Chris and money

“	He's not good at math when it comes to managing money.	”
Bob Chandler

It's obvious that Chris has no grasp on the real value of money, since he actively wastes as much of his monthly tugboat as possible on things like trading cards, sex toys, porn, video games, weekly lottery tickets, and, more recently, alcohol, make-up and prostitutes. He also once, when giving out the laws of CWCville, equated 10 years in prison to a US$1,500 fine. He also equated fifty hours of community service to $500 (for any sexual violations).

Chris is a self-admitted impulse buyer. His PSN account shows that he's never played more than half of the games he's bought. And yet, astoundingly, he's still gone out of his way to buy all available downloadable content for every single PS3 game that he's ever purchased, and he also further promoted his Sony fanboyism by later buying a Sony LCD HDTV for his bedroom which likely costs about $1,000-$1,500. All the while, Chris bought his clothes at second-hand discount thrift stores. Usually, children are taught the value of money at a very young age - not in Chris's case, apparently.

But wait, Chris isn't employed!

Chris's only source of income is the $809 "tugboat" that he receives from the U.S. federal government every month, placing his annual income at $9,708. Chris's parents originally took $450 to pay for room and board; this payment was later increased to $565, and then to $580, after Bob paid off Chris's enormous credit card debt.

“	My father helped me get my Social Security set up; I get more a month than I could at a job. Yet with my impuslive shoppiness (mostly controable [sic]), I end up spending my side-money after I get it.	”
Chris, completely deluded and taking pride in being a lazy bastard.

Chris's father encouraged his son to remain unemployed, since he believed that Chris would earn more money from his monthly tugboat than he would have from getting a job. However, this assumption was and is inaccurate. Minimum wage in the state of Virginia is $7.25 an hour. If Chris were to somehow do a complete 180° on his life and begin working a full forty-hour week, his monthly payment before taxes and payment for room and board would be about $1,260: $15,100 annually. Subtracting what he pays his parents to live in filth monthly, as well as the 5% tax his income range mandates in the state of Virginia, Chris could very likely be left with a ridiculous $8,000 in spending money, as in, for more sex toys and video games. Contrast this with the $2,748 Chris pulls annually from the government after paying off his parents, and it becomes clear that Bob's encouragement comes from either thinking Chris would lose his social security if employed (which he wouldn't) or knowing that his son is a failure.

A very likely explanation for Chris's reckless spending is that his coddling parents are at fault (to a degree at least). In addition to coddling him throughout his entire life, they have managed to make sure that Chris has never felt the repercussions for his exorbitant spending by taking over paying Chris's credit card debt, regularly giving him about "$6 a day for small things", buying him fast food on a daily basis, and continuing to let himself blow all his money on frivolities and useless stuff, as opposed to essentials like hygiene products or clothing that isn't unbelievably tacky. Whenever Chris manages to get himself into trouble, he knows that Bob and Barb will come running to his aid and defend him and dig him out of whatever mess he's managed to get himself into, even if it is clear that he is in the wrong. This enabling is the most likely explanation (in addition to his poor impulse control) for why Chris spends himself into debt as much as he does.

Chris believes that by receiving and spending his tugboat on useless shit, he is aiding the economy and paying for the tugboat of others. Again, this demonstrates his idiocy since sales tax goes to the state government and these "tugboats" are paid with federal payroll tax. Apparently, this is too complex for Chris's autistic mind. Where Chris is hiding the printing press to afford this discretionary spending is unknown.

Interestingly enough, while he has no clue how to handle money, Chris has an unhealthy fixation on his material possessions. In Vivitheg's AIM chat, he stated that he did not want to sell any of his stuff, and in the Miyamoto Saga, he refused to sell anything to help raise money for the trip to Redmond. His mother has served as a bad influence in both regards, as she would compulsively shop at Goodwill and compulsively hoard the purchases, which both wasted money and helped turn their house into the fire - and biohazard it is today.

With the possibility that he might have ended up in jail over the events of 28 October 2011, Chris's bad spending habits would have come back to haunt him. In jail, he won't be able to collect his monthly tugboat, and if a full year passes without him collecting his cheques, he will have to reapply for his welfare, something that would be a bit more difficult under the Obama administration, which doesn't look too kindly on social security due to the stress it causes to the overall economy, and has even started measures to cut them down altogether. That, combined with the costs associated with court appearances as well as the fact that the last surviving breadwinner, Barbara, may have also landed in jail, would have resulted in Chris being placed in very dire circumstances, something which several trolls have tried and failed to warn him about. Fortunately for him, he wasn't sentenced to jail, but the fact that he openly stated during his trial that his mother would pay his court fees is telling of both his character and his financial situation.

It should be worth noting that despite all of the circumstances (and expenses) described above, Chris is still wasting money on video games, as evidenced by his playing of Rock Band Blitz on the PSN, which was released in August 2012, pretty much cementing that even when faced with the consequences of bad spending habits, Chris will learn absolutely nothing.

