‘Landlord bought an expensive boat and then tried raising my rent’: 15+ Financial decisions that made no sense whatsoever

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
May 12, 2024 5:00 PM EDT

In your adult life, only you can control how you spend your money. It's one of the best and worst parts of adulthood! You get that fresh paycheck in your bank account, and it feels like the world is your oyster. Time to treat the besties to brunch, or have an extended shopping spree over a weekend. But once that money is gone, you get that pit in your stomach that makes you realize you have bills to pay still…Oops!

Everyone has a different approach to their finances. Some people save every penny, and save money by eating in and never traveling. Others take things to the opposite extreme: their money burns a hole in their pocket, and they can't resist buying the newest clothes or tech. Many people are somewhere in the middle, living paycheck to paycheck or saving some money while using the rest for their necessities. 

U/teakwood54 wanted to know the "worst example of poor financial choices you've witnessed," and the answers will make you feel better about the last time you blew too much money on something frivolous. Check out these great tales below. 

Then, read about the security guard who discovered that their company was only paying them for a single hour out of every paid day off. 

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  • 01
    SKLEVES OFFLINE CALLY OFAMERICA 2ULLD AL 32730338 D UNITED STAT OFAMER LY 10 AU327 ONE BUN
    via Jp Valery on Unsplash
  • 02
    What's the worst example of poor financial choices you've witnessed?
    via u/teakwood54
  • 03
    Pburgh43 My landlord bought an expensive boat and then tried raising my rent the next day. Only had it for one summer because they couldn't afford it.
    via u/Pburgh43
  • 04
    megamanfan86 Had an employee talk about selling his car because his commission check wasn't supporting him and his bills. One hour later comes back into the office bragging about the new gaming and home entertainment system he bought.
    via u/megamanfan86
  • 05
    My aunt has declared bankruptcy twice in her life due to never having learned her lessons. Recently her husband's mother died and willed them a fully paid for house. So they do what any rational person would do and MORTGAGE THE HOUSE SO THEY CAN RENOVATE IT. She just lost her job (again) and now they are in danger of losing the house. Brilliant.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 06
    Silesse Lent my friend $100 to pay rent. Two days later, she makes a Facebook post about all the cool items she's picked up at a flea market specializing in rock and roll paraphernalia. She did not make rent.
    via u/Silesse
  • 07
    livefox Married couple I know have never held down jobs. The guy keeps getting fired and the girl keeps quitting because of various reasons. My mother in law felt bad for them and let them move into her basement for peanuts for rent. Man lost his job again, woman got pregnant. Had the baby, quit to take care of it. My too kind MIL gave them a couple months of no rent to get back on their feet.
    via u/livefox
  • 08
    When the guy got a job again he kept making excuses about rent. Trashed her house, never paid. She eventually evicted them for unpaid rent and damaging property. They still went to Disneyland. They go every year they said. My MIL is taking them to court. Edit: They did have a signed month to month lease with my MIL.
    via u/livefox
  • 09
    Nevermind04 The dollar amount isn't going to be nearly as high as some of the other stories here, but I worked at a convenience store as a teenager. We had a few regulars that drank coffee and played dominoes. One guy, Earl, was pretty down on his luck. He had been laid off just a few years shy of retirement and was fixing lawnmowers to earn a living.
    via u/Nevermind04
  • 10
    Earl used to buy a few lottery scratch-off tickets here and there but since he got laid off it was like one a day. He liked the big $5 ones. One day he comes in, buys his coffee and a scratcher, and wins $250. He is completely convinced his luck has changed so he "reinvests" the $250 in more scratchers. He won $10, which he used to buy two more tickets, both of which were losers. That $250 could have gone pretty far towards paying bills, buying groceries, etc.
    via u/Nevermind04
  • 11
    shitz_brickz Girl I knew couldn't afford to maintain her 150k mile plus car, but bought 3 purebred dogs from breeders over 3 years.
    via u/sh*tz_brickz
  • 12
    cf_wyeth My brother in law. After the divorce they wanted to sell the house. They sold it to someone that buys any house for 95K. Houses in that neighborhood go for 190K - 210K. The guy that brought the house painted the inside and put in new carpeting. He listed it for 195K, and sold it for 187K in less then a week. Small rancher not in bad shape. He probably put less then 1K into it. Nice profit
    via u/cf_wyeth
  • 13
    Macabalony My friend lived off of loans for college. He got the disbursement which was to last him 12 weeks. Spent all of it in one week on things like a new TV, table tops games he never played, video games that he never played, tubs and tubs of ice cream. After the money ran out he would attempt to get the group to help him pay for food.
    via u/Macabalony
  • 14
    fart_sha... Someone who regularly begged people to pay for their restaurant meals (after the bill came) bought a brand new MacBook Pro and then went on a three month trip to Japan to try to find work.
    via u/F*rt_shaped_box
  • 15
    panascope My mom got a decent inheritance from my grandma passing, but instead of paying off her house (on which she's almost been foreclosed), or fixing her car (which is now gone because the head gasket blew), she decided to put in a deck, redo her kitchen, and buy some weird cabin out in the middle of nowhere. Which aren't necessarily terrible ideas, but why she didn't choose to service her insane debts before making upgrades doesn't make any sense to me.
