Place Blame Where it Belongs

When something bad or unfortunate happens in our life, we as people are quick to place the blame with a 3rd party. It's rare that the first thing out of our mouths is...

Yeah we might say it eventually but generally (of course not all people) we will place the blame on any and everything else besides eating the blame ourselves.

Story Time!

My hoodrat friend wants to buy a new car...she doesn't need a new car, her parents gave her a pickup truck to drive for the moment...

"Don't no niggas look at me in that beat up piece of shit! I hate that fucking car" she says

So she asks me to assist her...okay, knowing her credit is shot and she doesn't have alot of money to spend (because she's already overextended on her bills and daily living now...rent late...multiple times, lights been cut off for $1000+ bill, etc) I find some cars that are priced below 10gs...she was looking for a car that was 16g's...a girl who can't pay her rent is looking to pick up a car note that is quite possible MORE than her rent...for shame.

Seeing as though I have worked in the banking industry for quite some time (almost 6 years), was previously Series 6 certified, and have dealt with credit on a large scale both personally and professionally I decided to offer her some advice because based on her financial situation, her lack of knowledge, and her friends telling her...and I quote...

"Girl fuck it, just get what you want and worry about credit later."

Tsk tsk tsk...I had to explain to my hoodrat friend that it takes almost nothing to fuck your credit up...well fuck your credit up more than it already is but it takes YEARS to repair...also had to go on to explain income-debt ratio, APR, credit scoring (and how missed payments, closing a card, etc can effect it), that credit bureaus do not have a call center, what she needs to do to dispute an item on her credit report, how bad credit = high interest rates which = more money out her pocket, that the sticker price on a car is before you add on tags/taxes/title fees/extended warranty, that you can end up upside down in a loan and what that means...basically I had to give her credit counseling 101. And even though she has had 3 credit cards for a couple years now in addition to student loans she never knew how credit worked before...did I mention she is 26? Sad ass sad I tell ya.

So then we got on her finances...how she spends her money, she often puts bills on the back burner so that she can party...or buy a new outfit...or a wig...or whatever and how that is the most backwards thinking I have ever seen displayed by an adult...would you like to know what she told me?

"I realize I'm an adult, but I'm also a young adult and I like to have fun, so if I gotta drop some money and let my rent get past due so I can be fly in the club a couple nights out the month then so be it."

And she was dead serious. She went on to say how she looks at people we graduated with and how they take all these trips and have all this fun and how she hasn't been nowhere and questioned why she hadn't been...I gave her a few reasons...

1. Up until this year you were making $11.00/hour
2. You spend money on dumb shit like $100 for a wig you are gonna wear for 2 weeks
3. You use "recreational" drugs...often
4. You drink almost every night
5. You incessantly shop for you and your daughter (and its expensive stuff that should be cheap i.e. Dereon, Baby Phat, Coogi, etc)
6. You eat out for all your meals everyday of everyweek for you and your daughter
7. You live in an apartment that you couldn't afford until you got your pay increase this year, and you've been living there for 4 years
8. Your parents foot whatever bill you can't come up with or simply don't want to come up with
9. You will drop 100 in the club in one weekend...and then rinse and repeat 2 weeks later
10. You too worried about chasing behind niggas

Would you like to know what she responded with?

"I figured out why I'm so bad with money....

....I have a shopping addiction"

Really? That's what you came up with? You have a shopping addiction which makes you bad with money?

"You don't understand because you don't have it...when I buy something it makes me happy, I can't wait to get home and try it on or look at it, or take pictures in it...and it makes me genuinly happy until the next day when I realize I couldn't really afford it." -her

"Have you or your daughter ever gone hungry because you "had" to buy something?" -me

"Girl hayle no!" -her

"Okay...then you're not addicted, you're just bad with money." -me

Even after I gave her 50-11 reasons as to why she was the issue not an outside factor she still came up with a far fetched reason as to why it wasn't really her fault.

• People (generally) don't have money because they have no concept of how money works...
• Hoes aren't hoes because they didn't have daddies growing up, they're hoes because they like sucking dick...
• Women don't keep ugly guys around because he has a nice personality, they keep them around because they give her attention at a moments notice without her having to give up the drawls...
• Men don't keep ugly girls around because she has a nice personality, they keep them around because she sucks their dick and doesn't complain when he won't take her out...

I'm exaggerating but not really. Bottom line is this...how the fuck can we expect people to be honest with us when the average person can't even be honest with themselves?