re: Do you know personally know someone that has absolutely no understanding of money?

My inlaws. When he had a good job, they had fully loaded vehicles, vacations, etc.. Then when situation changes, they have to sell it all, cancel plans, constantly bring up how they can't afford stuff right now. Then as soon as he gets another job, complain that their vehicles aren't nice enough for them and take tha vacations again. They filed for bankruptcy before I met my wife. I know they have nothing saved for retirement. It's scary that they just never learn. Only a few years younger than my parents who are both retired. Scared of what that ends up like. Not staying here.

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I had $5,500. I made the mistake of mentioning this to her when we were planning our vacation. Summer was coming up and expected to use maybe $1,500 or so to take our vacation. Nope, she wanted to book this trip that cost $5,200.

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Man, that's gotta be infuriating. I'm sure that was just one example among many. I'm guessing she probably threw temper tantrums about it when she didn't get her way. Can understand from this alone why she is an ex-wife.

It is the “I can’t be out of money because I still have checks” mentality.

My wife thinks “available balance” means “available to spend”

My wife has mentioned to family and friends that if she were in charge of finances, we would be broke.

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Much of this is a learned behavior. It would not surprise me if someone close in her family that she grew up with lived that way.

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My wife and I both grew up in middle to low class families. Neither of our families/ parents put any emphasis on saving money at a young age or teaching financial responsibility.

We spent our first several of years going paycheck to paycheck and I got tired of it. We still aren't the most responsible with money, but I've figured out how to save and get the money out of sight and out of mind.

Also, I fortunately started my 401k when I got my current job 17 years ago at 19 yo and the wife has a solid retirement account balance as well.

I know a few. Fortunately for me, my wife is even more conservative with money than I am so we have no issues there.

However, I am amazed at the number of people who have no understanding of value outside of what the monthly payment is.

My SIL. Got the biggest sum of money she will ever get at one time last year as an inheritance. Started spending it immediately as fast as she could.

My ex-wife. I worked basically 7-14’s for almost 5 years straight once. I was off maybe 2 weeks totally a year, a day or two here and there. I never looked at the bank account or tended to the bills. I thought it taking care of. Fast forward to the end of our relationship, I found a cheap project truck to buy. I looked at it that night and told the guy I’m gonna run get a few hundred out the ATM. ATM told me insufficient funds. No way I thought. I called the now ex wife and she said something wrong then. So that morning I told me boss I would be a little late I had to run the bank. I was floored when they show me my bank accounts. She would literally withdraw mine and her check the minute it hit. She hadn’t done our taxes in YEARS. I was so far behide with bills it wasn’t even funny. Just our water bill was behide almost $1000. It’s usually $30 a month. In the beginning she learned what bills I had on auto draft and made sure it was enough to cover, but later she stopped caring about that. Not long after I found out I was broke, they come to repo my truck because she’d quit paying it. I managed to get that sorted out, but learned of all the other problems I had. That night she got home, her bags were packed and waiting on the porch. I filed for divorce the next day and haven’t heard from her since. It took me a couple years to get everything lined out.