    via u/panascope
  • 16
    robob2700 I was a car salesman. I witnessed a lot of poor people buying cars that they could never afford, but felt they needed because it gave them some kind of status
    via u/
  • 17
    [deleted] She signed a 24.99% 5-year car loan. Not long after, she ran back to her ex husband because she couldn't afford rent. He said no, which is coincidentally one of the best financial choices I've witnessed.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 18
    spyyked Buddy of mine from the gym. Never struck me as a bright bulb but here's what he's done lately. Dude's single and in his 40's Moved from one apartment to another...that's cool, nbd. Adds to his commute but saves him a couple bucks in monthly rent and that was his justification.
    via u/spyyked
  • 19
    Buys new Elantra, finances the whole thing. Depreciates like a MF of course. 6 months later wrecks it, no gap insurance. Buys another Elantra but higher trim because he didn't like the old one. Rolls in his negative equity because he owned more on the wrecked one than it was worth. that he's got a VERY expensive Hyundai Elantra payment but he can get out from under it.
    via u/spyyked
  • 20
    4-5 months later...he goes YOLO. Always wanted a Wrangler, so he picks up a 2018 2-door hard top loaded. They didn't want to approve him for the loan because he was so in over his head. So he got creative and took out a personal loan from another bank to cover what bank #1 wouldn't loan him. Between the 2 bank notes he's in the high $700's/mo and add on another couple hundred because of his wreck for insurance. Homeboy is paying close to $1000/mo for a Wrangler. He had to start working a second
    via u/spyyked
  • 21
    Now since it's a Wrangler of COURSE you can't just leave it bone stock...so here come the mods. He's already a couple grand in on it in exhaust and lift kit with more plans on the way. I get spending money on cars if that's your thing...but man. $1000/mo for a WRANGLER?1?
    via u/spyyked
  • 22
    abreathingtherapist My mom who bought a desktop in 2001 for $800 and it's still not paid off. She now owes $1300 for a computer that doesn't even work! And I'm the tells everyone! that
    via u/abreathingtherapist
  • 23
    IndioFro... My ex-wife would open a credit card and do a balance transfer to pay off another credit card. Then max the old credit card again. She did this over and over without my knowledge, eventually racking up about $15k before I found out.
    via u/IndioFromChino
  • 24
    My ex wife was complaining when we were married that I should be paying all of the bills since she couldn't afford to chip in at all. Eventually, I sat her down and went through her personal accounts to see how, exactly, she was barely scraping by making $50k while I was paying the mortgage, utilities and grocery bill. The only thing she should have been paying was her car payment. She should have been flush. Nope. She was broke and had to
    via u/IndioFromChino
  • 25
    use her credit cards most of the month. I found out she was spending nearly $1k per month at her chiropractor. Multiple weekly visits, she got a massage there as well. She also visited their in- house "nutritionist" who was charging her a few hundred bucks a month to give her some weird ass diet that included things like "After dinner, you can have four grapes."
    via u/IndioFromChino
  • 26
    She also had a trainer at the most expensive gym in town and refused to switch to Planet Fitness because her's had a pool she never used. She was also hitting Starbucks multiple times a day, eating lunch out every day and buying clothes whether she needed them or not.
    via u/IndioFromChino
  • 27
    And she was because she felt I should be paying for her car loan. Why, you may ask? Because the receptionist where she worked was married to a cardiologist and he paid all of her bills. It wasn't right for the receptionist to be living a life of luxury while she was "struggling to get by."
    via u/IndioFromChino
  • 28
    KingKonquest My SO's mother met a Nigerian man online. The woman is 46 and this guy is 24. For context, she has a bad history with men and only seems to want men who are bad for her. She travels to Nigeria, MARRIES. this man without consulting anyone in the family, and now proceeds to send him money every few weeks. The icing on the cake is that she went and spent several thousand dollars on a plane ticket to Nigeria, but failed
    via u/KingKonquest
  • 29
    to request off work or even pay bills ahead of time. So now she has no money, refuses to refund the ticket to pay her bills for the house and take care of her 2 high school age daughters, and will likely not have a job when she returns home as she did not request off with enough notification.
    via u/KingKonquest
  • 30
    All this because some Nigerian prince showed her some attention. It's so gutting to watch these poor decisions create distrust and anger throughout the family.
    via u/KingKonquest
  • 31
    [deleted] Dude at work had the power shut off at his house. He moved his pregnant girlfriend, her child, and himself into a hotel room. It's not a Super 8 or Motel 6. It's costing them $120/night to live there. His excuse is that to get the power on they're going to have to pay like $500+.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 32
    When he told me this, I offered to give him one of my shifts (bartending) so he could make an easy $150-200. I didn't want to give it up, but I mean, I wanted to help the guy out. "Nah man, I really need a mental day." "A mental day? Like, you need a money day. How long are you going to be able to live in that hotel before you're out of money?"
    via u/[deleted]
  • 33
