Oh yeah. My wife used to teach yearbook at her high school, and teachers would come in but not have the $50 deposit to reserve one, and ask her to "hold one" for them until next payday, when they could afford the deposit. $50, really?
Many teachers are very bad with money, sadly.
I am aware of my own downfall. I am a sucker for donations. And, when you work at a school, there are a lot of causes to donate to. We have club fundraisers, teachers who fall ill, livestock auctions (rural community), homeless families, holiday support causes, general school fundraisers, girl scouts, boy scouts, etc. Currently, we have a student who is extremely sick with cancer. Things don't look good. So, we're having weekly fundraisers. I've calculated that donating to all the causes since January 9th (when we went back) to now, it would be nearly $100. I don't allow myself to carry cash at work. Because I will mindlessly give. I do have an amount that is budgeted for giving, and I have that with me at work. When it's gone, I'm done.
My biggest money blow-out is sick leave. I don't use it, unless things are dire. So, I accumulate a lot of it. Well, if a teacher gets cancer or something and is out for extended periods of time, beyond their available leave, other teachers can donate leave. A lot of teachers don't have financial reserves high enough to survive a time like that. Probably because they have a 3,000 sqft home and two new cars with payments, but telling that they did it to themselves is the last thing they need to hear. And, even the best planner, on a teacher's salary, can see medical expenses wipe out years of savings.
"What the hell," I thought, "I don't use it." So, I'd give a week of leave away to those who needed it. It was only when I started considering my long-term plans (retirement and/or changing careers) that I asked myself what happens to leave that I haven't used. It turns out that they pay it to you at your current hourly rate. I have given away literal thousands of dollars in leave! It's close to 5 figures. Not that I regret it. I should, but the people I gave it to needed it more than I did. One of those people was my own mother. I'd have given her every day I had, if there wasn't an upper limit.
Anyway, I could probably write a book on the poor financial decisions that I see at the school. And, I could monopolize the MLM thread with stories of the various ones my coworkers are trying to succeed at.