Originally posted by: ActuaryTm
Originally posted by: EyeMWing
What, you mean there's a more efficient way to convert $1 (AND ONLY $1) into anything remotely resembling a decent amount of money?
The only investments you can make with $1... Actually, nevermind, you CAN'T make them, because of brokerage fees and such. So. Buy a soda and have 20oz of liquid nourishment for 15 minutes, or buy a lottery ticket and have 15 minutes of time invested on ATOT being told that you're an idiot for paying the stupid tax, with the extremely remote possibility of coming out the other side with tens of millions of dollars.
And yeah, yeah, yeah, I should have "saved it" - that's all cool and crap, until you look at the rest of my situation. I can't save ANYTHING. Either I use it, or it goes to paying off the nearly $25k I owe various people and institutions (car and student loans primarily, but because of my job situation, informal loans from eating lunch and buying gas are starting to pile up). A dollar isn't going to do jack ****** against that kind of balance. In the end, when it comes time to pay up, it's not going to matter if I have that dollar or not - I'm still screwed out of my mind.
In general, playing the lottery is a very, very, VERY stupid thing to do. But there comes a point where stupid becomes desperate. It's not going to do any more harm, but it can do a hell of a lot of damage. Talk to me when I've decided that this game is worth more than a dollar every month and a half. Going beyond the $1 mark is plain stupid, no matter how you look at it.
There are so many ways to respond to the above, but the important portion has been bolded.
It screams of a lifestyle indicative of a larger problem: poor (no pun intended) financial choices, spending habits, and (likely) living beyond one's means. I have a rather poor memory, but I seem to recall more than a few threads here (your personal blog, of course) regarding eating out, ordering pizza, and the like, as well as few more regarding various testosteronic hardware or electronics. Budgeting also popped up a time or two, as well as the observation that you tend to drive seemingly everywhere under the sun (which is no doubt an enormous financial burden these days).
Here are a few examples:
link,
link,
link, etc. Others could likely be found.
All these choices and single, seemingly insignificant dollars add up; however, the spender's mentality and the confusion of needs versus wants dwindles most of that away.