Love it!! Brightened up my day, thank you

I just have one tip for staying broke, take up Tournament Paintball! It only costs about ?15,000 a year, even more if you have the latest gear every time they come out! Or you could spend an extra ?10,000 and play all the US and European tournaments! ;) Let me know if you want to join, lol.

Buy a house with mundic block foundations (because the surveyor's report said it was ok)then spend more money on replacing those foundations than you paid for the house just so you can sell it at a huge loss, with no recourse against the surveyor for compensation because you found out too long after the report was written. Then rent a house and find out after you've moved in that the drains block, the roof leaks and the central heating doesn't work, and the landlord couldn't give a damn. Then move into another rented house on a "long-term" let only to be told 4 weeks after you've moved in that the landlord is selling and you have to get out again. We did all of these things and it worked a treat - struggling just to live now!!!

Buy a boat - its a surefire way of guzzling cash what with the actual buying cost, mooring fees, maintenance, clothes to look cool in, etc etc and you probably only get to use it for around 3 months of the year.  Brilliant!

Don't save up for large purchases. Come on, you know you want the latest washing machine and the latest car. Spread the cost, it helps you budget! Please..... who cares if it's at 29% and costs as much as your mortgage? Your friends will love you more if you pull up in the latest car and have the best stuff at home

get a divorce,and carry on paying half the mortgage,even though your other half gets married again,then increase it each time the rates go up.
Pay loads of money to  solicitor for this privelege.
Believe him when he says he wants to sell it.Live in a poxy house thats damp,and the heating doesnt work,as you couldnt afford a survey due to the above.

shoot, Dave, that's a sorry story... i almost can't believe your run of luck there.  Actually, would you be willing to tell a bit more about your mundic foundations experience in an email for a new property site I'm launching called Welcome Home?

Hehe ok, hard luck stories notwithstanding (sorry, people...yes those really are unfortunate ways to stay broke) it's a funny article because it's quite incisive about the ways we choose directly or indirectly to waste money!

Agree with Mohammed and TB: yep, credit of any kind is a sure fire wealth-guzzler, and I've heard yachting described as the equivalent of standing under a cold shower tearing up ?50 notes...

I think a couple of major additions could be:

"It Has To Be Brand New"
...cars...TVs...cameras...computers...never mind the depreciation, or that there are loads of used-but-good bargains available...shiny new equals  the envy of my peers.

"Peace Of Mind"
...waste money on warranties and insurances to protect yourself and all your belongings against every possible eventuality...apart from the many ones excluded in the small print, that is.

Marry a musician!

Resign before having another job! that will help for sure!

Buy a Hot Tub! "It will only cost a few pence a day to run sir" my a**e, my electricity bill has doubled not to mention all the chemicals it guzzles! still it is relaxing in the evening with a cold beer watching the stars. I must have some pleaseure in life with the hours I work and I'm doing my bit for global warming!

You've been spying on me, haven't you???

Leave the job you hate,take up motocross and road racing to boot and burn you`r wallet
i have actually done this !!!!

Trade currency options,go to bed 50k up,wake up 100k down,OUCH!

Marry a musician!! I gave birth to one but I won't challenge Tracey as he's still not left home yet....

Buy a horse - open up the money pit and watch your hard earned flow into it.  At least you have those huge brown eyes to stare into as you watch your last penny being munched at one end and poohed out at the other!!! Hay ho (sic)!

Take up smack.

(this is not one I've tried personally)

Yep, quitting with ambition and dedication (before actually having secured the next step) is a certain sure fire way to get broke! I did this recently but worked out in the end! I do not advise it though. This article made me laugh a lot....

Hmmm, play money.

DOUBLE IT!!!

I found the best way was to get married.... eBay - ?3k in one month, Bingo 5 times a week - and she was less than 30 YO..... that surpasses anything that I can manage to spend in the bookies, pub, holidays and designer gear that I get now - DOH!!!!

