Remember, this is from the CBC’s senior business correspondent for The National and co-host of the Lang & O’Leary Exchange:
I broke the rules to spend beyond my means
…
I was posted to New York at the age of 28 as a business journalist, and intended to live within the somewhat modest means of a newspaper correspondent. And I stuck to my guns, for at least six months. Then I abandoned my guns, hopped over the wall into no man’s land, went AWOL. And in retrospect I’m glad I did, because the investment in my career and the experiences were worth more than the thousands of dollars I figure it cost me…
My new friends liked to dine out (most people I knew in New York used their oven as additional storage space) and pretty soon we were traveling too. Italy, Spain, Italy, the Hamptons, Italy. We travelled together, and an Italian villa back then was a steal — I was practically saving money by going.
Within a few years, I was rich in experience, a billionaire in sights and sounds, a queen of couture. And tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt. The lowest moment, financially speaking, was when I cashed in my RRSP — paid a huge chunk of tax on it, lost the compounding potential, and used the money to pay off a credit card. Or most of it…
Was it a mistake? On a straight math basis yes. It was foolish. But would I do the same thing over again? In a New York minute…
Entitled to her…
[quote]Give me a break. I’ve known plenty of excellent employees whose personal finances were a shambles.
And the remark about fake invoices is near defamatory.[/quote] Rabbit
Ok Rabbit let me try to explain my remarks. Unsecured debt (credit card) carries the highest Interest rate 25-32%…If, as She states, she was caring a large balance…typically paying only the Min payment amount… a 10K debt would quickly become 100K..(That was her first mistake) Any financial expert, she claims to be one, knows that that debt will never be paid unless, as she did, she cashed out all her retirement savings, or she filed for personal bankruptcy. Indeed she should not have cashed out her saving.. (That was her second financial mistake) Bankruptcy doesn’t sweep in her retirement savings
I know of five red flag behaviors that pose a career risk in Corporate America. Personal financial mismanagement is one… The Corporation expects competence in handling of their money…a person does not have to steal to be fired for cause. Many people consider signing authority a perk without responsibility and will sign anything that crosses their desk without due diligence.. that includes employee Ber’s and vender invoices. That is an opening for mischief
I don’t think CBC, or Government in general use financial management as a tool to measure competence…Private Corporations do.
IMHO Her behaviour was beyond risky! We all over spend on Homes..Cars..Boats..trading.. Etc, but those loans are secured and the interest is manageable…
Actually, all the mouthbreathers here fail to grasp that’s she was writing about the financial mistakes she made and how she had to claw her way out of debt. She’s giving advice: watch how you spend, don’t get deeply into credit card debt, etc. It’s a lesson that many people learn the hard way when they are young. There’s no reason to trash-talk her for working her way out of debt.
Barely tolerated their owl and the pussycat act on
BNN and completely ignored them once they left.
I wouldn’t have, and didn’t, go into debt for it, but I took a few years off and saw the world, courtesy of Uncle Sam. From a purely financial perspective, I could have graduated from college earlier, and earned more money over my career.
I would not change a thing, despite the very real risk of having my name on that wall in Washington. In the end, we’re all dead. Having the most money in the bank doesn’t mean you won.
As the daughter of ex-Libel Finance Minister Otto Land I doubt this woman has ever felt truly threatened financially. Our experience with this group of morons should tell us that they know how to take care of themselves very well.
My goodness, anyone who watches ‘Lang & O’Leary’ for financial news must be stupid. While questionable at times try BNN before that dribble. Investigate O’Leary a little to discover his house of cards.
I don’t agree, Mark, that Ms. Lang represents the true mentality of the Mothercorp. Unless you mean she’s a liberal, but, we already knew that they are almost all liberals.
Ms. Lang is obviously smart and talented. One of the many problems at CBC is that it is filled with no talent doofuses.
Like some others I don’t understand the point of the original article. unless she’s somehow trying to say that young people should take some risks. She gambled that her talent, personality and appearance (total appearance, not just her face), would get her ahead in her career before the house of cards fell down and she won. The safety net of whose family she is in helped I’m sure. It’s not the story I’d relate to young people about how to take risks (if that is the point of it).
SDA turning into TMZ?
CBC in its vine ripened, hand-peeled, salted with the dehydrated tears of baby orphans self-described, nutshell, gives financial advice because, doesn’t everybody have a loaded connected Daddy that pays for Italian villas when you can’t?
Her financial advice applies exactly as much as Italian villas do to the average Canadian’s life which is why she’s the head mouthpiece of our Orwellian gubmint ministry of information we’re forced to pay for at the point of a gun.
Do you “F”n CBC idiots ever look out the window during your limo ride to the airport?
First noticed Amanda Lang when she was on BNN.
She overspend while living the live as a youngster in New York? Wow, what a crime. Especially since she now works for CBC.
What a pitiful attempt to outrage.
larben said: “Phantom I agree with you to a point, but I don’t think it is so awful to “die old” or f-ed up, or in some crummy old-folk’s home, broke, a failure, etc…”
Larben neither do I, but that person did, and they died of it. Point being, the kind of “live for today” financial advice presented by Amanda Lang in here “I’d do it again” piece there can have seriously fatal consequences if followed by the unlucky. Or the merely normal.
SYF, the fact that Amanda Lang overspent as a young person is not at issue. Nobody cares. The fact that the CBC’s senior business on-air person has presented over spending as a positive life path, “I’d do it again”,
The correct advice is cover your @ss first, THEN have fun. Because not everyone in the world has Daddy Warbucks to cover it for them, and she very, very definitely didn’t mention that part.
If abject poverty in the midst of plenty due to idiotic buying decisions and easy credit was not a problem in Canada, I wouldn’t care what she said. But it is, and I do.
As it happens the only reason I myself didn’t end up crushed is I snipped my first credit card when I was only in the hole a few hundred bucks.
Kathy Shaidle: “The govt is gonna confiscate our RSPs anyhow some day, so who cares?”
Alas, it is sadly true.
Any wealth an individual creates is eternally prey to the whims and vagaries of the popular government of the moment.
There is an alternate way to view this. You can look at her as an entrepreneur who invested in herself to make herself more marketable and whose investment paid off. I wouldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t advise my daughter to do it, but the news is full of people who spent all their resources on some “insane” idea and who made that idea pay off big time.
That is the great thing about capitalism. You have the right to make “crazy” investments and if your risky investment pays off you make out very well. We should applaud this lady, not criticize her.