    "Like two more days, but dude I just need a day off." The girlfriend doesn't work because she's pregnant. That dude is probably homeless now. This was Wednesday. Edit: WOW RIP INBOX. Didn't expect this to explode. i work later today and assume i will run into him. To answer a couple of the questions:
    via u/[deleted]
  • 34
    • His girlfriend has the kid. it isn't his. So he's taking care of her and her daughter financially. • His girlfriend is choosing not to work. He validates it by saying that her morning sickness is so bad that she can't, however she will chill in their car in the parking lot of our work for an hour at a time waiting on him to get off.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 35
    • His excuse for the high electric bill was leaving one light on all month. When asked if it was a flood light, he said yes. Still... • i don't think he's or depressed. He's just young and in over his head. they have no family locally according to him and don't have any family to help financially. i presume the manager of the restaurant will help bail them out financially.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 36
    Will update after today's shift. Surprise still at the response. Update: manager gave him the money.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 37
    Rommie... Basically every financial decision my husband and my best "couple friends" ever make. Ever. First, when they were engaged, they started having problems so the soon-to-be wife moved in with my husband and I, over 300 miles from her fiance, to go to college to finish her art degree that she had started years prior, and still owes copious student loans on. She takes out another loan for 4x what she actually needs to pay her tuition. I put my neck out and got her a job with my employer,
    via u/Rommie557
  • 38
    with whom I had a very good reputation. She decided she couldn't handle it (retail) and put in her two weeks. But instead of working her notice, she just stopped going. We never got a dime of rent, she was useless around the house, never helped with the utilities. All the while, she planned her wedding, putting deposits on venues, buying silk flowers, her gown, etc. We got fed up and told her she needed to leave after a year of this
    via u/Rommie557
  • 39
    So she moves back in with her fiance, who lives with his parents, because he has a $900 truck payment because he's upside down three times over (kept buying vehicles he couldn't afford and trading them in a year later). She can't stand his parents and insists they move out. So instead of renting or buying a home, they buy a 30ft 5th wheel travel trailer, and park it on his parents land, so they don't have to pay utilities or rent, just the trailer payment.
    via u/Rommie557
  • 40
    The wedding ends up costing almost 30k, which I know isn't bad for a wedding nowadays, but neither of their parents helped, and she's unemployed. After the wedding, she refuses to get a job for nearly 8 months because she needs to work on her "art", and finally gives in and starts working front desk, night shift, at a hospital in a bad part of town. Gripes and that she hates her job and wants to quit constantly. But They're the only ones who will hire her, because the only real job she's ever ha
    via u/Rommie557
  • 41
    certainly wasn't getting any references there. She manages to convince husband that she wants to move back to the town where my husband and I live, so he puts in for a transfer at his job, she quits hers, and they pack up the trailer and haul it here, and decide to live in an RV park, after a brief stay in our backyard.
    via u/Rommie557
  • 42
    They get behind on the rent at the RV Park (which is only $300/mo all utilities included btw), and he has some kind of existential/mid life crisis, comes home bawling that he can't handle his job. anymore, and that he quit, no notice, at a job that he'd had for 12 years, almost halfway to retiring from, that paid over $30 an hour.
    via u/Rommie557
  • 43
    They pack the trailer back up, move back onto his parents land, leave the RV park debt behind them unpaid, and he ends up working at the tire center at Walmart. Amidst all of this, he comes clean and tells wifey that he has 4 high limit credit cards that are all maxed out, totaling almost 40k in debt. She decides that she needs to get a job again, but that she can't make the money she needs to make because she has no real world experience, or a job she's been able to keep for more than
    via u/Rommie557
  • 44
    six months. They decide the solution to this is to send her back to college to become a nail technician, and to pay for it with a brand new, high interest credit card! Fast forward a year, she's graduated and licensed, but still can't find a job. He's gone back to his original career in construction but makes way less now at a competitor. Her student loans have exhausted all of the options for forbearance due to unemployment and are now in collections.
    via u/Rommie557
  • 45
    And to top it all off? Their "house" is falling apart, because travel trailers aren't meant to be lived in full time, and they still owe 14k on it. They live in the mountains where it's still snowing frequently, and they have no heater, and are making due with electric space heaters, despite all of the drafts and the fire hazard. Oh, and they're actively trying to get pregnant.
    via u/Rommie557
  • 46
    Their finances are literally a dumpster fire. I have plenty of other friends that I don't mind helping and lending money to, because those friends make good decisions. These two have been black balled from our list of people we are willing to assist, because every time we try to help, they just dig in deeper. I see no way out for them except bankruptcy. Edit: and now my most up voted comment is trash talking my friends. Really glad they don't reddit.
    via u/Rommie557

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