Hey, it's real easy.  Just get kids and horses.  I know, I've done it and they've blown the lot between them.  Bankruptcy here I come!

Buy birthday and Christmas presents for the children of your all your friends and family, even though you are only spending a fiver. Say yes and go to each and every party or restaurant invitation that you get from all your friends and family. Buy new clothes every season for work from expensive retailers, as you know that they will last longer and look better. Then when you find yourself in a spot of financial bother get out a loan to repay your overdraft. Why not remortgage and have a variable rate mortgage at the same time thus having two wonderfully high interest rates to pay as well as your monthly expenditure. By the way make sure you are a single parent too. It definately works.

Havn't stopped giggling, I see me in there somewhere. x

Buy a caravan - with the depreciation and annual ground rent and fees, this is a surefire way of blowing your hard-earned...!

Get yourself an addiction to gambling/drinking/drugs/sex....beleive me it will keep you skint!

11. Encourage your teenagers to go to college. Make sure that there is no concessionary bus fare. Say you will pick them up from the train station even though they have a return bus fare. And to stop you feeling guilty let the younger kid go ice skating when ever he feels like it.....

12. Tell the kids the pin code for the money card and leave the card lying around.

Live in the UK as single person with no child dependents, on a low wage and pay more and more tax to pay tax credits, benefits, subsidised social housing to people that don't work and have no intention of working because they get more money in benefits than you do working!  So  they can enjoy lifes little luxuries like plasma tvs, ipod, satellite, and eat take aways, while you struggle to pay your mortgage, rent, council tax,etc, etc  What a great life eh!

Hire a solicitor to help get a debt owed you.  Then receive a bill for £863 for writing one letter.  I'm in the wrong job.......

Rowena: get a grip. If your solicitors charged that much for a letter i dont think you'd be paying them somehow.

Jas...so so so true!

Have a partner who has a spending problem and can't save, keeps it all a secret and you find out the hard way. Doesn't matter how hard you save and do without if your partner has to have it all NOW. STRESSED OUT.

Favourate lie's:-
It's belongs to work!
It's not mine, honest!
NO I can't remember my internet account password! Can't phone the bank, there's know one on the phone when I get home from work!
Held in a que and get no answer on my lunch break!

I've got two ways to stay broke,
Firstly you live with a woman who decides to retire at 42 with no pension and so you end up keeping her, meanwhile she runs up debts in your name so that it gets so bad that you have to remortgage every year to pay everything off, resulting in a mortgage you cant possibly pay.

buy an old car and throw away all your money on repairs, you're throwing good money after bad and so you'll be well broke.

Get a really hign maintenance girl friend that buggs you 24 - 7 that you need to go away 3 times a year, and cancel everything else that is important in life so you can go on holiday no less than 3 times a year, or life isn't worth living, and you cant go away next year!!!!!!!!

Have ago at stoozing, ( the art of borrowing money from 0% credit cards and putting the money in high interest accounts to earn you interest ) transfer the money to another credit card which you don't owe money on then try to get your newly borrowed dosh from your credit card company. They will tell you it has to go back to the company it was transferred from and the company you borrowed from will charge a 3% transfer fee despite getting their money back in 5 days. Has to be the quickest way to lose £150 and have nothing to show for it. doh !!

Do Balance Transfers on Credit Cards, but carry on spending on the old Cards

Transfer your student overdraft to a new welcoming bank, increasing the limit if you can, forget to close the previous and now repaid overdraft and use at will, repeat until you can find no more banks.

Totally agree Jas, sick of living in this country and being taken advantage of because I work hard!

spend the whole day at home licking your own backside and ignore the call from the office until they're sick of trying and fire you. That should help a bit.

if you DON'T want to be broke follow Sharia Principles.

Comming to the UK Soon iA.

Give any money you may have or may not have to your brother or sister, then find out they didn't use it for food shopping, but had a good night out and bought their fags with it.

become addicted to ebay and buy all kinds of crap you dont need.

