I actually know people who operate like this. My old neighbor was a paycheck to paycheck kind of guy who’d always instantly spend all of his money on any trash you can think of. One day he came home with 3(!) Michael Bay Turtle movie collectors editions because they were on sale (“fantastic value!”) and by the end of the month he didn’t have money for food. That’s how bad his financial decisions were.
Anyway instead of proper budgeting he’d come up with these horrible ways to make sure he’d have money “stashed away”. E.g. he’d prepay 100 bucks per month for his electricity and then get half of it back after a year. That was his way of saving up money. Funniest thing about this was him calling the utility company and explaining to them why he wanted the highest possible monthly payment despite using so little power. They had some trouble understanding his investment strategy.
Another classic was buying expensive things and selling them for half of what he payed. That’s pretty much what the picture implies. If you buy a $200 android phone and spend $1000 on useless crap then you won’t be able to sell your phone to pay the bills. The $1200 iphone on the other hand will get you $600 in an emergency. It’s the idiot’s piggy bank.
It reminds me of my ex’s math. She’d use her credit card to buy something useless for “us” that we didn’t need. Then ask me to pay her back for half of it, since it was for us, in cash. At the end of the month, she’d ask me for help paying her credit cards. Finally, she’d eBay whatever it was she bought because “we weren’t really using it”, and keep the money.
Reminds me of people purposefully paying too high income taxt. “It’s a nice bonus when I get it back”. I guess some sort of reasoning is that you’re then forced to put some money away and can’t spend it, but those same people will also take high-interest loans that’ll cost them dearly because now they don’t have that money at hand. And this is an actual person I know who has done this.
I actually know people who operate like this. My old neighbor was a paycheck to paycheck kind of guy who’d always instantly spend all of his money on any trash you can think of. One day he came home with 3(!) Michael Bay Turtle movie collectors editions because they were on sale (“fantastic value!”) and by the end of the month he didn’t have money for food. That’s how bad his financial decisions were.
Anyway instead of proper budgeting he’d come up with these horrible ways to make sure he’d have money “stashed away”. E.g. he’d prepay 100 bucks per month for his electricity and then get half of it back after a year. That was his way of saving up money. Funniest thing about this was him calling the utility company and explaining to them why he wanted the highest possible monthly payment despite using so little power. They had some trouble understanding his investment strategy. Another classic was buying expensive things and selling them for half of what he payed. That’s pretty much what the picture implies. If you buy a $200 android phone and spend $1000 on useless crap then you won’t be able to sell your phone to pay the bills. The $1200 iphone on the other hand will get you $600 in an emergency. It’s the idiot’s piggy bank.
And in the meantime you have a $1200 iPhone! Genius!
It reminds me of my ex’s math. She’d use her credit card to buy something useless for “us” that we didn’t need. Then ask me to pay her back for half of it, since it was for us, in cash. At the end of the month, she’d ask me for help paying her credit cards. Finally, she’d eBay whatever it was she bought because “we weren’t really using it”, and keep the money.
Reminds me of people purposefully paying too high income taxt. “It’s a nice bonus when I get it back”. I guess some sort of reasoning is that you’re then forced to put some money away and can’t spend it, but those same people will also take high-interest loans that’ll cost them dearly because now they don’t have that money at hand. And this is an actual person I know who has done this.
Crazy logic.