A facebook friend just posted 'who wants to help pay for my trip to Thailand?'. A few minutes later she comments on the post saying 'you guys think I'm joking...' and then linked to her Paypal. Somebody gave her $0.10.
To give some context to her latest facebook whinge, she spends money like it's going out of style. Her parents gave her a car, only for her to sell it and use the proceeds as the down payment on an older, more expensive to run/maintain car.
This trend of asking others to help pay for your fun times is getting ridiculous. My DW and I just made a team decision we will not consider any "gofundme" or similar requests period.
Now, leaving $0.10, that is pretty funny!
I'm young enough that most of my friends aren't married yet, but the few that have sent out these tedious 'please give us money' invitations/requests. I understand their reasoning, but it still feels slimy and weird.
I remember reading in an Anthony Bourdain book about how his south american kitchen staff would have a savings pool where each person turned over most of their earnings each week and one person (a different one each week) got a big wad of cash and could spend like a drunken sailor. It seems like the psychology behind that might also be behind this kind of stuff. As far as I can tell, the people who ask for money also have no problem funding others. The key thing seems to be the belief that everyone has a little bit to give, but there's no possible way everyone could just stash away that little bit each week and achieve their goal on their own.
My facebook find today is also a gofundme. A family's two year old has been offered representation by a modeling agency.
[W]e would love for her to be able to set aside a little money for college doing something she seems to enjoy.
However, we are going to have to turn the offer down due to startup costs we just can’t fit into the family budget right now, including gas to drive to Nashville and back, the need to take off work for auditions and the need for professional photographs.
So, nice instinct that it would be good to save money for the kid's college, but apparently the budget is so tight they can't come up with gas money, taking time off work, or a thousand bucks for professional headshots. I don't know the family, maybe this is legitimately true. But in that case, that seems like the more immediate problem that needs solving. (eta: they are only asking for $500 total.)
Maybe they don't realize that you also have to take time off work to take her to the jobs if she gets them. So any work she gets is going to have to cover the lost wages. Unless she takes off big with a national campaign with residuals, the math will probably not work out. And then who knows how long the kid is going to remain cute for? And it's not like her accomplishments as a two-year-old are something she can be proud of or channel into good college application material.