Comments on: “I bought dinner because I was the girl who could afford it”

By: baselle

baselle — Fri, 12 May 2006 05:02:37 +0000

One of the better examples of:
Its not what you make, it’s what you keep.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 01 May 2006 16:15:35 +0000

When I was working at my previous job and making great money for a college student, I would pay for peoples food quite often. After I got laid off and realized that I had saving no money and had spent it all, I decided that from now on I need to be saving before thinking about spending and now I am in the process of elminating debt and building up my savings.

By: balls

balls — Mon, 01 May 2006 05:57:57 +0000

Lets face it, Ramit wasn’t mean to her because he knows a good deal when he sees one, free drinks & potential lay.

By: Carlin

Carlin — Mon, 01 May 2006 04:09:25 +0000

You buy other people dinner or drinks because you are their friend. It is a gesture that says “Hey, I’m glad you spend time with me. Let me do something nice for you” or whatever. It should not be a frequent occurence if you cannot afford it (unless you can, and when you have $8000 in credit card debt and only $285 in the bank, you obviously cannot).

It is nice to be able to buy things for other people you care about, if it isn’t extremely detrimental to your potential well being. She needs to cut down on her spending (is it ok that she spends that much because it’s on her friends, as opposed to shoes for herself), and pay off her debt. She then needs to focus on creating a savings cushion for unexpected events.

By: Kestral

Kestral — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 07:15:27 +0000

Hey Lisa, good points. I think there’s an even bigger question that we’ve all missed – why should someone buy anyone else dinner/drinks/etc? We all are responsible for our own selves and are not responsible for feeding other with our hard earned money. No other person should have a claim on someone else’s hard work.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 03:00:19 +0000

One thing that concerned me about your story was the impression that this girl spends more money than she should *giving people the impression* that she has money. Suze Orman once mentioned (either in a book or on her show) that one of the first things you need to do to improve your financial situation is to begin admitting, not only to yourself but to others as well, that you are not necessarily as well off financially as you may have appeared. It’s a hard thing to do, but worth it. Coming clean lifts a huge weight that is a barrier to improving your situation. If you honestly can’t afford to be buying dinners and rounds of drinks for everyone, then you shouldn’t.

By: Kestral

Kestral — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 22:18:58 +0000

Amen Jimbo.

Check this out, assuming a 40% tax bracket, making $80K nets you $48K after taxes, that’s about $4K take home in a month.

A quick perusal of New York’s Craigslist shows that it costs about $2K to rent decent apartment. Half of take-home pay to pay the rent (and this is not including utilities, food etc) is pretty brutal imo.

By: Jimbo

Jimbo — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 14:34:22 +0000

I think Rammit likes this chick because she paid for all his drinks…

Buying everyone dinner is a good thing, I don’t think she did much wrong. Being rich means to me also being rich of friends and experiences. What’s better than an evening where nobody has to worry ’bout money?

80k in NYC is not rich, it’s a step above working poor.

By: Kestral

Kestral — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 02:12:29 +0000

She lives in New York where real estate and/or rentals are through the roof. Making $80K in New York is peanuts.

By: Drew

Drew — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 17:59:04 +0000

I was just like her till early this year. And I can see most of you commenters don’t have friends.

I’ve worked hard, made some money (more than most of them, less than a few of them). I like their company, sharing experiences and I don’t want anything to be a hardship to them. It’s not about popularity.
I reduced it by
1. setting financial goals
2. creating a budget
3. going out less, and each time i go out, I treat it like a special event, planned and budgeted in advance.
1 led to 2 led to 3, and 3 was the most important in reigning it in. #3 will be hard on extroverts.
I still don’t care about picking up the tab and i never nickel and dime bills, but I don’t get into that position as often . Keeping a fixed budget keeps me on track, more here means less there. It’s working.

Hey, maybe you should track the savings of introverts vs extroverts!