Comments on: When Your Friends Don’t Care About Personal Finance – And You Do

By: hanmeng

hanmeng — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 16:14:43 +0000

Often your friends only look rich. Read The Millionaire Next Door:
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2006/11/11/review-the-millionaire-next-door/

By: UKMoneyPot

UKMoneyPot — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:26:44 +0000

It must be worse if your friends have actually achieved a reasonable level of success and can justify the lavish spending, although that can act as a catalyst to get some people off their backsides!

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 08:16:35 +0000

i always find it is nice to have friends who buy new gadgets all the time, b/c you can buy them off of them when they no longer want it and when they need to buy the newest thing. saves you lots.

i agree that peer pressure is a big cause of uncontrolled spending, but really it is self-inflicted. get new friends that have the same values as you and get out of the situation. if you don’t want to (see it is self-inflicted), then just understand yourself and ask yourself why you don’t want to. The troublesome problem I have with people saying “i have all these friends who buy so much on credit and are in debt” is the fact that people still retain them as friends and complain about it…but never to their friends. i’d love to have had friends that called me on my excessive spending. but hey, we all like to live vicariously through our friends sometimes.

I have friends now that do talk lots about finances, investments/savings, purchase decisions, etc. amazingly, they can afford all the gadgets, because they have saved.

Kim, you don’t need to create a new excuse as to why you are living frugally. there are no excuses required.

By: Michael M @ freshome

Michael M @ freshome — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 07:22:51 +0000

That is very true.I have a lot of friends that if you would see them for the first time you would say that are rich.But I know them …they might have BMWs, Mercedes, and other cars, new clothing every week, money to spend to stay all day in a bar.

BUT …

I know them, and I know their problems …. they own money to me, and other people.Don’t be fooled by an image.

By: Wallet Rehab - Ways to save money

Wallet Rehab - Ways to save money — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 03:31:33 +0000

I think peer pressure is the biggest cause of out-of-control spending. When I first started consulting, I thought that I’d be saving tons of money. I compared my future spending habits with my college spending, and that was a mistake.

As a professional, I found myself being more “professional” which meant drinking Bombay Sapphire, smoking cigars and eating out all the time.

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 02:48:48 +0000

Last year I was quite happy being frugal because we were saving for our wedding, and is was a reason everyone else accepted too. Now it’s getting harder to put off one friend who is always showing me new gadgets he thinks I should buy (like he does, openly and proudly on credit). It does make me feel a litte jealous that he has all this cool stuff – but I’m not jealous of his debt, and his stress recently when his wife and he were both facing possible job loss. So I guess I’ll just have to make up a new excuse to tell everyone I’m saving for – maybe a holiday home!

By: !wanda

!wanda — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 00:36:52 +0000

Men want nice things too.

By: Moneymonk

Moneymonk — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 21:48:33 +0000

I feel that it is in us women to have nice things, a house being one of them. Somehow a house means success, I made it, rah rah. Same as car, it means fulfillment.

I feel when you surrounding yourself around people that is in debt, you lose focus on your own priority.

Bottom line is: stop trying to be something you are not.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 21:13:40 +0000

I am constantly reminding my wife, when she asks “Why does everyone else have a big, fancy house and we don’t?”, that many of the people in those houses can’t really afford them. We could have one of those houses (and we could actually afford it), but then we wouldn’t be able to meet some of our other goals. She sees a big house and thinks “They must be rich.” I see a big house and think, “How do they sleep at night owing that much money?”

We’re not keeping up with the Joneses house-wise right now, but check with us when I retire – the Joneses will wish they had as much money as we will then.