Chris and money

Chris's response to literally any commercial.

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

Chris has repeatedly shown though his actions and words that he has no idea how to handle money or manage his own finances. Between his impulse spending, his greed and selfishness, his unwillingness to save even the smallest amount of money, and his massive sense of entitlement, Chris manages to demonstrate complete incompetence and ineptitude in managing financial affairs. Chris has repeatedly amassed debt on credit cards, only to have his enabling parents bail him out multiple times. Too lazy to work, he refuses to make or follow any type of budget or financial plan, instead spending far beyond his means, and expecting others to pay off his accumulated debt for him. It is clear that Chris has no idea what financial responsibility is and that his enabling, delusional parents taught him nothing about how to handle finances while he was growing up. Irresponsible, careless, and thoughtless, Chris fails at just about every aspect of financial management that can be thought of.

But wait, Chris isn't employed!

For the vast majority of Chris's "adult" life, his only source of income has been the "tugboat" that he receives from the U.S. federal government every month. In 2009, this payout was $809 a 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 [sic] shoppiness [sic] (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 and impulse spending

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, alcohol, make-up, toys, prostitutes, and weekly lottery tickets. Also, in Sonichu, while legislating as mayor of CWCville, he 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 PlayStation Network 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 PlayStation 3 game that he's ever purchased, and even for games he doesn't own, 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.

Chris's parental enabling

Bob 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 40-hour week, his monthly payment before taxes and payment for room and board would be about $1,260: that's $15,100 annually. Subtracting the money he pays his mom every month to live, 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, which knowing Chris, would spent on yet more frivolities. Contrast this with the $2,748 Chris pulled in annually from the government after paying off his parents, and it becomes clear that Bob's encouragement came from either thinking Chris would lose his social security if employed (which he wouldn't) or the more accurate notion that his son is a useless failure.

A very likely explanation for Chris's reckless spending is that his parents are at fault (to a degree at least). In addition to coddling him throughout his entire life, they managed to make sure that Chris has never felt the repercussions for his exorbitant spending (or for anything else) 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, courses that could eventually help him onto the employment ladder or clothing that isn't unbelievably tacky. Whenever Chris manages to get himself into trouble, he knows that 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's beliefs

Chris believes that by receiving and spending his tugboat on useless junk, he is aiding the economy and paying for other people's tugboats. This is a damningly moronic statement, since sales tax goes to the state government and these "tugboats" are paid with federal payroll tax. 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 frequently shop at Goodwill and compulsively hoard the purchases, which both wasted money and helped turn their house into a fire hazard.

Losing the tugboat?

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 wouldn't be able to collect his monthly tugboat, and if a full year passed without him collecting his checks, he would 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.

However, it seems that even this has not given Chris pause, as he got himself into legal trouble again and even got sent to jail for a brief time until he was quickly bailed out. Since he is both a repeat offender and financially drained after his last court hearing, it seems very unlikely that Chris will get off with a slap on the wrist this time, which means that he is once again in danger of losing his tugboat.

In recent years

It is 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. He has also spent gigantic amounts of money on Legos, despite the dire straits his family's finances are in since the destruction of 14BC.

In September 2013, Chris complained about he 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 had dipped since Bob's passing. However, these supposedly lean times were apparently not enough to motivate Chris to get a job, or even to stop buying games, as evidenced by him racking up over $1000 in game purchases over that time period.

On 10 January 2014, 14 Branchland Court burnt down. This would undoubtedly place the Chandlers in grim circumstances, due to the costs of rebuilding the home and replacing what was lost. Many, concerned about Chris due to his wasteful spending habits, hoped that this would be the moment in Chris's life where he finally woke up and realized the importance of saving when things like this happen. Unfortunately, not even this has broken Chris's thick skull--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....or at least it was until it was confirmed that he did indeed buy it himself.) At this point, only time will tell.

In the months that followed, Chris has resorted to begging online for money, placing extra emphasis on "My mother and I really need the money," despite dropping more than $5,000 on expensive Lego sets to feed his worsening addiction. One would think that Chris would have wised up to the fact that his wanton spending and lack of gainful employment are contributing to his woes, but one glance at his May 2014 Facebook Posts could easily tell you that he's seeing his situation as an avenue to get stuff from people, the most ridiculous of which being a "$300 Sea Cow" on his wish list, which would not benefit anybody but himself in the slightest. He has also attempted to sell an original art piece of his on eBay; logical, though sorely misguided.

In January 2015, it was leaked that Chris had spent an absurd amount of money on Nintendo consoles and games, racking up 585 transactions in the last 4.5 years, a list which includes useless shovelware, hoards of 1st party Nintendo software, Virtual Console games and both versions of a game he doesn't even like. 276 of these purchases are known to be handheld games, 8 are known to be video game consoles (buying 4 DSs and DSis), and 75 which are known to be console games. The grand total cost of all Chris's listed purchases is $7460.43 or $1657.87/year. Keep in mind 39% of purchases Chris has on his account are not yet specified, meaning that their cost is not included in this already insanely high number. This information comes on the heels of Chris begging people for money to fix his mother's cavities, as well as the financial worries that his trials will undoubtedly cause.

