Around the Internet > Antimustachian Wall of Shame and Comedy

Relatives who just don't get it

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forummm:
I'll be posting regular updates here about relatives who provide much shame and comedy. Please share your own as well.

Latest: An older spendthrift relative couple (spends about $100k more than we do) are both eligible for Social Security, have a mid-6-figure nest egg, and significant health problems, but "can't afford to retire" due to their profligate waste of money. One just quit his job and is going to dip into his 401k and take part time jobs to continue to fund their extravagance. His spouse has a 6-figure income. They are also going to cut back on loan payments to "save money".

Wasting money is kind of a badge of honor for them. They buy all kinds of things they never use, spend more on eating out in a week than we do for all our food for a month, throw away leftovers, upgrade appliances they don't use, etc. They hired an electrician to replace lightbulbs that I could reach without a ladder. They order $25 pay-per-view movies at a hotel when they know they will fall asleep in 5 minutes.

forummm:
Another relative had a several year old car that worked just fine, but wanted to buy a brand new car to drive on long trips (because putting lots of miles on the new car is the way to go, right?). He bought a nicer car than he needed (probably paying too much for it). He owed more on the old car than he got in trade-in credit (probably got screwed on the trade-in), so he rolled that extra debt into the loan for the new car. And his new, giant loan was at 26%! I didn't even know that was possible. His interest payments are 5 times his principle payments. In the end, the interest will cost him over 5 times the purchase price of the car when including the opportunity cost of the funds.

forummm:
One relative has bad credit. He wants to buy a house but can't qualify. But he can't even do simple things like paying his credit card bill on time, so his credit keeps getting dinged. He'll go over the maximum limit (fee) and not pay on time (fee plus interest plus credit score ding). Since his credit is poor, his credit limit is also low. I bet the fees and interest are something like a 500% effective interest rate on his card.

But they still waste a lot of money on stuff like bottled water, Starbucks, Whole Foods, etc, even on a small income. They'll never get out of the trap.

Fodder:
I have a family member like this.  He makes a good income, has very little in the way of obligations (renter in a one-bedroom apartment), but spends so stupidly I want to smack him.

Right out of school, when he first got a job, he bought a Jeep (a TJ, at the time).  10 years later, he still has it, but he's put THOUSANDS of dollars into it getting it jacked up, getting fancy tires, installing neoprene seats, getting fancy covers, towing systems/winches, etc.  It was his only car and he found the gas really expensive.....because it's a beast.

I should add that he very, VERY rarely goes off-road with it, and lives in a large city.

So what does he do?  Not sell it and use the proceeds to buy a reliable, well-priced used car.

Nope.  He stores it in my garage.....and bought a Volkswagon Golf TDI.  New, of course.  Fully loaded, of course.  I think it was something like $38k (Canadian) after all the options and tax.  He buys this because it's "good on gas" and has now saddled himself with a car payment for YEARS on a car that is only marginally better on gas than a car he could have paid cash for, had he been willing to sell the stupid jeep.

He recently told me that he won't be taking the Jeep out this summer (again, too expensive) and it will just live in my garage.

It just drives me crazy....seriously, he probably could have sold the Jeep for 13-14 grand, bought a great used car and had no payments, and no stupid Jeep sitting in my garage.  I let him leave it there because I have lots of space (we have one small car and the garage easily holds eight....thank the previous owner of my home for building it, because I never would have).  But because he'll "never get back the money he put into the Jeep" he leaves it sitting idle (and losing value), and because it's "good on gas," he is spending a fortune paying for a brand new car.

forummm:
One relative with a low income and a lot of debt bought a piano. Then he didn't have enough money to pay for rent, so he and his family moved in with her parents and put the piano in storage. So the piano (bought on credit) is sitting in storage (costing money to store) where it is unused. And he obviously couldn't afford the piano in the first place.

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