3 money lessons from the trashiest show on YouTube
Caleb Hammer is Dave Ramsey + Jerry Springer for Zoomers.
The concept of the crazy popular YouTube show is simple: Caleb sits down with someone who's struggling with their finances, goes through their credit card statements and spending, and builds a budget for them to get out of a financial hole. Along the way he ridicules their inability to take responsibility for poor spending habits, and they go on a series of diversions into just about everything under the sun.
It’s garbage. Something akin to the reality TV I generally despise. This is obvious from the insane looking thumbnails and over-the-top video titles.
But for some reason I really can't explain or understand, it has become something of a guilty pleasure over the last few months. Watching it feels sort of like I'm doing sociology research about the way Americans interact with money. It’s fascinating. And if you have any stress about how you spend your own money, watching the show can help you feel a million times better.
Maybe in part to justify the time spent watching this trash, I wanted to share three of the most interesting things I've observed that are completely opposite of my own money habits.
Delivery app reliance
I really do not like Uber Eats and DoorDash and all of those services. I totally understand that there are use cases where they make sense, but in my experience the food arrives cold for two times the cost. I think they are horrible experiences and I can't see why the companies are still in business.
Watching Caleb Hammer has shown me why they are still in business.
It blows my mind the number of people who are ordering out using these services multiple times a week, and justifying the expense by saying they can't cook, or they're too tired to cook, or they worked a long day. “We had to order out because when we cook it tastes bad” is such a common argument that it might as well be a bumper sticker.
Learning to cook isn't easy and can definitely be frustrating. But I don't understand the perspective that never learning to cook is an actual option. Do people just intend to get takeout for the next seventy years of their life?
Buy now, pay later is huge
Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay. The reliance on these services is only increasing. It absolutely blows my mind how many people are paying thousands of dollars each month to BNPL apps for concert tickets and online shopping and other discretionary stuff. Pair it with a high credit card balance and things start to look scary fast.
Overstating income
There is nothing wrong with a 24-year-old making $40K a year. But it surprises me the number of guests that inflate the level of their income vs. reality.
That same 24-year-old will say over and over how they are “doing really well” and how they feel like they can afford to buy things that they can't afford. Their income might be fine for their age, but they are treating it as though it's ten times higher to justify overspending. It's good to be optimistic, but they are living in a different reality.
That’s it for today. Now to go watch another episode against my better nature 🤦♂️