When I Grow Up

In 1999, Monster.com ran an ad on TV that featured kids saying the following things about their future career aspirations:

• When I grow up, I want to file all day.
• I want to claw my way up to middle management.
• Be replaced on a whim.
• I want to have a brown nose.
• I want to be a yes man.
• Yes woman.
• Yes, sir. Coming, sir.
• Anything for a raise, sir.
• I want to be underappreciated.
• Be paid less for doing the same job.
• I want to be forced into early retirement.

Now, with that background from the Monster.com commercial I’d like to propose a financial planning version which goes like this:

• When I grow up I want to do a poor job of managing my financial resources.
• I want to buy things I won’t use or don’t really have a need for.
• See how much I can charge on my credit cards before they finally cut me off.
• Buy a house just to impress people, even if I can’t really afford to pay for it.
• Drive a new car every year and eat that expensive depreciation for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• Ignore the fact my family is counting on me and avoid any kind of estate planning which might provide for and take care of them.
• Buy stocks on a hunch, hot tip or whim.
• Spend money I don’t have, on things I don’t need, to impress people I don’t even know or like.
• Hope for the best. As Alfred E. Neuman would say, “What! Me worry?”