Day #269: Six tips to go broke without really trying

I have a surprise treat for everyone today! The husband of one of my friends, has a hilarious blog and he has a great guest post for you guys today! I urge you to read it and then check out his blog. You will NOT leave without laughing your butt off. 

Six tips to go broke without really trying
by Jason Wolverton

Remember that feeling when you were on the cusp of high school graduation? The whole world was your playground, possibilities were endless, and dreams were simply inevitabilities you just hadn't had time for yet.

And then you fast forward about 12 years and you're cleaning up piles of dog shit in the back yard and eating Kraft Macaroni and Cheese three nights a week because Meijer raised the price and you can't afford to eat it five nights.

  

Yeah, not exactly how I had envisioned it either.

Part of that just has to do with finances. No one tells you when you're 18 (at least in 1999 they didn't tell you this) that you'll bust your ass in college just in time to get a job that barely pays you enough to cover the costs of paying off the degree you needed to get the job that barely pays you enough. It's like what came first? The chicken or the bankruptcy?

What didn't help is that I didn't exactly manage my money well back in the day. There's plenty of books out there about how to save money or get rich, but I pretty much wrote the book on how to go broke.

In fact, here are six ways to pull that off:

1. Credit cards are your friends:
You know how your actual friends never buy you anything? Well, these plastic pals will pick up the tab every time. Expensive dinner? You got it. Tigers tickets? Sure, why not. Maddens 2000 to 2009? My cousin Visa will pick that up.

I signed up for my first credit card in the commons of the university I attended and I haven't looked back since. If you want to make sure you never have any money, this is definitely the way to go. 

2. Buy a new car:

Are you sick and tired of getting nickeled and dimed by your mechanic? $200 here. $400 there. Maybe even a $1,200 transmission repair. There's nothing more frustrating than having to repair an older car that's already paid off, so why not rid yourself of that frustration by taking out a five year note on a new $25,000 ride. Now you can replace those unexpected $200 repair bills with the comfort of a recurring $360 monthly payment!

3. Get techy:

You ever heard the phrase, "The thing women find sexiest in a man is all his gadgets."

Yeah, me neither. But from 2001 to 2006 you sure as hell would have thought it was true with all the crap I was buying. At one time I actually took out an Office Max credit card so that I could buy a Palm Pilot. I think I used its sweet stylus to make one appointment before I realized that carrying around a device the size of a VHS tape to keep the one or two appointments a week I had was a bit excessive. And seriously, what was with the size of those things? The name should probably have been changed to Frying Pan Pilot since you could fry and egg in those things they were so big.

But to get back on track, if you want to go broke you have to make sure you buy every PS2, XBox 360, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iMac, and Kindle on the market. Don't worry, though, your life will be so much improved with all the extra chicks you're picking up.

4. Transfer:

The greatest invention of modern day banking was the online transfer. No longer was it a chore to access money out of your savings account. Now, you can just go online and with a few clicks take the $300 it took you six months to save and transfer it to your spend account so you can write a check for the slow pitch softball bat you just bought. Seriously, this one took a lot out of me. The online transfer is to savings accounts what the Internet was to newspapers.

5. Get fit:

If you really want to focus on going broke, a good place to start is to look at your physical fitness. If your XL shirt is a little snug and you're too scared to move to the 2X model, I suggest looking into spending money on physical fitness. Exercise equipment, tapes, books, and classes are a great return on investment as long as your idea of a good return on investment is having something in your basement that is good to hang wet snow pants on. I can promise you that the next time you think about buying that treadmill you saw at Dick's Sporting Goods, you might as well just pull a $100 bill out of your wallet, go out to the parking lot, and take a dump all over it. When it comes to spending money on working out, pretty much the only thing that's losing weight is your checkbook.

6. Take a break:

Are the pressures of living paycheck to paycheck stressing you out? Well then you need a vacation! I know you don't think you can afford that all inclusive trip to Cancun, but YOLO, right? And besides, you really need to just get away and relax for a little while. It's the only way you won't have to talk to the creditors. 

So hopefully these tips can help you in your journey to become broke. I can personally attest that each of these methods is a good step in the right direction to making sure that you set yourself up for financial struggle well into your mid-life crisis. 

Jason Wolverton is a comedic blogger whose work can be found at www.iamjasonwolverton.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/jasonwolverton or on Facebook at facebook.com/wolvertonblog

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