Not knowing that $30 spent every day adds up to a significant amount is pretty downright stupid. Why should I listen to a so-called personal finance columnist who can't grasp such simple concepts?

One would think a personal financial columnist would know better about personal finance. It turns out her management skill is about as good as my cat.

oops

Was this photo taken on Casual Friday?

$10,000 goes a long way towards breast lift surgery.

The way the post is titled by the Consumerist is really sensationalistic, although it's quite true.

Goodness, that's a pretty big oversight by the columnist. Every little bit adds up. Speaking of which, I think I'd better do some accounting too, to calculate the money that's owed to me and that I owe! (I've been getting a little lax lately)

She is trying to make a point but her elementary writing style limits her ability to express herself. She works for the Times? I thought they had editors. Put her on page six, she's a ditz.

Her column should be filed in the Scholastic books section along with Clifford and Curious George. I doubt there's a single dimwit hanging on her every word, looking for her sagacious advice.

If you're living the lifestyle of "oh let's flit over to Gelson's gourmet and drop $30 on wine & chocolate so we can impress our friends", maybe fretting over $10k/year isn't really a big concern for you.

I'm not even gonna comment on the photo.

It's a sobering column. And she's right: her point is that you have to be REALLY on top of your money, logging literally every single transaction, no matter how seemingly insignificant. That's something I'm worried about for when I finally start making real money and not a grad student stipend - will my relatively swell bank account inspire weekly mindless $100 shopping sprees at Target? I sure hope not. But it takes real vigilance to avoid that habit.

Her point at the end of the column is mostly correct - that money wasn't wasted, necessarily; it bought things like paint for her house and shoes for her kid, which I think we can all agree are necessary expenses. The problem is that none of those expenditures were part of her budget; if she had money set aside in her budget for "household improvements" or "child necessities" she would a)know where her money was going and b)probably be able to limit her spending. She wouldn't have ended the year with $10,000 extra dollars, but she might have ended it with $5,000. She says "it's too stressful to monitor every dime you spend" - for me it would be too stressful not to!

@popeye_doyle -- Yes, because this post was a call for opinions on whether Internet 13-year-olds find M.P. Dunleavey's breasts sufficiently attractive.

This lady needs to stop blogging about personal finance. She's supposed to know this kind of crap.

"my forte is the psychology of money, not the accounting of it" - i would NOT take much of any advice from this lady

@route52: One thing to do with that "real money" is what my partner is doing with his med-school money. Set out a monthly budget, put all the money you get into a high-yield savings account and put only the monthly budget money into a checking account. For us it was to help adjust to having LESS money (he went from working full time to med school) but it would work well either way. It's just a free way to help you control the money, to help a little with the self-discipline.

Long ago before I began tracking every penny I spent with Quicken, I would often pull out $20 or more at the ATM for something cheap. Before I knew it, it would all be gone and I had no idea where it went.

Now I keep receipts for everything and track it all. I can tell you the sales tax I paid on junk food from home improvements... at first I was shocked how much I wasted.

I still do frivolous things here and there of course... but now I know when I am getting a little too frivolous and pull back.

ohhh NYT...just not as credible as you used to be. Tell me again now, how many times has Freakonomics been revised?

Right, but think of all the money she saved on makeup. BLEG!

She looks like Constable Odo from Deep Space Nine - did he shape shift into a female again?

@route52: There is cheap and easy program that track you spending. It is called Money/Quicken (your program preference). You can spend less than 5 minutes a day on it, and it will track your spending in ALL areas. Banking has come a long way from just using your check book register.

Yes, I do understand that house maintenance, shoes, and clothes do add up. Especially when you do not keep track of them.

No kidding. If you take $30 out of your bank account every day, then of course you're not going to have anything left. My friends wonder why I don't buy a $30 this or a $20 that as an impulse purchase, but I'm always the one at the end of the year with an intact back account and they're all broke.

Seriously, though, you'd think a personal finance columnist would have a better handle on her own finances.

@route52:

Coming up with a budget and scrutinizing EVERY SINGLE PURCHASE you make are the logical first steps in taking control of your finances. This is something that parents should teach their children (as mine did), and not something that you should be surprised to learn from a personal finance writer. Particularly not from one who can't account - or budget - for $30 worth of iTunes downloads one day and the same amount of wine and chocolate the next. HOW CAN YOU JUST LOSE $10,000???