Scary, have done some of those!! yesm], my advice is to buy ALL those Glossy mags and ALL the celebrity ones- EVERY week! and then try to dress like a footballer - or his WAG! I dont mean skimp on cheap clothing and accessories from As#a, A#OS t## shop os alike... to try and look like one- I mean go blow all your money on the REAL thing! then dine at at all those Celeb hang outs- so you can "live the life" !! (whatever that is) Then once u have run up £30k on plastic...defaulted on your mortgage or rent and gone bankrupt, start all over again !! he he ...not!!
ALL I CAN SERIOUSLY SAY IS DONT PLACE SO MUCH VALUE ON MATERIALISTIC STUFF THAT - WELL, YOU DONT REALLY NEED. THINK FOR A MINUTE BEFORE YOU BUY IT!!! ITS IMPACT ON THE ENVIROMENT...AND WILL IT CHANGE YOUR LIFE? WHY NOT MAKE A LIST OF STUFF YOU CAN DO THAT IS UNDER £5 OR FREE!! SUCH AS A NICE WALK, RUN OR CYCLE RIDE IN THE COUTRYSIDE> S.

Hey! It's the middle of winter and half term holidays. You know what will cheer you up! A holiday. Get on line and look for those exciting hols and book one. How about skiing. Yeah that looks great never done it before, but you've booked it and it's going to be good fun and make you feel on top of the world. Now grab your credit card and head off to the sports shop, you're going to need all that winter sports clothing. It'll come in handy every winter cos you're going to enjoy this new lifestyle, and be so much happier. Don't worry the credit cards have 6 or 7 weeks before you have to pay them and you only need to pay the minimum amount. I feel better already. Where's those old ski boots, I'm sure they'll still fit!

just buy a horse they're gorgeous and you can rent grazing it's not too expensive, but then you need the right saddle that fits ,the indoor and outdoor rugs, the horse trailer to take to vets or to seaside, the 4x4 to tow the trailer, then you get toatally hooked and want your own stables, and start taking part in local competitions then you join the affiliated society then you need to have the flu injections every year, then you need a jumping saddle a dressage saddle and of course all the proper turn out for yourself. I could go on and on now 3 horses later and remortgaging my house to buy a field, buying a bigger house for all my horse tack. I work all week to never have the time to fully enjoy it. Whats the point

Try Going to see your favourite football team play evry week, end up in a pub and then off to the Casino!!!

Married for 30 years throughout sickness, bad moods (his), job problems (both over the years), elderly parentsinc illness and bereavement.  Children - paying through College, University earning just above the amount to get help and far below the level that means it doesn't matter.

Meanwhile a single parent I work with can afford all the luxuries because although her ex husband is in a 50k+ job and pays secretly the amount she can scrounge means she has more income to spend in pubs, clubs and fashionable restaurants and cars.  

Looking on the bright side my house might be lived in but it's home, my kids are lovely (husband sometimes), car keeps going - just and we have a lovely garden!

Live with someone already in approx £12k debt, who doesn't tell you abot it u ntil a debt collector calls round 3 years later and makes you agree to paying about half of your joint income a month to clear it.

Now can't buy birthday presents for the other half's kids or even get a birthday present myself now

Yesterday was not a good day......

Re-mortgage your house to help a 'friend' buy a property - no strings, no interest. He pays on the dot for 3 years then house re-possessed, and he starts acting strangely. You still believe in him so help buy a car (X type jag no less) so he can keep on working - then lo and behold he is diagnosed with bi-polar and you are left paying the £400 a month (while he still thinks life is wonderful). Shame he still insists he is marrying a girl in Africa he has met twice in 8 years (lucky girl or what). Good job I still love him! God Bless.

Wanna loose cash, just live in the UK.
Both professionals with what should be a very generous joint income and both working our butts off with 2 young kids.  Only a mortgage (ONLY a mortgage??!!!) and a car payment due to wifes good governance of credit cards.
Still SKINT EVERY month thanks to Gordon's stealth taxes, fuel, food, eating, childcare and car tax -£300 pa for a volvo estate - give me a break!
Stuffed for holidays 'cos you have to go in the school hols - ooh! sudden 200% price hike for crappy accommodation and Thomsons reps singing abilities and flights at 4am.

