Enough of all of the last minute Christmas shopping tips and feel-good posts about spending time with family. Let’s have some fun today guys!
Who’s better with money? Guys or girls? Males or Females? Gentlemen or Ladies? Well I don’t know the answer to that question but I do know we are all guilty of foolish spending habits. By we, I am of course referring to guys.
Let’s be honest with ourselves and look at some of the ways guys spend money foolishly:
Sporting events
Not really foolish when you’re at the game with a few drinks in your system and your emotions running wild. When you get home and wake up in the morning, you realize that you are down a couple hundred bucks and you can’t remember much about the game.
I can even take this one step further. I have gone as far as traveling out of town for a sporting event. Yes this includes the works: hotel, gas, food, drinks, and of course the tickets. Why? Well the gentlemen reading this can relate.
Eating out
Let’s face it- most of the time we are simply too lazy to prepare our own meal ahead of time. This results in us guys eating out. I for the most part enjoy preparing my own meals, yet I still find myself eating out just as much as I eat in. It is just too convenient to walk into a store and have a warm sandwich ready in minutes. On top of that, I would rather meet up with friends at a restaurant than have them all come over and have to deal with cooking food (it’s true).
Technology
From iPhones to Blackberrys to fancy new laptops. We are all guilty of having more technology on us than necessary. Whenever I go the gym I bring my small iPod 3G with me. What’s wrong with that? Well I also have an iPhone. I got tired of lugging my phone around in my pocket when I worked out so I decided to keep my old iPod instead of selling it. Yep another wallet buster that I’m willing to admit to.
Drinking
No matter how smooth you think you are, every guy reading this has spent money on buying a drink (or 5) for a female in a club. Is this a waste of money or an investment? I will let you decide.
On top of buying drinks for others we are all guilty of spending plenty of money on drinks for ourselves. I can’t even begin to count how many thousands of dollars I have spent on alcohol (over the years, not this year).
Memberships
From dating services to tanning salons to gyms. Not that the actual service is a waste of money. Usually the lack of usage or amount of usefulness is the wallet buster. I have gotten slightly better at this over time, but how many of you readers feel that you spend too much money on memberships?
Male or female: what are some of the ways you spend money that you are willing to laugh at?
The idea for this blog post came from an article I read over at Ask Men.
From personal experience, I think girls are equally as guilty. But nonetheless, a good post for how people in general waste money!
@MLR I think we need a female’s point of view on this topic.
Any female guest posters looking to tackle this topic?
@Matt Jabs Agreed. A coffee is a couple of bucks. When you buy a beer at a bar you’re easily looking at $5. You will likely only drink 1 or 2 lattes/coffees a day. Beer on the other hand, you will have 2 in the first half hour. I’m looking forward to your post on the topic.
I think alcohol is the key factor. By not drinking, your evening at the ballgame can be cheaper and you’ll remember more of it (beyond the drunk factor, you won’t be leaving your seat to get more beer, you won’t be leaving your seat for the bathroom, etc.). I don’t drink, so that keeps my sporting expense down (while there’s probably a greater percentage of men guilty of the sporting event, many women are guilty, too).
Amen to the drinking. When I signed up for Mint and saw that pie chart it was put into perspective real fast.
You could also add Concerts / Music Festivals to the same category as Sporting Events. Though, I love attending these when I can and considered it worth every penny.
Thankfully I’ve all but quit drinking, so that one isn’t an issue for me. For me? Sporting events and technology. In fact I’m going to a Minnesota Wild Hockey game on Saturday – and I can’t wait! this time, however, it was free. Free tickets from my next door neighbor. usually, it ends up being $100-200 just for one twins/vikings/wild game. Steep!
I think you could also make a pretty easy case for ladies spending/wasting more. Don’t forget the cost of all the make-up, clothes worn once, hair dying/cuts…
Many people just waste money.
There are many female posts on the subject of what women spend extra money on. Just go Google some and link your favorite.
I don’t know if I’d consider it a waste, though. For some girls, like me, it’s not about attracting other people, which might indeed be a waste of money. I just like to look pretty for myself.
I readily admit to buying new technology as well. I’m typing this on my Mac and I got a new iPod for Christmas.
I have to say, though, that I’ve never had to buy my own drink, so that expenditure is probably not as high for girls as it is for guys. Eating out, memberships, and sporting events are not big expense categories for me either.
Personally I believe females are better with a dollar than males are however, that said, there are men who are way better with a dollar than some females. However, females have many items that are necessary to spend on that males can easily get out of. Woman spend money on beauty items. Males need a shaver and they are pretty well set. Females spend money on children. Men seem to be of the belief that if they offer to watch their own child they are doing a massive favor to society so the dollars they tend to spend on the child are normally also way less, that said until the child goes to college then Daddy is the local ATM so this quickly offsets the dollars we woman spend on them when they are young. Men do seem to spend more on us woman and being spontaneous, but woman would we have it any other way. So all this wrapped up with a pretty bow on it for the holiday what do you have (the over all answer is we both waste too much money but ladies if we do manage to save some realize it is only because some male in your life likely gave you something at no cost.