CNBC seems to be highlighting people’s financial mistakes . They started in January with a story about a woman spending $700 a month on Uber. This month, they have two stories: one about a guy with $100K in debt spending $1,100 a month on takeout (nearly 30% of his income!); the other is someone who wasted $41,000 at Amazon on over 1,400 items, none of which she can remember. That last one also links to a story about how consumers underestimate their online purchases. OpenUp studied 1000 subjects in 2016 and found a big disparity between self-reported purchases and actual purchases (22 items vs 41 items). Fortunately, the personal articles go on to explain the mistakes and show how these people have turned their financial lives around.
It’s not hard to avoid the big financial holes these people dug for themselves. You can learn about financial discipline in Basic Personal Finance (or just about any consumer finance website… of course, my book is better). Don’t let your brief 15 minutes of fame be as a bad example for others to learn from your mistakes.
LenCabrera.com 