The home foreclosure crisis is hitting people of all economic backgrounds. Ex-NBA star Latrell Sprewell home was foreclosed, according to this story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. I emailed the author of the article, Marie Rohde, and she said that in a few weeks, Sprewell’s home will go to a sheriff’s sale if he doesn’t come up with the full amount he owes.
According to the story:
The holder of the mortgage, RBS Citizens Bank, told Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge David Hansher that Sprewell owes $320,284. According to River Hills records, the house is assessed at $610,000 and has an estimated fair market value of $667,980. Sprewell bought the house in 1994 for $405,000.
Once upon a time, Latrell scoffed at a $21 million contract extension. My how things change. I hope he doesn’t feel the need to lash out.
Well, to end on a positive note, Essence magazine has these five tips on how to stop wasting money.
Do you feel bad for millionaires who squander their fortunes and end up broke? What do you think about Essence’s tips for being frugal? I’m not so sure I want to give up my gym membership, although I don’t use it like I should. What are some of your frugal tips? And should sports agents start linking to The Frugalista Files in contracts?
Thanks to Product Junkie Diva for the tip!
Related posts:
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Essence always has tips for saving money. Then on the next page they’re advertising $45 body lotion and $600 shoes. If I followed their mixed messages I’d have to move back home with my parents and get two more jobs…
One way I save money: Reading magazines and newspapers online. And I’m a journalist.
Isis! Let’s keep a journalist working. I work in newspapers and we like circulation. And yes, Essence is very, hmm, broad when it comes to its message.
Am I a horrible person because I don’t feel sorry when millionaires squander their fortunes and end up broke? I think the key word here is “squander” so at some point you have to know that you are headed for disaster. While I know that having lots of money does not mean that you know what to do with it, at some point common sense has to come into play. He should have had the hosue and some taxes paid in advance. Calculate how much you need in savings if hard times hit. Perhaps millionairs don’t think of hard times.
Regarding the essence tips, while I will continute to buy bottled water I am exercising on my own instead of hitting the gym. However I have a feeling I will soon renew my membership, but that is a good tip from Essence.
My frugal tips
When you get paid set aside a specific amount that will go towards savings, weekly expenses, bills and mis. Once you have finished that money don’t go back to the bank unless it is an emergency.
Try your very best to live below your means.
You will love it when you look at your bank statement.
I think it’s unfortunate but I don’t feel bad. He’s merely lying in the bed he made. I can’t believe he hasn’t paid off more than $80K in 14 years. He definitely had the money to pay the house off in full but squandered it away.
Regarding the Essence tips, it’s only smart to cancel a gym membership if you don’t use it or truly can’t afford it. I agree about not buying bottled water though. You can get a Brita filter for home and resuseable bottles. You’re saving money and the environment. It takes an enormous amount of petroleum to produce all those bottles. The continued demand for oil products (the aforementioned petreleum as well as gasoline) is the reason gas prices are so high.
First and foremost saving money on fuel leads to many other lifestyle savings such as housing, food, etc. http://water4fuel.info has the latest in saving money on fuel.
I only wear clothes that can be washed. When I retired, my dry cleaning bill disappeared. When I substitute teach I only wear dockers and pullover cotton golf type shirts. I eat basically fruit,veges, beans and rice type dishes. I eat a lot of egg whites, peanut butter and nuts. What I don’t do is eat out. I can get at least four meals off of one chicken. I am the master of cheap!
Spreewell has beena financial mess for a long time. His yachts were taken back since he didn’t make payments. OLD STORY. using him as an example of the “finacial difficulites” due to todays slowed economy is lazy journalism at best.
Not surprising. I’m just barely hanging on myself. Just God’s GRACE & MERCY that I’m not in Foreclosure.
I hate being frugal…to me it’s a form of self-torture.
I buy what I want. Period.
And if I can’t afford it…it won’t get bought.
I believe I will always have and it’s worked for me my whole life….I fundamentally don’t believe in lack or scarcity…and those times when I do get scared by the conditioning of the world…I pray on it..and God will show me the way.
There’s financial planning and then there’s scare tactics used to make people feel that they’ll never have enough.
The same amount of time and energy used for being frugal could be used to understand how to make your money work for you and how to make more of it.
Fruga, i have to tell you…these athletes are so overpaid to begin with, it’s ridiculous. for throwing a ball through a hoop? and what do we pay our cops and nurses? its just not right! so screw em if he can’t hang onto his millions of dollars.. sorry to get overexcited, but it makes me angry when I see people going hungry…and these overpaid athletes throw their money away on cars and mansions. keep up the good work Fruga, I love your blog and read it everyday. I’ve turned a couple of friends onto it too. Thanks for telling us about the free concert.
I hate being frugal…to me it’s a form of self-torture.
I buy what I want. Period.
And if I can’t afford it…it won’t get bought.
I believe I will always have and it’s worked for me my whole life….I fundamentally don’t believe in lack or scarcity…and those times when I do get scared by the conditioning of the world…I pray on it..and God will show me the way.
There’s financial planning and then there’s scare tactics used to make people feel that they’ll never have enough.
The same amount of time and energy used for being frugal could be used to understand how to make your money work for you and how to make more of it.
@ Melinda – You seem to have confused being frugal with being miserly or somesuch. Being frugal doesn’t mean not getting what you want, it means making the most of your money/resources.
As an example, if I wanted a brand new car, I would go out and get one. However, being frugal would be comparision shopping among dealers and looking for incentives vs paying the sticker price. I still got what I wanted, just for a better price. How is that self-torture or believing in scarcity/lack?
Well, how often do you go to your gym on a daily basis? Are your grocery stores close enough that you can walk to them and get exercise that way? Or is your neighborhood walking friendly?
If you don’t go or don’t need the gym, don’t pay for it!!!
GLM-I use the gym sporadically, which is something I want to change. But I feel like if I cut out the membership, I really won’t exercise.
Then go to the gym and get your money’s worth out of it!! You’re paying for it, aren’t you??
I believe in keeping journalists working, however, it’s not a good look to be carrying a few thousand in debt but be trying to hold onto mag and newspaper subscriptions if I can read it all online. Maybe it’s a generational thing, but I embrace the Internet’s new role in media. Other journalists should too, and it looks like you are with this blog:)
When I was younger I dreamed of having coffee tables full of the New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly and even, (at one long ago point in time) Essence, followed up with a Sunday NY Times. That’s expensive. I look at paying my high speed Internet bill as my media subscriptions.
Now that I’ve started running regularly, I let my gym membership lapse because I wasn’t using it, and I drink tap water in my own plastic bottle so that I’m not wasting anything. I think that’s pretty frugal, even though my gym membership was only like $13/month.
Also, Sprewell is an idiot. Period.
I can understand cutting the gym memberships. I cut mine recently and saved $35 plus the gas to and from. I found working out at home to be just as good. I liked dailyfitnesstrainer.com, which showed me a bunch of free 3 second video clips of home exercises plus a daily workout updated each day for advanced or beginners.
I can understand cutting the gym memberships. I cut mine recently and saved $35 plus the gas to and from. I found working out at home to be just as good. I liked dailyfitnesstrainer.com, which showed me a bunch of free 3 second video clips of home exercises plus a daily workout updated each day for advanced or beginners.
{ 1 trackback }