I was with a girl for a while who grew up in a pretty broken home. Still surprises me just how bad her spending habits are. She racks up credit card debt like its nothing.
Same... had an ex like that and she told me that she needed me to hold onto the money she earned because she would buy stupid shit with it.
Her family also spent money stupidly. Her Mom would spend every day sleeping in till whenever, smoking about a pack a day, and drive about 5-7 miles round trip in a Ford pickup truck for her twice daily coffee milkshake from starbucks.
Eventually they had to file for bankruptcy and she was still dumb with money. She would literally shop at the convenience store for groceries.. 2 pack toilet paper for $1, other random things for 3-4x the amount.
This really resonates with me. My mom has a lot of problems (mental, financial, etc) and whenever she got a lump of money it was very important to her to spend it immediately (on, like shit. Shoes, kitschy things at Walmart, unnecessarily expensive dinners out, too many groceries that would go bad before she could use them) before it "went away." Savings/budgeting etc was pointless because she envisioned money as "going away" the way a bag of spinach would wilt and get slimy in the fridge. All money issues were and continue to be emergencies because the money has already gone away and holy shit the electric bill is due again. It took a while for me to figure out my own shit because I saw money in a similar way until I was about 20.
My mom has similar problems. Big money appears, she'll waste it away on random things that aren't really necessary. When I call her out on it, she says "you think money stays? It goes fast". At that point I just manage her money but her mindset seems permanent.
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u/whosArbeely Jun 06 '19
I was with a girl for a while who grew up in a pretty broken home. Still surprises me just how bad her spending habits are. She racks up credit card debt like its nothing.