Spending revelation for my coworker

[disneysteve]

I've posted before about one girl who works in my office. She is 20 or 21 and spends virtually 100% of her income, even though she lives at home free of charge and has limited necessary expenses. Then she complains about not having money for things she wants to do.

One things I realized after a little while is that every Monday she is talking about the movie she saw over the weekend. Yesterday, she was telling me about seeing Transformers. She then said that she keeps a memory box of things she and her boyfriend do together. She went through it the other night and in the past year, they had spent over $800 on movie tickets. That was tickets only and didn't include the junk food they bought at the theater which is probably another $500. She said, "Wouldn't it be great to have that $800 saved up for something?" Of course, I suggested, "Maybe you should stop going to the movies so much."

She is leaving for a trip to Florida next week and for weeks has been talking about how she doesn't have much spending money for the trip. Gee, maybe if you and your boyfriend weren't spending $25 every weekend to see a movie you'd have some money put aside for the trip. Since she is actually the one who brought this up, I'm curious to see if it sinks in.

[DebbieL]

I wouldn't hold my breath, lol. I'm sure I spent all my money at 20 years old too (not that I had a ton of it). I was waitressing at the time. I ate at work for free, used my paycheque to cover my half of the rent, then took my tips to the bar at night. Good times...

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

She might think that telling you about her perceived lack of spending money is a polite way to nudge "the boss" into paying her more.

It is hard for me to see how anyone can be so dense about their own spending.

[disneysteve]

She might think that telling you about her perceived lack of spending money is a polite way to nudge "the boss" into paying her more.

It is hard for me to see how anyone can be so dense about their own spending.

Since I'm not the boss, complaining to me really wouldn't do her any good so I don't think that's the issue. We're just all pretty friendly and she and one other girl, also in her 20s, are often saying how they just can't seem to save any money. This is the same girl who was contemplating getting a new car even though she's only had her car about 2 years. We actually talked her out of that one.

I'm jus thinking that the movie thing might be one of those lightbulb moments, since she's the one who realized it herself.

Sure, we're all stupid when we're young, but hopefully we learn along the way. I just try to be a good financial role model.

[jamai]

am sure she'll learn someday. as she gets older and the debts start to pile up, she'll be forced to manage her finances better.

[neatdesign]

Maybe you could send her an email tomorrow and say something like this:

When you mentioned how surprised you were by how much money you'd spent on movie tickets over the past year, it reminded me of something called the "Latte Factor" -- Oprah even did a whole show about it. I thought you might find this interesting. It's a "Latte Factor" calculator that adds up all the little charges we make every day (like buying a latte each morning, which is where it got its name) and shows you how if you save that money instead, you could end up a millionaire. You should check it out!

And then give her this link: The Latte Factor: Save Five Dollars a Day

Since it links to Oprah's website, maybe she'll be more inclined to actually read it than if it linked to Kiplinger's or something!

~ Jenney

[southerngal8]

I like Jenney's idea. It will hopefully make her realize that the small expenses add up over time, and help here figure out where her money is going. I am in my late 20's, but when I was 21 I had no concept of money.
She will learn with time and hopefully not the hard way like I did.

[PrincessPerky]

It might not be the revelation, but it is prolly one more match lit up towards a fire...pretty cool she has a good role model in the office, as opposed to a partner in debt.

[rob62521]

I don't think it's always an age thing. We have a friend who is 60 and is on a good pension, but always complains how he needs extra money to pay down his bills. He retired 4 years ago and still had a huge mortgage on his house. During this same time period he has bought two new cars, been on expensive trips (two to Europe), got a home equity loan to put new siding and windows on his house, bought a fridge on time, and just purchased a 61 inch flat screen t.v. also on time. He is always buying stuff from Danbury Mint and places like that. This is the stuff we know about, that he brags about. He thinks we are sticks in the mud because we don't go all out. We've purchased some new items in the past year, but paid cash for them, but any time we've gotten something and he's noticed it (we didn't brag), he then has to go out and out do us on some of them. I didn't realize we were in competition!