Owe, Baby, Baby
My girlfriend always cries that she's "broke." I just ended up buying her groceries and paying to have her car fixed, and then I discovered by accident that she'd recently paid hundreds of dollars for hair extensions, beauty products, and a facial. She isn't the first girlfriend I've had who prioritizes beauty stuff over necessities. I really don't get some women's relationship with money.
--ATM On Legs
Some personal financial crises are caused by unexpected events, and others simply by how one answers certain basic questions, such as "Hmm, get waxed or continue living with electricity?" or "I can't decide: New brakes or traffic-stopping hair?"
Old-school economists, who view humans as hyper-rational data-crunching machines (like big, sweaty chess-playing computers), would tell you that it makes no sense for your girlfriend to keep ending up, as the saying goes, with so much month at the end of the money. (And sure, car trouble can pop up out of nowhere, but it isn't like the need to eat comes as a surprise.)
Evolutionary economists take a more nuanced view of human rationality. They find that our glaringly irrational choices in one domain (like the survival domain, including financial survival) aren't so irrational in another (like the mating domain). For example, because men evolved to have a very visually driven sexuality, women looking to land a man or retain one's interest will (often subconsciously) prioritize beauty measures -- sometimes buying eye creams so pricey they should come with power steering and a sunroof.
And though we aren't in a recession right now, a July/August 2014 Public Religion Research Institute poll found that 72 percent of people believe we are. This is relevant because research by evolutionary psychologist Sarah Hill finds that though economic downturns lead both men and women to cut their spending across the board, they also seem to prime women to increase their spending in one area: beauty enhancement. Hill explains that a scarcity of resources appears to cue an evolutionary adaptation in women to "increase the effort they invest in attracting a mate who has them." (And this seems to be the case even when a woman has resources of her own.)
Still, it isn't fair for your beauty-binging girlfriend to treat you as her boyfriend-slash-overdraft system, taking advantage of how you'd rather pay for her car and groceries than see her hoof it and crash wedding buffet lines with a big purse. Tell her that you feel bad being put in this position and though you love her, her abusive relationship with her debit card is eating away at your relationship. (A mate-retention warning light should go off in her head.) Next, show empathy. Mention that many people find themselves in her position, mainly because nobody ever taught them how to budget, and we aren't all natural fiscal wizards. In fact, we're more like chimps with credit cards.
To help her conscious mind better understand her subconscious one, explain the evolutionary view of human rationality and offer to help her plot out her finances. You might get her the book "Smart Women Finish Rich," by David Bach. And because our decision-making ability evolved in an ancestral environment where we typically had just a handful of visible choices in front of us (like five bison and one with a limp) -- as opposed to big mathematical abstractions to chew on -- you can help her get a better grip on her spending by making it visual. As for how helpful visuals can be in decision-making, evolutionary cognitive psychologist Gary Brase finds that people are far better at understanding medical risks when they are communicated with pictures (for example, 100 little people on a page shaded to show that this many of 100 will be cured and this many will end up going home in an urn).
In keeping with Brase's findings, you could draw little rectangles all over a page to represent $100 bills (in the amount of her monthly salary). Color in blocks of dollars to indicate all her monthly expenses, including any potential expenses, and offer to help her budget until she gets the hang of it. If you're open to paying for the occasional item that's not in her financial plan, let her know, but explain that you'd like to be asked first, not just informed that all of her dollar bills have run off and taken up residence in the cash register at Sephora. And finally, while you're helping her tally things up, you might take a moment to count your blessings. Your girlfriend might be a little money-dumb, but she seems to understand the importance of keeping up her curb appeal -- mindful that there's a reason men get accused of talking to a woman's breasts and not her calculator.
Dunno, I think if you treat your gf like that, you are cruising for disaster...
certainly, don't patronize... ask her straight up if she's having some money trouble, and see how she reacts to that.
She is likely also assesing you to see how good a provider (for well or ill).
Importantly, you need to think LW about how much this would bother you in the longrun, since money troubles are famous for splittin people up.
It may be that you raise the subject, and she storms outta the house, so also prepare for that.
SwissArmyD at July 14, 2015 8:10 PM
I suppose it's a matter of taste, and my taste is weird, but...who wants a woman who isn't independent and capable? I want a partner, not a leech.
From my time in the military, I saw too many women like this, latching onto my friends. They put piles of money and effort into their appearance: makeup, hair, clothes. Then, one day, they would start coming into the office in rumpled clothes, no makeup and unkempt hair. Yep, right after they got married. Within a year, they'd have gained massive amounts of weight.
It's all about catching that mate, and then she doesn't care any more? What kind of woman has so little respect for herself?
a_random_guy at July 14, 2015 11:26 PM
Someone always bails them out. My duahgters mom is like this. She finds a friend, a different man or a relative to bail her out. Some women have welfare/Uncle Sam. Women almost immediately garenr sympathy and some women know how to take advantage of this.
Dave M. at July 15, 2015 5:19 AM
Oops. daughters mom and garner sympathy.