Chris and credit cards

That Chris has managed to acquire several credit cards is very surprising, but the foolishness with which he uses them wouldn't surprise anybody at all. 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 that point, Chris's debt had gotten so out of hand that Bob was forced to step in, making Chris reduce and manage on his spending, and forcing Chris to make regular payments to pay off his outstanding debt. Chris, thoughtless and 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 tugboat in compensation. This foolish act of parental financial enabling allowed Chris to avoid the immediate consequences of his gross financial irresponsibility, and resulted in Chris learning nothing about how to manage his own finances, reinforcing Chris's attitude that he should be able to do anything that he wants and not suffer any negative consequences.

Best Buy MasterCard

Not surprisingly, it only took Chris a few short months to land himself in more financial trouble. 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 predictably used it to land himself in yet more debt and had been laden with fees for bouncing a card payment. Bob, delusional and 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 any of the near-destitute Chandlers is unknown.

Also unknown is why any financial institution would give Chris a line of credit at this point. Bob probably salvaged Chris's credit rating when he paid off all his prior card debt at once, but he angrily claimed Chris ruined it with the Best Buy debt (certainly true), and, in 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, 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.

Revelations to Jackie

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 2 bounced check fees that showed up on his bank statement, which his father was actively monitoring. In true Chris fashion, he tried to repay 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. From that point until Bob's death, he received only an allowance in the form of Visa gift cards, leaving him unable to accrue any more debt for a short time. At the time, the prospect of not being able to blow his welfare on frivolities stressed him out.

Curiously, even in his private communications with Jackie, Chris claimed 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 was just using the trolls as a handy scapegoat for his own mistakes. Considering Bob shared many of Chris's outrageous delusions regarding troll activity, it is difficult to know whether or not he believed Chris's dubious excuse.

After Bob's passing, Chris once again resumed his thoughtless spending, completely disregarding and forsaking any hopes that his late father had had of Chris becoming financially responsible or independent. Chris's acquisition of the PlayStation Vita and over $600 worth of video games for that system were proof that Chris had regained control of his money after Bob's death and resumed tossing it away like it was nothing.

2014

June

Unverified information on Chris's credit card debt was leaked on the CWCki Forums on 4 June 2014. It was revealed that Chris had at least five active credit cards, with at least $7600 in combined credit limit. Of the five known active cards, at least four were revealed to be maxed out, with at least $7400 in unpaid debt between the five cards. It was estimated that the minimum payment on Chris's known debt was at least $220 a month, and it was revealed that the only reason that Chris had been able to obtain the credit that he had was that, historically, he had almost always at least paid the minimum payment each month, although it was implied that he rarely if ever paid more than the minimum.

Given the Chandlers' financial situation as of June 2014, with most of Chris's tugboat going to help pay essential household expenses, it seems very unlikely that Chris has the financial resources to even pay off a small portion of his known debt, straining to make the monthly minimums each month. In response to his looming debt, instead of seeking financial consulting or trying to get a paying job, Chris demanded massive monetary donations on Facebook, and sought exorbitant prices for his crude artwork that he was selling on eBay.

September

Throughout the summer of 2014, Chris continued to spend thousands of dollars on Lego and other frivolities, all while whining and complaining on Facebook about his and his mother's poor finances. Chris financed this spending primarily with money from selling custom arts and crafts on his eBay account. Offering free shipping to customers, Chris would receive money from customers, and then pay for shipping out of his own pocket. However, Chris would immediately spend money as soon as it was deposited into his account, often leaving him unable to ship products to customers who had already paid him because of his own financial irresponsibility and negligence.

When several of Chris's eBay customers filed complaints against him because Chris failed to ship a order as promised and obligated, Chris responded by harassing and trolling the customers, posting their personal information in a public post on his Facebook account. In light of this, Chris's future money making prospects from eBay are dim, as most prospective future customers probably wouldn't want to risk being harassed or scammed by Chris.

All the while, even as Chris's credit card debt continued to spiral out of control, Chris continued to buy thousands of dollars of video games, Lego, and other frivolities. As if this were not bad enough, just days after putting his and Barb's cars up for sale, (at exorbitant prices) Chris went out and bought a 2010 Ford Focus, stating on Facebook that he had been approved for a loan, probably at a high interest rate.

Chris also stated that paying for insurance on his new car was "killing" him, implying that either the insurance payment was costly, that he was having trouble paying it, or both. It was commonly speculated on the CWCki Forums that Chris and his mother would be unable to afford to keep the car and that it would be repossessed in the near future.

Chris placed two cars for sale on Craigslist in September 2014. One was a dilapidated, rusty 1997 Cadillac with a cracked engine block that hadn't run in over a year. Despite having a market value (as scrap) of approximately $150, Chris demanded $5,000 for the automobile, insisting that the cracked engine block made the car a great "fixer upper." Chris also placed his mother's BMW Z3 for sale, demanding $15,000 for a car that had a book value of approximately $3,000.

Throughout 2014, Chris continued his foolish behaviors of maxing out all his available credit, paying only the minimums on all his loans/debts, immediately spending money as soon as he got it, and making large, impulse purchases on unrealistic assumptions of future sales and income from various sources. (eBay, car sales, etc) Evidently, even after years of financial hardship, being burdened with debt, and paying a cumulative total of thousands of dollars in interest, Chris has apparently learned nothing about handling his personal finances, and refuses to try to live within the means provided to him by his monthly tugboat.

One dreads to imagine how his financial incompetence will affect him once Barb is dead - knowing Chris, and while it is quite tragic, he'll probably continue in his destructive spending patterns until he loses everything he has, and even then, he'll learn 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 in real life. 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, beds, lighting and cable television. 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, 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