In September 2013, Chris complained about him and his mom going through "emotionally depressing, and Financial Downfall to the depths of Greatly Poor and Just Getting By", making it clear that the family income has dipped since Bob's passing. Although not enough to make Chris think about getting a job or stopping buying vidya, obviously, as evidenced by him racking up over $1000 in game purchases over that time period.

In January 2014, 14 Branchland Court burnt down. This would undoubtedly place the Chandlers in very dire circumstances, due to the costs of rebuilding the home and replacing what was lost. Many concerned about Chris due to his wasteful spending habits hope that this would be the moment in Chris's life where he finally wakes up and realizes the importance of saving when things like this happen. Unfortunately, not even this has given Chris pause - he apparently purchased The Lego Movie Video Game for his PS3 in February (however, it should be noted that due to a huge inflow of troll remorse, it's entirely possible that the game was a donation.) At this point, only time will tell.

Credit cards

As surprising as it is that Chris has his own credit cards, it is equally unsurprising how unwisely he uses them. As of February 2009, Chris had managed to rack up $2,000 worth of debt (at the time of Mumble 4, $1,000 of that sum came from the PSN store, but his bill for PSN downloads increased by the day) and had even stolen his parents' credit cards to use when his own were maxed out. According to an e-mail Chris sent to Vivian Gee, by January 2010 his debt was around $3,500 and had apparently been higher at some point in the intervening time.

By then, Bob Chandler had to step in, forcing Chris to put the brakes on his spending and pay down his debt according to a regular schedule. Chris, unaware of or uninterested in the fact that unpaid credit-card debt accrues severe interest, had historically made payments in the smallest installments possible.

Chris provided some more details about this situation in his e-mails to Jackie from July 2010. At some point, Bob paid off Chris's credit card debt and took payment in installments out of the monthly tugboat in compensation. This act of parental scapegoating could have potentially cleared Chris's future to be free of bad credit and crushing debt, had he not already acquired another credit card...

Best Buy Mastercard

In the Matthew Noble call, Bob himself revealed that Chris had not only acquired a MasterCard charge account through Best Buy, but as of the second week of August 2010, Chris had somehow used it to land himself in yet more debt and had been laden with fees for bouncing a card payment. Bob, in the throes of some sort of conspiracy paranoia involving the staff and patrons of the GAMe PLACe, claimed that it was most likely Michael Snyder who had hacked Chris's credit card and checking accounts, though why someone who's been on a manager's salary for several years would bother stealing from Chris is unknown. Also unknown is why any financial institution would give Chris a line of credit at this point.

Bob continued that the resulting transactions may have ruined Chris's credit rating (though that ship has long since fucking sailed), and, in a disturbingly Chris-like fashion, seemed to use this damning information to try to make Chris's latest brush with the law seem "petty" in comparison.

There are three possibilities as to what actually occurred (from least to most likely):

• Trolls achieved this new pinnacle of fucking with Chris and didn't bother bragging about it on some forum or another.
• Some regular criminal's credit card fraud scheme, just by chance, happened to hit Chris.
• Chris blew whatever little credit that Best Buy had foolishly given him; he mistakenly attempted to pay off the card with funds from his checking account that weren't there; and then he blamed his debt on trolls, in another transparent attempt to avoid responsibility.

One of Chris's e-mails to Jackie reveals that Chris acquired the Best Buy charge card without his parents' permission: he only told them about it after receiving two bounced check fees that showed up on his bank statement, which his father was actively monitoring. In true Chris fashion, he tried to pay the minimum balance each month. When he was forced to reveal the debt to his parents, Bob was obviously less than thrilled. He promptly took control of Chris's bank account as well as his credit cards. Chris now receives only an allowance in the form of Visa gift cards, leaving him unable to accrue any more debt. The prospect of not being able to blow his welfare on frivolities stressed him out.

Curiously, even in his private communications with Jackie, Chris claims that the overdraft fees that gave away the existence of the card to Bob were the work of trolls. Elsewhere in their conversations, however, he recounts other instances of "getting carried away" and accidentally overdrawing his bank account, suggesting that he's just using the trolls as a handy scapegoat for his own mistakes.

With Bob's passing comes the possibility that Chris may once again have full control of his money, putting at risk what Bob had worked toward. Chris's acquisition of the PlayStation Vita and over 600 dollars worth of video games for that system is most likely proof that Chris has regained control of his money and is tossing it away like it was nothing.

In the comic

CWCville currency.

In the comic it is clear Chris has no idea how money works. Sonichu, Rosechu, Patti-Chan, and most likely all of the other characters live off welfare, just like Chris IRL. He seems to have no concept of tax, or that it's the American populace who pay for his bullshit. Sonichu and Rosechu are living in a two-story house with an attic offered by the city and they are "paid" in average of US$3,500 a month just to hang around. And maybe for the occasional city defense or errand.