Dave M. at July 15, 2015 5:20 AM
"Owe, Baby, Baby"
If you ever quote Britney Spears again, I swear to God, I will take your writer's card away and drop it into a shredder!
Ugh.
That awful song. "My phoniness...is killing me..." Terrible, terrible, terrible...
And whenever I hear "Give me a sign...hit me, baby, one more time," I get the urge the rip a stop sign right out of the ground and beat her with it. (Hey, isn't that what the lyrics say to do?)
Kidding aside, that's a very insightful column you wrote. You were perhaps a bit easy on the girlfriend -- it's nothing short of conniving to have your boyfriend pay for necessities while you buy hair extensions -- you offered some profound insight as to why these things occur.
It's not just abject stupidity or selfishness. It is those things but not just those things.
Patrick at July 15, 2015 6:07 AM
Here's where my Red Flag of Skeptical comes up ... he acts like he doesn't recognize a $100 manicure, complete with fake nails, hair extensions, etc., when he sees them. Yet that's the kind of woman he digs.
This guy isn't going for women with natural hair, short-trimmed natural nails, minimal make-up - he likes 'em really girly and smellin' nice. So apparently he CAN tell the difference.
So, from whence comes all the aghast and surprise?
Pirate Jo at July 15, 2015 6:20 AM
I'm with Pirate Jo on this one. "Why do I always end up with shallow women who value tacky 1990s porn-style accoutrements over fiscal responsibility?". (Sorry, I'm sure there are lovely and reasonably priced hair extensions that don't look tacky at all. Just not part of my world so I'm stereotyping.) Once is an honest mistake. A pattern means it's you, not the dating pool.
I compare it to my phase in my 20s of only dating super hot guys in bands. And I asked myself, "Why do I somehow always end up with dudes who expect me to pick up the tab for dinner, and to come to their shows and watch them adoringly. Oh, right, because I only date super hot musicians." So I started dating super hot guys with jobs and slightly less sexy haircuts. It was a revelation.
It's not a binary--dippy women with hair extensions or hideous cows in granny panties. Maybe start your next relationship with someone hot but low-maintenance with a good job and see where that takes you.
Anathema at July 15, 2015 6:57 AM
"Here's where my Red Flag of Skeptical comes up ... he acts like he doesn't recognize a $100 manicure,..."
Young guys don't realize how much that stuff costs. Not an excuse, just an explanation. Obviously, the LW just got clued in.
Cousin Dave at July 15, 2015 7:14 AM
Anathema, I came THIS close to snorking coffee out my nose! Funny!
When my sweety was really young and dumb, he got married to someone he had only known for six months and found out firsthand what it's like to be yoked to someone with absolute shit for brains about money. Fortunately their marriage produced no children and only lasted four years, but in addition to treating him like shit, she destroyed his credit.
She would do things like order tons of stuff from catalogs and not pay the rent or utilities, and since she didn't usually work (her jobs tended to last a maximum of two weeks before she would quit or get fired) she was home to intercept the past-due notices before he saw them.
One day, before having lunch with his co-workers, he stopped at an ATM to withdraw $40 for said lunch, only to receive a slip of paper saying the checking account was overdrawn by over $1,000. That was when the little light bulb clicked on and he took over the finances.
After they got divorced, he moved into an efficiency apartment and went to serious work on repairing his credit, which he managed to do. Now he's got a great job, a nice house, and money in the bank, while I believe his ex now has three kids by three different baby-daddies. Presumably she is supported by the state. But who cares?
The moral of the story is NEVER HOOK UP WITH A BRAINDEAD MORON! In first grade they take a big bucket of bottlecaps and give each kid six of them and then take three away and say, 'Now how many do you have left?' First graders can get the answer. There is no excuse for a grown-ass adult not to understand these basics.
My sweety decided his next girlfriend was going to be an accountant. Which I am! I find that kind of funny. I never realized my number-crunching would be such a strong selling point.
Pirate Jo at July 15, 2015 7:19 AM
Jo, excellent comments. I still have that awful Britney Spears song (which is redundant, I know) running through my head.
Patrick at July 15, 2015 7:44 AM
Patrick,
Maybe she's quoting the Linda Rondstadt song.
Fayd at July 15, 2015 7:44 AM
Her behavior is a serious red flag, but some guys are OK with it as long a chick is hot. I know couples where the husband has to manage ALL of the finances and give the wife spending cash, and she'll still try to sneak shopping and laser peels on credit cards. I think other women are better at spotting high-maintenance women than men. A man knows that the hot blonde with the awesome butt and the boobs and the nice little feet with pink toenails is attractive to him, but he's not thinking about the personal trainer and the weekly mani/pedi and tanning and monthly root touch-ups. It's a time-suck, too.
ahw at July 15, 2015 8:06 AM
ahw,
Chicks don't stay hot. None of them do. Marry a hottie who sucks at finances and you will end up old, married to an old lady, and broke, instead of old, married to an old lady, and rich.