Thanks, Consumerist, for pointing out personal finance writers worth ignoring.

She has no credibility as a personal finance columnist if she can't keep track of $10k. Where do these news orgainzations pick up these shills?

Wouldn't the money on that prescription have been tracked because it's a medical expense? Is a personal finance columnist telling us that she doesn't track her medical expenses for tax deductions? HELL, Target now prints medical totals ON receipts for this exact purpose. What's next? Invest in Lotto tickets?

"The guy at the counter said the odds are better than the Stock Market", says NYT Finance Columnist.

This story is stupid. They poured through their finances and didn't realized they were somehow spending about $30 a day? Did their "system" just exclude charges of $30.00 from their ledger?

Someone that stupid really should have lost $10,000.

Lesson? Don't be a complete and total idiot. Great lesson.

@RottNDude: Be careful, next it will be a Tarqazian Razor Beast, and you'll be sorry then. It'll take Bashir three hours with a Dermal Regenerator.

This just makes me want to spend $30 today. Great, Consumerist. Thanks for being an enabler.

Hello! She didn't LOSE $10,000. It's not like the money was there Tuesday and gone Wednesday. The article is meant to point out that the mindless little things we drop a few dollars on everyday adds up at the end of the year.

@craiggers: So I believe the point we're making here is intelligent folks such as commenters here don't need some self-proclaimed expert to tell us to keep track of things like that.
But with the out-of-context quote presented here, it certainly sounds like a WTF moment as if the money had suddenly disappeared.

Everyone needs to chill the fuck out!!!

A) Yes the picture is bizarre, but she's pretty enough to be a finance columnist.

B) She was just making a point that small expenses add up quick. $30 a day is a lot for all you single losers with no girlfriends. But when you have a spouse, kids, house etc... 30 a day is nothing! (and easy to not keep track of).

C) Its the NYT! They're a neo-nazi jew-hating rag that hasn't told the truth in 100 years, so what do you expect from the people they hire? If you get this pissed off this easily I advise you not read the NYT as this shock and awe will be constant.

@popeye_doyle: dude. she just needs a good bra.

OK, folks, so you feel that it's appropriate to comment on her breasts and appearancez? - You're wrong. STFU about how she looks, that's irrelevant, and offensive.

Appropriate comment: My, how nice that she can afford to drop $30 a day on unaccounted purchases.

@dlab: Yes, I am aware of this. I do have a budget and I do keep every receipt I get and I do track my purchases in a green grid-ruled notebook and also, recently, on wasabe. I put 30% of each and every paycheck into a high yield savings account. I pay off my credit card balance in full every month, no exceptions ever. So I am no money moron. My point is that doing so is not always FUN and that if one is making a bunch of money, it can be a lot easier to forget about doing those boring but necessary things than it is when you are making less than $20,000 a year. It does take constant vigilance for me to maintain those good habits. I didn't see this column as financial "advice" than it is someone (who, yes, should absolutely know better) saying that EVEN IF you write about finance as your profession it is still easy to lose track of those everyday purchases - so imagine how easy it is to lose track if you're an average person who doesn't like to think too much about money.

Her reminder seems completely stupid and obvious to us because the demographic of this site is people who are extremely attuned to consumerism and consumption and spending and saving. The audience of the New York Times is much broader. Therefore, the column that seems like a waste of space to us might be a dramatic wake-up call for a lot of people. What is better, do you think - to insult and berate those people for being "stupid" or to try to apply the lesson to our own lives, no matter how seemingly obvious it is?

@GearheadGeek: @sven.kirk: Thanks for the helpful advice (:

I've always had a column in my budget each week for "miscellaneous." Set a reasonable amount for that column and stick to it. Seems like a no-brainer!

I have my credit card number memorized. worst thing possible. swiping takes the consciousness out of spending. Go a week paying ONLY by cash and you will notice how much [useless] spending you do.

@dlab: If I had to track every last gas station cappuccino or cafeteria lunch at work, I'd burn out in minutes. So instead I give myself a monthly cash allowance of $200 plus after-tax income from overtime worked. If I go over, then I start paying closer attention. No relevance to this article ($10k? yowza!), it's just a more-relaxed alternative to tracking everything.

