Phil, Phil, Phil...

What were you thinking???

It's not that I've cheered for you through many seasons of victories and missed putts and not making the cut that I feel justified in asking.  It's that this is the biggest case of stupid spending I've ever seen and I want to know...what were you thinking??? 

Here's a man who makes MILLIONS each year and going back to almost his pre-history as a pro golfer has pissed a lot of it away gambling.  Not only pissed it away, but now has to pay the SEC over a million because he -- oh, how do I say this without falling off my chair in disbelief? -- acted on an insider stock tip from a known gambler to whom he owed a BIG chunk of money.  A known gambler who got the insider tip from someone else who also owed him big bucks.  Phil's SEC payment is to cover the profit he made on the insider tip, profit which was initially used to pay the gambling debt to the man who gave him the insider tip.  Follow that?  I wish I were making this up...I'd make a fortune on the book sale.  Truth IS stranger than fiction.

Phil made a deal with the devil.   He may come out unscathed legally after paying the SEC, but his golf game has taken a big hit into the rough.  That's Phil's own doing -- the PGA and Phil's sponsors have been mum to date -- losing his touch with the game that brought him fame and fortune is the price he's paying for stupid spending, consorting with evil companions, and in general being a fool.

A classic case of more money than good sense.  Take heed.

Penny Pincher

The Tyranny of Stuff

I sing a song of excess.  Wretched excess. 

http://nypost.com/2016/05/07/homeless-hoarders-junk-train-returns-with-a-vengeance/

I don't how long the above link will be accessible, but it's a follow up story about a homeless woman in NYC and her train of stuff.  It's heart rending.  It has become this woman's daily task to move her train of stuff from point A to point B and points beyond.  At night she circles her wagons to form a protective barrier while she catches forty winks.

Here are the original stories:

http://nypost.com/2016/03/09/meet-new-york-citys-homeless-hoarder/

http://nypost.com/2016/03/09/you-son-of-a-b-tch-homeless-hoarder-pissed-her-trash-is-getting-tossed/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3486628/Homeless-NYC-hoarder-Choo-Choo-tells-left-Puerto-Rico-16-lost-4-year-old-twin-boys-auto-accident-living-fear-cops-seized-train-grocery-laundry-carts-kept-safe-night.html

Before you write off Sonia Gonzalez as just another NYC nut job, ask youself how much stuff YOU have here and there in closets, bins, drawers.  This morning I went through a bin in my kitchen filled with extra wooden spoons, kitchen gadgets... stuff I don't use on a daily basis, but may need every so often... like the turkey baster that gets hauled out every Thanksgiving.   In that bin were things I'll NEVER use again... they went into the flea market donation bag.  A week ago I cleaned out my kitchen pantry/storage shelves - and ended up with three bags of flea market donations.  I don't miss any of it.

Getting rid of storage three years ago took an albatross off my neck.  That's why I won't consider having a second home.  I tell myself that's what hotels are for.  A place to stay away from home.  I don't need a second home to fill then purge.  One is more than enough.  

Penny Pincher