Three cheers for fiscal irresponsibility!

Once upon a time, there was a twenty-something named Karyn Bosnak that moved from Chicago to New York. Karyn was earning "well over $100,000", so she went on a little buying spree. Buy, Karyn, buy! Karyn rented an expensive apartment, bought lots of designer clothing, and ran up her credit cards like there was no tomorrow. As our heroine stated, "In my mind I was making a lot of money, so I should live like I make a lot of money. Spending $500 on a Gucci purse didn't seem like a big deal." Buy, Karyn, buy!

Uh-oh! Karyn lost her job. She no longer had the money to buy herself nice things. Even worse, as a result of her lame-brained spending spree, she was saddled with $20,000 in debt. Really smart financial planning, Karyn!

To her credit, Karyn started to auction off some of her unnecessary junk on eBay, and reportedly simplified her life. She got a new job, although it was more than a 50% pay cut from her last one. Not being patient enough to pay down the debt on her own, Karyn put up a website and become a cyber-panhandler. And as stupid as Karyn was, there are people that are far stupider - they actually started sending her money! Confirming the adage that "A fool and their money are soon parted" (actually, I prefer to phrase it "A fool and their money were lucky to get together in the first place"), people spent their own money to cover Karyn's nitwit spending habits. Rather than donating a few dollars to Habitat For Humanity so folks that don't have $100,000+ a year jobs might get a roof over their heads, people subsidized Karyn's stupid financial decisions.

Fortunately for Karyn, popular media tends to smile upon stupidity. She made it into People magazine, and showed up on NBC's Today show. Unbelievably, people sent her over $13,000! In twenty weeks, her debt was paid due in large part to yo-yos that sent her money. Of course, Karyn will be writing a book about her experiences. With her newfound fame, I imagine she'll earn a nice chunk of change for it (Need a title Karyn? How 'bout "How I Got Rich By Making Dumb Financial Decisions").

Not surprisingly, Karyn's saga tends to polarize people. They either feel sorry for her and send her a buck, or think she's a dumbass. As for me, I'm feeling generous today, so I'll call her a "former dumbass". Her spending habits were indefensible, and just plain dumb. But you gotta hand it to her, her solution for getting out of debt was creative, and it sounds like she modified her lifestyle. Let's hope that she:

1. Stays out of debt
2. Didn't inspire any copycats
3. Uses her "Fifteen Minutes of Fame" wisely and donates her book proceeds to a worthy charity (I won't hold my breath)