limit to allow about an additional $20,000.00 in spending; a second card was raised about $8K. He went on a "retail therapy binge." Within a year, he had run up his credit cards to over $50K in debt, plus owed an additional $25K to Amex. Other than some camera equipment, he had nothing to show for his spending. He did, though have two additional cards, and a few store cards in his wallet. As has been said in the past, "He spent thousands on wine, women, and song. He just wasted the rest of it."

He had problems with his fuel pump, so he parked his car and he went to a dealer and bought a $35K car with zero down payment. He then made about $25K improvements on his house over a two month period, paying others to do most of the work, although he was more than capable himself of doing 90% of the work.

He was in a severe depression, no doubt. When all was said and done, he owed about $155K in unsecured debt (car is included, but it was way upside-down). Except for the Amex, which he could have and should have paid (and eventually did pay after Amex sent his account to collections), he wasn't behind on any of his bills, but he had nothing left over to spend. His spending binge went on for about 2 years or so.

That guy was me, about 6 years ago.

[UnknownXV]

Does it bother anyone else that people so irresponsible can simply file for bankruptcy, and most or sometimes all of their problems go away? It doesn't seem fair to people or banks or stores who lend them the money.

[heyaim]

I knew a guy who had no real debt, and a good income. Then, he lost someone very close to him two months after she was diagnosed with cancer; both of them were completely blind-sided by the diagnosis and her death. Coincidentally, the same month she passed away, he got an increase on his credit card limit to allow about an additional $20,000.00 in spending; a second card was raised about $8K. He went on a "retail therapy binge." Within a year, he had run up his credit cards to over $50K in debt, plus owed an additional $25K to Amex. Other than some camera equipment, he had nothing to show for his spending. He did, though have two additional cards, and a few store cards in his wallet. As has been said in the past, "He spent thousands on wine, women, and song. He just wasted the rest of it."

He had problems with his fuel pump, so he parked his car and he went to a dealer and bought a $35K car with zero down payment. He then made about $25K improvements on his house over a two month period, paying others to do most of the work, although he was more than capable himself of doing 90% of the work.

He was in a severe depression, no doubt. When all was said and done, he owed about $155K in unsecured debt (car is included, but it was way upside-down). Except for the Amex, which he could have and should have paid (and eventually did pay after Amex sent his account to collections), he wasn't behind on any of his bills, but he had nothing left over to spend. His spending binge went on for about 2 years or so.

That guy was me, about 6 years ago.

So sorry for your loss! Everyone deals with grief differently! You are back on track now, that's what is important.