Now there's a place to confess about overspending
Posted
Oct 22 2008, 11:33 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
We all have our financial secrets, and some undoubtedly have to do with stupid things we bought. Now there's a place to make a confession.
At Spendster, you can watch videos about stupid stuff other people have bought, submit your own or write about your spending blunders. We particularly enjoyed the lady in the bubble bath (fully clothed) who talked about her candles, kitchen appliances and hats.
First of all, what is a spendster? "A spendster is someone who, in a moment of weakness, buys something they think they really need and realizes later they made a bad choice," says "LitterMan," who blogs at the site and admits to his own spending blunders. He also gives solid shopping tips.
Another feature of the site is a calculator. It figures out how much you actually spent if you put your stuff on a credit card and made only minimum payments for a year. It also shows how much that misspent money would be worth if you had invested it or saved it.
We used $500 just to try it out. That item would have actually cost us $1,400 if we'd gone the credit card route, making minimum payments with a 9% APR.
Spendster is sponsored by the nonprofit National Endowment for Financial Education. The site says it wants to "give people a safe haven -- a confessional, if you will -- where they can talk about what they shouldn't have bought."
