re: People who can't manage finances or spending. How does this happen?

My dad taught me a lot about finances. Even my girlfriend who is pretty smart never had her parents sit her down and explain a lot of this stuff so I’m trying to imprint better habits on her. Same with a lot of my friends. I just helped my friend set up an IRA. He’d been saving well just not investing. The more people i can help with basic money management the better. It’s not hard especially if you instill the values early on.

ETA: my dad literally used to make me write papers during weekends or after school on financial literacy. He’d give me articles from the paper of stories of people who totally overspent or fricked their lives up by not managing their finances and make me write reports to him on it.