Make Your Own Money Luck
One of my old roommates was really bright academically, but he was terrible with money. Each semester he would start off with a pile of cash from his parents and proceed to blow through it in about two months.
I first noticed it with his dining dollars on campus. Every day it seemed like he would buy the most expensive sushi option.
We’re talking maybe $18.00, which isn’t terrible if it’s once in a while, but this was every day. It’s also college dining hall sushi, so the quality was also just okay without even considering the money spent.
Of course around midterms when his dining dollars would run out, and he’d sort of panic and whine that he couldn’t afford anything. That’s when I noticed something strange.
When he would start to run low, he’d sort of laugh about not knowing how to avoid going broke while continuing to buy only the most expensive option.
But he’d also get really defensive when people wanted to talk to him about this. Eventually, when he moved off campus, it was the exact same thing, but even worse.
For the first two months, he’d feast. He’d get delivery constantly, ordering just way too much food, and of course he’d never share it. But then once he’d nearly run out of cash, he’d buy like an emergency 50-pack of hot dogs and only eat that for the rest of the semester, while telling everyone else that they were lucky they had money to spend.