@reykjavik: So every single male is a loser. Gotcha.

First, it's almost shocking that their health insurance costs almost as much as their home mortgage AND home equity loan--and that doesn't include health costs/copays which she lists separately--just the insurance.

However, the reason her system didn't work was the easy access to money (debit/credit card). Hate to say it but since she is the breadwinner and her husband takes care of their kid, it sounds like he was spending the money--on little things that added up to 10K, Maybe she should do the budget, then give him cash so he can only spend the amount budgeted. If he needs extra put that into the budget so they know where the money is going.

I kinda agree that she should've known better. If she set a budget, why didn't she realize that she was spending an extra $1000 a month than planned. Seems like she would've caught on to this over budget spending a lot sooner than she did.

However, in the case of the LAUSD, some teachers were getting paid an extra $1000 a month and no one reported it so maybe people don't notice an extra $1000 gone or gained each month.

Is this the NYT Style Section again...? Ugh.

Says a lot for self-proclaimed "experts," doesn't it? I bet it was a struggle to decide whether to admit it and get a column out of it, or keep it to herself due to high embarrassment factor.

I agree her looks shouldn't be part of this but wearing a cleavage-baring tank top in a professional photo is a bit beyond the pale. All in all, not the best judgment on, er, display here.

And the NY Times wonders why it's profits are in the crapper??

"She says "it's too stressful to monitor every dime you spend" - for me it would be too stressful not to!"

Yeah, how is this stressful? They give you receipts for everything, it takes hardly any longer to enter 15 at the end of the week instead of 10.

And for just this reason I have my budget software automatically deduct $20 monthly from my budget, which accounts for things like parking meters and vending machines, which my husband isn't perfect about and I'm not perfect about because they DON'T give receipts.

(But, note, I don't reconcile my budget software with my actual accounts; I simply use it to track spending, and then ensure it roughly matches with the accounts. That random $20 would be a rotten idea if you were reconciling.)

Wow, the misogyny here is distressing. Apparently it's OK to take financial advice from studs like Jim Kramer or Warren Buffett but not a woman who doesn't measure up to the standards of attractiveness of a bunch of immature people with no greater accomplishment than the ability to post on an Internet message board.

You guys must be thankful you don't have to post your pictures here. I'd venture we wouldn't mistake any of you for Brad Pitt.

@rjhiggins: If Jim Cramer's PR photo showed him in a spandex tank top, the comments would be even worse. Like Jennifer Love Hewitt, the problem is dressing appropriately for one's body, not the body itself.

If "loses" means "didn't keep track of personal spending, and spent", then this would be a far better article title.

Either way, doesn't give me a lot of faith in the NYT columnist.

@rjhiggins: Well, not mistake. Since I am Brad Pitt.

It's not "losing" if she got goods she felt were worth the money at the time.

M. P. Dunleavey is one of the worst personal finance bloggers ever.

Seriously, if you've never read her other columns, do yourself a favor and do so. They are hilarious. Like the one where she decides to buy a house even though she hasn't been able to sell her old house because the new house is so cool and she'd be so sad if she didn't buy it, that it's worth it even though her and her husband's salaries won't cover it! But they can worry about that after they get their second house, dammit!

And don't even get me started on her "Women in Red" aka "Enabling women in debt to stay in debt and rationalize it like I do" column on MSN.

As a woman, I think she's disgusting because not only should she not be giving advice due to her inability to keep her own spending under control, she also perpetuates the stereotype that women are purely emotional when it comes to financial decisions. No, I think many of us are rational and careful like Eyebrows McGee (go Eyebrows!).

@Rabbigrrl: Do you kiss you grandmother with that mouth?

That would be like a fitness columnist writing how she didn't realized she gained 100 pounds over a year...

That pic looks like it belongs on HotorNot, but it's nice to know she's the finance world's Ric Romero.

@Jim (The Canuck One): No but I did something to your mother with this one, Trebek.

Sounds like it was $10,000 cash expenses for a family of 4. So budget $2,500 per person per year for misc expenses and forget about keeping track of it all. What's tracking the dimes going to get you?