In Episode 19, it's shown that CWCVille actually issues its own currency, in the form of C-Quarters and W-Quarters. Ten C-Quarters make up a W-Quarter - don't bother asking how that makes sense in any way, considering what the word "quarter" means. (Our best guess: C-Quarters = US$0.25, W-Quarters = US$2.50) Nor does it explain why fines are levied in U.S. dollars: perhaps to bolster the dictatorship's foreign currency reserves, à la North Korea.

This makes even less sense considering CWCVille is part of the United States; states, let alone cities, cannot print their own money, despite holding considerable power over their own affairs. The Constitution expressly forbids anyone else other than the federal government from issuing currency. Granted, states have historically issued their own money - when they were colonies and during difficult times, such as the Revolutionary War. Chris being Chris, and likely reading Goosebumps instead of paying attention in class, missed out on this information.

On the CWCipedia article on Sonichu, Chris wrote that Rosechu is usually the one who cooks for her family, but when Sonichu cooks for his wife and kids he "will go as HIGH in portions as a Banquet", even though he only cooks for five individuals. This suggest that Sonichu is just as frivolous with money as his father.

Soup hotels

Chris shows us his complete misunderstanding of the stress his ideas would put on the American Social Security system if he was left in charge of it in a text called "A Sonichu and Rosechu Christmas Story." This is where the idea of "Soup Hotels" came from.

“	Even the homeless have a place to stay in the ten Soup Kitchens/Hotels.	”
Chris with a very bad idea that has come to fruition in one American city...

Chris depicts "Soup Hotels" as buildings ten stories tall with between ten and twenty rooms per floor, equipped with single bathrooms, bed, lighting and cable TV. Of course, the homeless stay there for free. So, instead of building homeless shelters with dormitories, common rooms, and shared TV sets, Chris thinks the homeless should be treated to all the comforts of a bona fide hotel. This means that, in CWCville, there are around 1,500 homeless people left outside. This might be the result of the local industry, choked by heavy taxes needed to pay those social expenses, being unable to make a profit there and thus moving away.

In Sonichu #10, Ultra Sonichu and a bevy of Rosechus stop at a soup hotel. The building is labeled Soup Hotel 17, implying that CWCville has had to open at least seven new homeless shelters in the span of a month, or they're just bad at numbering the things. Or more tellingly, that the economy of CWCville is crashing to the ground, fast.

In other works

In Mailbag 29 he stated that $10 an hour is a reasonable price to pay for sex with a prostitute. To show his further ignorance of simple economics, Chris proposed a chain of state-run brothels where this shockingly inexpensive fee would not only pay women for sex, pay the salary of a pimp (which would be a redundant middleman in a state-approved brothel), pay for STD testing for the prostitutes, but would also pay for free Sex Ed classes for virgins.

In real life, according to Chris, he tried to scam his way out of paying for sex with a Craigslist prostitute who was charging $100 per hour by telling her about the trolls, his life story, and his many personal problems. The prostitute hung up on him according to him.

In late October 2011, Chris posted a Craigslist ad for a 12-year old 32" CRT television and expected a non-negotiable $250 for it; in reality, this is about the price of a new flatscreen HDTV of that size, and he would be lucky to get a tenth of his asking price.

Chris also proves us that, in the possibility of being part of a family, he wouldn't be the main purveyor. In the PlayingHouse video, his sweetheart of the moment is portrayed as a successful journalist with high ambitions while he's a stay at home Dad. Even then, he portrays himself doing "hard work" like changing diapers and watching over the kids. In this last role, he's so incompetent that he needs to recruit his preschool daughter to watch over his son while he's shopping. This is paralleled by his real life situation - with Bob gone, one would assume that he'd be the "man of the house" and assume some responsibility for once. Unfortunately, as evidenced by his admission in court, Barb is still pulling his ass out of any such concept by paying his court fees. Keep in mind that, by extension, Chris is being minded by an ailing woman's retirement money which was used to bail him out of a mess that he started, while he wastes his own money on meaningless frivolities.

On TV

In Mumble 6, Chris discussed making a TV show called The Chris Chandler Show. One of his demands was the show should not have any commercial breaks, either showing a distinct lack of understanding as to how a TV station makes money, or perhaps he plans to sell the advertising fees to a single company so that they can play a long ad in the beginning of the air time and leave the rest of the show uninterrupted, à-la the season premieres of 24. We cannot know for sure, but he has probably seen at least one show that has done this, and gathered the idea from there.

Conclusion

Given Chris's carefree abandon when it comes to his spending habits, many are actually concerned as to what will happen to Chris when Barb passes on and he has to fend for himself. If past (and present) experiences are any indication, it's that if Chris continues on his path of not saving his money and spending it on frivolous crap that he doesn't need, he'll wind up broke and in severe debt. A past conversation with Clyde Cash revealed that he doesn't even know the basic expenses that go into running a household, and we all know how Chris's plan of marrying a sweetheart to dump all of the financial responsibilities on her will turn out.

Long story short, if Chris doesn't start saving for his future now, then when Barb finally passes on, he won't have one to look forward to. And he'll have nobody to blame but himself. (Not that he won't try, of course.)

See also

• Monthly tugboat