Sorry to rant, but currently living in this country sucks! and its not the weather!

PS - Linda - I hope YOU are driving the Jag?

want what every one else has got, and never being happy with what you got. And caring what others think

khan
you all superstars well done for cheering me up ,just been sacked from a job after 23 years, thought i was going to have money problems!!!!!!!still deciding to buy that tv ive been looking at for last 3 months , wat u reckon chaps
well done all

Wow, lots of familiar stuff, and all equally depressing. 85K in debt Jan 04, after divorce settlement. Luckily found cheap digs: worked my B**t off, lost driving licence, worked b**t off but cycling and taking train. Now owe less than 25k, but still have illness as seem to have spent 4 months in that time in Caribbean!! Guess I could be debt free if I didn't take those breaks!! Off for a week next month too! Must need my head examining

Get married, find he has £13k of debts and have to pay them - they threatened an Attachment of Earnings and even though it would not have been granted, requesting it would have lost me the job!
Spend the next 16 years paying off his o/draft, friends he borrowed from, and "lending" him money coz you can't stand the nagging and supporting him as he can't find a job (did he actually look??)
Give up and get divorced - that's expensive :-( , then find he has left you with £13k of debts coz he took the money but did not pay the CTax or rent.  Loan & o/draft in joint names and he has disappeared.
Become a single parent, work 60 hours a week and then lose your job coz the business gets sold and you get one week's notice.

That should do it!!

Adopt a habit of making all the savings you possibly can on the main grocery shopping for the family... and then buy all sorts of goodies from all sorts of shops and say, "look, this was only 99p... or 1.99"... multiply by, say, 10 each week... and you could easily be spending £80-£100 each month on rubbish you love to eat or look at

Bet on England winning Euro 08

£25000 at 6/1

Wat a joke!! life is a bi*%h, i have collected more debt than i can afford. and now consolidating debt with ANOTHER LOAN which is less a month but as long as a mortgage term. only 1 way out!!!!!  

A little help!? mayb that comment i read earlier about sharia principles doesent sound to bad. may b i can chop hand off and get a hook? then get everyting i need for a high standard of living, handed to me by old gordies lovely labour!!!  

Alfred - you're kidding??

lol illarious, and the comments as well.
that was fun ... now back to work at recovering after the crisis!

Get married and live in UK; cash in your pension to pay off her house, let her spend all your money, hire babysitter so she can go out while you are working nights, then (and only when its all gone) she can get divorce and continue to let you pay for her to maintain her lifestyle.

Get married, pay off her university student debts, have a child, get divorced and watch her walk off with 80% of your wealth. Pay solicitors fees for years in an attempt to see your son, she dies, you get your son but all the money you gave away to bring up your son is denied to you.
Start out again as a full-time working single-parent strapped to a mortgage bigger than what you had as a single person over 10 years ago.
Not entirely broke, glad to be alive and realise what is truly important...family and freinds.

Bring your kids up to understand the importance of education, they stay at school till 18 and do 'A' Levels, great, fund them through that, they each spend 4 years at college till 22, great, fund them through that, then they each decide to go to university for 4 years, fantastic, fund them through that. Hay don't get me wrong I'm proud of them, I have two very clever sons but I'm flat broke, who's the smart one, or should I say ones?

I 100% NEEDED my iPhone!

LOL!!!!!!

Why am I laughing though... This sounds familiar, far too familiar!!

Gents, should you wish to be skint for a good few years then why not marry my ex-wife. You will be able to work your butt of for a decent salary yet never have enough money to get by, just watch the credit card bills pile up as the clothes and cosmetics roll in. There will be no expense spared whilst you lie awake all night wondering how the hell it's going to be paid for.