This article on credit card debt self-help groups is interesting, and also, incredibly hilarious in parts:
Last month, 26-year-old accountant Shawanda Greene says she joined "Girls Just Wanna Have Funds," a recently created Washington, D.C., support group of mostly younger women. Ms. Greene's goal: to figure out why, despite an annual salary of $82,000, she had only $54 in her savings account.The Girls kicked into action, encouraging Ms. Greene to track her spending. While some of her income was going to pay down debt, including $14,500 in student loans, Ms. Greene realized she was also spending too much on extras, like her $400 Cole Haan boots and her hungry boyfriend, who she says would consume much of her food when he came over. "Things were particularly bad when it came to produce," she says. "He'd eat like four tangerines at once....Sometimes I'd cut up some watermelon, pineapple and strawberries. He'd eat a good 75% of that."
So, Ms. Greene says she dumped him, after frequent arguments about grocery bills and other money matters. The former boyfriend, a 36-year-old engineer named Lindon Fairweather, says he shared grocery costs but acknowledges he did munch a lot of fruit at Ms. Greene's. "I'll eat more than four tangerines, absolutely....I can eat 18 mangoes in two days," he says. "That's just me."
I'm very much enjoying picturing the expression on his face when a reporter from the Wall Street Journal called him to check on his daily fruit consumption. But he must be a very easygoing man. If my boyfriend was counting the tangerines I consumed at his house--and putting them in the same mental basket as $400 shoes--he wouldn't have to worry about breaking up with me. I'd take care of the problem for him.
She should've been happy that the boyfriend was eating healthy stuff. Would she rather he scarfed down nachos and corn dogs?
It takes a lot of tangerines to get to $81,946. I'm thinking that guy dodged a bullet.
They talk about tangerines but not a word about who pays when they go out for dinner?
Also, I'm wondering, is the inability to live within means as imbalances between genders as the media/pop culture would have you believe? Specifically among those who are not settled down yet and have sufficient income not to be in debt. I guess statistics for average credit card debt for college educated 24-35 year olds broken out by gender would answer my question.
Umm, she's a twenty-six year old accountant. That means she's probably an auditor. This was just another tick mark to her -- looking beyond the number on the spreadsheet would require a lot of deprogramming.
I'm thinking that there aren't many households that are drowning in debt due to excessive produce consumption.
"Umm, she's a twenty-six year old accountant. That means she's probably an auditor."
Yeah, he dodged a bullet. On several levels.
A 26-y/o auditor who buys $400 boots. Wow. He is getting out just in time.
"Umm, she's a twenty-six year old accountant. That means she's probably an auditor."
Yeah, he dodged a bullet. On several levels.
A 26-y/o auditor who buys $400 boots. Wow. He is getting out just in time.
An accountant needs a support group to help her figure out what her spending is buying? Seriously?
Also, what is the net effect of the boyfriend? If she is eating at his place, or he is paying when they go out, she may not be "losing" money by having him around (of course, he may be total slacker for all I know).
Gotta love the title of the article: In the Debt-Soaked Economic Slump, Americans Find Solace in Support Groups
Of course it would be someone else's ("the economy", Bush, Big Oil, take your pick) fault...
The fruit-eating boyfriend makes me smile; I remember the WARNING! WARNING! bells when I went on my first and last date with a girl who admitted to having a problem with her Old Navy credit card.
That being said, it takes a lot of self-discipline to keep track of all the financial inputs/outputs of a married couple. I think I do much more than average and I think I barely keep up.
"It takes a lot of tangerines to get to $81,946. I'm thinking that guy dodged a bullet."
This is the right answer. That's why he seems "easygoing". The minute a WSJ reporter called him about this article, he stopped being upset about the breakup (if he was before).
When I was single, I went to lunch with a woman from my office who insisted on paying for her own lunch, then made two unsuccessful attempts to do so with her credit card. When I paid for the whole thing, she said she'd pay next time.
I let her do that at the next office group lunch.
""It takes a lot of tangerines to get to $81,946. I'm thinking that guy dodged a bullet."
Or scurvy..
"...I can eat 18 mangoes in two days, he says...'
The real problem she had with him is he spent all his time in the bathroom..
These boots are made for walkin', that's what they're gonna do. One-na these days these boots are gonna . . . walk all over you! (cue guitar riff dum-dunna-dum-dunna-dum-dunna-da). C'mon boots, start walkin' (cue trumpet sole).
Fascinating. 6 years ago, I was a mere 26 year old lad. I was making $24,000/year as a grad student living in the Bay Area of California.
My expenses:
Rent: $955/month
Health Insurance (Yes, I paid for it myself!! Without gov't intervention!): $172
Taxes: $300
Transit: ~$30 (occasional bus/train rides, otherwise biked)
Food: $250
SAVINGS: $250
Beer money: ~$40/month
Making less than 1/3 what she did, yet saved $3000/yr. Fascinating.
david - you're such a republican. This woman's problems were created by Bush, not by a lack of personal responsibility or fiscal discipline.
/sarcasm
Might I use this opportunity to brag? My wife and I make a combined pre-tax income of just over $100,000, we live in DC, and last year, we saved $42,000. After taxes. Over the past five years, we've managed to save more than $150,000, and wipe out more than $30,000 in various types of debt.
Someday, we'll write a book on how we did it.
Michael,
If you're making 100k your take home should be around 5k a month? 42,000/12 = 3500. You are living on 1500 a month?
Not very pleasant, but certainly doable.
jmo, our monthly expenses come out to just about $2200 a month. I think you're figuring our taxes to be a little too high. We qualify for some tax breaks, which helps, but I don't think it kills the point I'm trying to make.
No, even at $2200 a month, it's still not very pleasant, even at that rate, not in the DC area, anyway, which is why we can't wait to leave (well, that and the traffic), and take our savings with us to a cheaper part of the country.
But the point I'm trying to make is that you don't have to be as silly as we were, living in a cramped apartment, sharing a basement laundry facility for as long as we did. You can save money in a terrible economy, with high gas prices. You just have to overcome excuses. That article from the WSJ online is riddled with people comfortable with their excuses, refusing to confront themselves, refusing to live within (or, in our case, below) their means. And then they complain that they have no savings.
I'd rather be an ant than a grasshopper.
Michael, You describe how my wife and I have tried to live -- budget the savings first and make do. The way to save money is to not spend it.
Our gloomishness is caused by an abiding fear that after the snowfall, the grasshoppers will redistribute the ants' assets in the name of fairness, or some such.
Isn't that fundamentally why grasshoppers vote Democrat, out of envy for what the ants have, in hopes that the Democrats will use the autocratic hand of government to redistribute the ants' savings?
You know, in my family, my two younger brothers for most of their lives have been grasshoppers and I've been the ant. And sure enough, they've always thought I've been lucky, that I have what I have because I won some sort of secret lottery or got what I did by stealing, or something, because I always seemed to have more than they did. They never did put finger to temple and make the connection that while they spent their money as fast as they got it, I always, and I mean always, would put some aside for the future.
Now that they're in their late 30's, one of the two finally is getting around to saving. The other, well, he just says he'll work until he dies. Yes, I figure he just might -- and at a young age.
Amen. Getting worked up that people don't pay for the food they eat in college is poor form. If you make 82k a year it's just pathetic.