this thread is huge, so i have repeated myself a few times..... i started off making $18k when i got out of college.... i didn't buy dumb shit, or use my credit cards... instead I saved $ and got where I am now...... I obviously made some decent decisions and got better jobs..... but even today I don't spend $ on BLING TONES.... yes I have a decent car.... but I can afford it...... my egghead relatives and tenants will damn near starve themselves (or just charge more shit on the credit cards) to have the BLING TONES or the big stupid looking fake diamond earings.

My kids are perfectly happy wearing $40-$50 shoes.... my tenants, my nephew, etc... all *have* to have the latest shoes that are >$100.... My kids don't have any pierced ears or big baggy pants.... my tenants kids all have that shit and they use food stamps to buy their food.

I would much rather have $$$ in the bank (or less debt in many cases) than a bunch of expensive shoes or puffy jackets.....

so, if i sound like an ass.....so be it.... If i were in there position (which i was when i got out of college) i would try to save and get somewhere in life rather than having nothing but a bunch of debt and the coolest gold teeth you have ever seen.

 

Gee... I would think the stuff to get them out of the ghetto and off of welfare for one.

 

you guys keep talking about "getting somewhere." where is there to go? is the no debt life much better than their lives? if you have free food and welfare coming in, why would you want to leave? maybe you're beef isn't with the people but rather the system that helps them continue.

 

Don't worry Scot. I know what your thread is trying to say. Some day i'm going to write a book. I have a million stories all provided by my relatives. They have champagne taste and Old Milwaukee Light budgets... well some of them would have to borrow money from my dad to pay for the Old Milwaukee Light.

 

Unfortunately I think today we live in a different economic situation, the bling and toys and what not are not the problem IMO, i think it is housing. We are currently in a "its ok to be in debt society", a quite understandable moto considering the cost of housing in california. I personally live in monterey Ca, where the cost of a shack is near 500K, which NO ONE can afford, and will take YEARS to pay off, when you start of life in that huge of debt, you can easily slip into the well whats 2K more on 500K. While I understand living in cheaper areas is plausible the sacrifice may sometimes be greater than living in debt, why cant you be happy in debt? You can be very unhappy living in an area where peoples values and views are dramatically different than your own, while debt is easily managable, in fact there are constantly new ways to make it even bigger. Also do you think you would of not become successfull if you had bought a brand new sports car and financed right out of college, do you think that would fo financially ruined you? Just my 3 cents

 

[QUOTE=Ubetit,Jun 3 2006, 12:18 AM] Don't worry Scot.

 

Apparently this type of spending by people with nothing is common........a buddy of mine was talked into giving $500 as a wedding present to help his brother-in-law (he thought to help get them a good start)..... they had been living with the parents since they couldn't afford rent and had to borrow diapers because they couldn't afford them.......(one of those after the kid was born weddings)....

........so they bought a camcorder the next day with the $500...ahahha...
My buddy was pretty pissed.......

 

Actually I was short-sighted in my earlier response and you

 

Scot you have to realize we live in a debt-ridden culture. You should just see what credit offers an undergrad gets these days. I

 

Back to topic of clueless spenders:

1. One of my employees who makes $11/hr has 35-40 purses that are EACH worth $300+. I mean gucci, LV etc. She also has 140+ pairs of shoes. Btw, her 7 year old daughter has 30 purses already but they are a bit cheaper.

2. Another employee: $13/hr - has 400+ pairs of shoes/sandles, she refuses to cook - so she and her husband eat out every single night. Then she wonders why she can't lose weight.

3. This one will really crack you up scot. I met my future Brother-in-law last wknd. He went to an Ivy league school(Penn) and got in major debt. He graduated worked all over the world for a Japanese VC firm and after 7 years of working went to Villonova law school. He was complaining about his debt. So I asked him - how much? He told me $120k - I was Anyways a couple hours later we are shopping in a nice mall and he goes on to tell me that he has 25 suits and has 85 pairs of shoes. and he also has 15 pair of glasses. Not sunglasses- nope we are talking about 15 pairs of prescription glasses. My first question was going to be: ARE YOU GAY??? but I held back.