Pirate Jo at July 15, 2015 9:22 AM
Pirate Jo, I know; I am one. But my point is that there are men that expect this behavior. Maybe it was how their parents' relationship dynamic worked. Our friend's dad has this girlfriend who is in her sixties and is not especially attractive. But, she gets him to help out with bills as well as give her money so she can go get a manicure and a blowout when they go out. This friend gets upset when his own wife treats herself to a "spa day" when he's just had to pay her part of monthly bills (they make roughly the same $), but he thinks "that's just what women do."
ahw at July 15, 2015 10:18 AM
"My sweety decided his next girlfriend was going to be an accountant."
Actually, not all the accountants are good with numbers.
Check out this accountant's story, who purchased a condo for his girlfriend for $380,000. And that was just beginning.
http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2014/december/how-not-to-get-away-with-murder?single=1
chang at July 15, 2015 5:56 PM
A man knows that the hot blonde with the awesome butt and the boobs and the nice little feet with pink toenails is attractive to him, but he's not thinking about the personal trainer and the weekly mani/pedi and tanning and monthly root touch-ups. It's a time-suck, too.
This made me laugh. I seem to recall you are in TX, so you'll get this: My boyfriend's friend is attracted to the "Dallas Uptown Girl." Ie, perfect nails, thick make-up, artfully wavy hair (blonde, of course!), designer clothes. And then he wonders why his girlfriends "spend so much damn time getting ready every day," expect expensive jewelry and designer clothes as gifts, eat out only at expensive restaurants, are constantly jealous of other women, wear uncomfortable shoes and then whine about it, and don't want to go hiking/camping with him.
When they break up and I say something like, "Well, she did always seem high maintenance ..." the guys are like, "ORLY? How did you know dis? I just thought she was hot!"
sofar at July 16, 2015 2:24 PM
Seems to me like a big red flag, I would consider breaking up .. if you think it's bad now, wait until you're married and ending up in arguments because you're just trying to save enough to retire etc. and she's bitter and disappointed in you because she's not getting enough overseas vacations or feels you haven't provided a big enough car/house/whatever. I think the problem is partly that some girls are spoiled while growing up and then they try recreate that situation in a relationship (or, I suspect some women like this are products of divorce - e.g. girls raised mostly by mom but with money from the father, these moms effectively teach their daughters that men are ATMs and because the father's not around nobody teaches them how to manage money).
Maybe there's a chance she can learn to improve her 'fiscal responsibility' - these are habits that can be taught - also, obviously you should weigh up her good points against this, then decide if this is salvageable.
@"They find that our glaringly irrational choices in one domain (like the survival domain, including financial survival)"
In a sense it's not even that 'irrational' given she seems to know boyfriend dear will help bail her out.
There's nothing 'per se' wrong with letting your girlfriend/wife spend a bit on looking good - but only when the context is a partnership with generally fiscally sound habits. This doesn't sound like that's the case.
Lobster at July 16, 2015 3:09 PM
"some girls are spoiled while growing up and then they try recreate that situation in a relationship (or, I suspect some women like this are products of divorce - e.g. girls raised mostly by mom but with money from the father, these moms effectively teach their daughters that men are ATMs"
You met my ex-wife!
treadwell at July 16, 2015 6:05 PM
To me, this is classic gold digger behavior, getting someone else to pay for necessities so they can afford luxuries. This type of person will normally respond with rage at the very suggestion they try to budget themselves. To them, luxuries are a drug. And suggesting they stop or cut down is the same as telling an alcoholic or drug addict they may have a problem or should cut down. Try to take an alcoholic's booze away and you might get your fingers cut off.
On LW's part, he has to ask himself why he keeps ending up with these girls. Does he have a fixer/care-taker complex? Does he feel no girl(at least no girl worth having) would like him for who he is, so he has to have someone that is dependent upon him in some way? Etc.
It's possible this girl is just someone who isn't used to a budget. But it's also possible these things have a much deeper meaning for her, and she's going to need some serious therapy/recovery to get better. And if she's the classic gold-digger type, she WILL in fact leave in a heartbeat the minute you stop covering for her.
lg at July 18, 2015 10:34 AM
Given that this has happened with more than one GF, I'd say the look you are into is a high-maintenance one.
Either go for women who have a less expensive look, or accept that they're going to spending a lot of money on it.
I know there are a few subcultures where they don't have a lot of money, but are expected to look a certain way that costs quite a bit, which seems cruel to me.
NicoleK at July 20, 2015 12:00 AM
This is why I never buy ANYthing for my pirate wench... as sweet and wonderful as she is, she has some expensive red flags waving. I'll do stuff for her, and she does lots for me, but I won't spend serious money on her.
jefe at July 20, 2015 1:17 PM
The ending to this letter is pretty funny, in that I get her relationship with money a lot more than I get his. "Why do these women keep taking my money?" Yeah, a real toughie.
Also, the rest of you are wrong; the title is clearly a reference to Salt n Pepa.
kf at July 27, 2015 10:59 AM
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