No joke.. An acquaintence of mine straight out of college just got a $35,000/yr job and just financed a $65,000 6 Series BMW. I got a call from him today that he is going down to Rent N Roll to get some rims. He said that they have payments for as low as $30/month on some of their rims. Just LOL.. Oh by the way, he rents an apartment, and recently skipped out on his $75 bartab the last time we were out. I'm going to kick his ass next time I see him.. The End.
these people that spend beyond their means always have some sort of reason to justify their purchases. About 2 years ago, my good buddy who's up to his eyeballs in debt (household income of about $110k) because of a huge house, 2 SUVs, and 2 cars, plasma TV and the whole nine yards decided to file bankruptcy. To make a long story short, a couple of months after he filed bankruptcy, he sold his Chevy Tahoe to buy a "souped up" BMW 3 series. I told him he's crazy for spending all that money just right AFTER he filed for BK. His answer? "This thing practically pays for itself with the fuel savings I get instead of driving that Tahoe" :eek: Just 2 months ago, he got an $18k bonus from his job and he blew it all to buy a new TV (again), a new $5000 watch, and paid some credit card bills off. Told me his watch is an investment.
the novelty wears off quick....if they only new this some wouldnt overleverage themselves into the abbys....a nice souped up BMW is nice right up until you go to home depot and have to get all the dirt and mulch in the back seat...
There has to be a balance between saving and spending. It is just as bad to spend it all as to save it all. We only live once. I have a great family, drive new BMW, own my residence, have few nice toys (including recently purchased iPhone), but I do not live above my means, I live right along with them. I have nice savings, 401K and currently building up a grab stake for full time trading. Can I buy $5000 watch? Sure, I can. But would I? Of course not. It is plain stupid. I have plasma TVs which I bought 2 years ago, when price became real (much more expensive than today though). But I would not change them for newer models because it is a true waste of money. I will buy new ones when these stop working, probably 5 years from now. Life is here to be enjoyed, but it needs to be enjoyed responsibly. Regards, Alex
Exactly. I have seen both sides up close. My dad was actually nuts, autistic sort of, he just could not put together a value system so he settled on "cheap" as a value system. I had a hard time getting health care and never had glasses when I needed them for school, that is how cheap he was, and I had ratty clothes for the most part. I was always reasonably thrifty after I was on my own until I got married. My wife ran up debts I did not even know about while I was really thinking over small purchases. When I found that the credit companies could screw with me like that I just gave up and started spending without regard for the future, between dad, my wife, and the credit card companies they made me crazy. I spent right up until I was out of work and I just stopped paying them all, I was about ready to get a horse and go into the woods and never come out by that time. We managed to grab some real estate while muddling through all that and put the kid through a very good school but the debt thing just got boring after awhile. I had kept the debt largely unsecured and at some point I realized I never was going to really need credit or a credit rating again so I paid off a couple of debts, they were the polite ones, and I stiffed the ones that were pushy about things and I retired to a life of trading index futures, so far that pays ok and I don't really have any regrets. I think I started to see the credit thing as an attack on my manhood and household or something, the lenders could lend my wife money without me knowing about it at all and completely fuck up my plans to pay the mortgage off early. I'm actually getting credit offers, I'm tempted to take them up on a card or two and just stiff 'em but the wife gets annoyed by the phone calls and it would actually be fraud to knowingly take them up on the offer, not that they could do much about that but hey........ We just buried one of the extremely thrifty types. He had a ratty house in a nice neighborhood. He had six figures in the checking account, more than enough to fix up the house but he was just nuts. He was a hoarder, there was literally no place to sit in the house.. we took care of him for a year and then finally he croaked. We have spent many weekends sorting and throwing stuff away. I could not stand the guy, he was a workplace bullying bastard basically, and he especially did not like me because I just don't respond "properly" to bullying. I still wish I had a mob crew to teach people manners, I might yet... So there are the extremes, people that don't spend when they could live in a nice house and have great vacations, and people that spend without reasoning power.. The middle is just not available to people that are nuts really.