History Main / MoneyDumb

-->'''Homer:''' Of course, you idiot. I'm wishing for more money.

->''"I mean, it's one banana, Michael. How much can it cost? 10 dollars?"''
-->-- '''Lucille Bluth''', ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment''

* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'': Linda Belcher zigzaggs this trope. On one hand, she is the one to actually manage the expenses of the restaurant, she has an extremely complex system through which she controls bounces with the bank and manages to keep their heads above the water. However, whenever something she, or someone she likes, really wants shows up, she has a terrible time controlling herself with what [[PerpetualPoverty little money her family has]]. This is best exemplified in "The Unnatural", where she pawns off Bob's espresso machine to pay for baseball lessons for Gene that everyone warns her to be an obvious scam, and "Yurty Rotten Scoundrels", where she freely loans her unhinged sister, Gayle, money to rent a yurt and make an art workshop, even though she is a terrible artist and even Linda herself admits that it's unlikely they'll ever see a return on that money; Bob even says that this is a recurring occurrence when Gayle is involved.

** Planned to use $28,000 to open a sushi restaurant, solely so he can greet random people in a funny accent (Lois, for obvious reasons, doesn't given him the money for it).

* ''LightNovel/Overlord2012'': Arche's parents are disgraced nobles who either have no idea of their no-longer-rich status or are desperately shielding themselves from it, spending enormous amounts of money on Conspicuous Consumption despite the fact that their daughter is the only thing keeping them fed. The reason she became a Worker (adventurers who take on illegal but higher-paying jobs) is to get enough money to take her two younger sisters away from her irresponsible parents. [[spoiler:In the light novel, Arche is dismembered and her sisters are sold into slavery by their parents and eventually die from overwork; in the web novel, Arche is still alive, albeit kept as a SexSlave by Shalltear, but is reunited with her sisters. [[KarmaHoudini Her parents face no onscreen]] repercussions.]]

* Zhongli from ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'', an otherwise intelligent and learned man, has absolutely no concept of budgeting. He would just 'buy them all' when asked to choose between goods, and always 'forgets' to bring his own wallet, necessitating others to cover for him. [[spoiler:As it turns out, he's the Geo Archon, Rex Lapis Morax, who had the power to generate money out of thin air, so he never needed to worry about money. Unfortunately, it severely warped his economic senses, so when he decides to give up his godhood, he's penniless and forced to mooch off other people's money.]]

** Krusty the Clown is routinely shown to be careless with his expenses , relying on a ridiculous amount of cheap merchandising keeping him afloat. This becomes a plot device in "Homie the Clown", where wasteful spending and incompetent gambling (as in, betting AGAINST the Harlem Globetrotters, an exhibition basketball team whose entire gimmick is to [[ShowyInvincibleHero win every time by blatantly breaking the rules in amusing ways and showing off]]) get him in trouble with the mafia. His most frivolous wastes of money in the same episode include using a string of pearls and a rare comic book to light his cigars and buying a new house ''because his old one was dirty''.
** Homer himself is constantly throwing away his money due to a combination of impulse buying, his many [[ZanyScheme Zany Schemes]] and overall [[TheDitz stupidity.]]

''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':

* A RunningGag in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' is that Dr. Zoidberg's PerpetualPoverty at least partly stems from him being terrible with money. For example, impulsively buying several records he sees on an infomercial (and doing the same with a late edition newspaper from a street vendor later in the same episode). Despite the fact they're records by Fry, and he could have presumably got them for free by asking.

* Krusty the Clown is routinely shown to be careless with his expenses in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', relying on a ridiculous amount of cheap merchandising keeping him afloat. This becomes a plot device in "Homie the Clown", where wasteful spending and incompetent gambling (as in, betting AGAINST the Harlem Globetrotters, an exhibition basketball team whose entire gimmick is to [[ShowyInvincibleHero win every time by blatantly breaking the rules in amusing ways and showing off]]) get him in trouble with the mafia.

* Girlfriend from ''VideoGame/FridayNightFunkin'' zigzags this. She knows how to properly file taxes, but charges $1 trillion for art commissions because she doesn't know how to properly price herself. While she fits the "rich background" archetype for this, as she's the daughter of two celebrities, it's mostly because she's that dumb.

* ''Webcomic/TeamFortress2'': In Issue #2, the Scout turns out to have invested all his money (and judging by [[MoneySpider MvM games]], it'd be a lot) in Music/TomJones memorabilia, thinking it'll explode in value once the singer dies. The Spy, needing all the cash he can get to flee arrest, points out how absurd it is to invest so much in a singer who isn't likely to die soon... unaware that [[AccidentallyAccurate the Soldier actually did kill Tom Jones]] a few days earlier.

* ''Videogame/DevilMayCry'': Dante is revealed to be exceptionally bad with money, to the degree that his utilities and rent are constantly late (the events of ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' begin with Dante's business having no electricity or running water). His character profile also states that he often needs to borrow money from Lady, which is something she considers a massive turn-off and a prequel novel states that the reason [[BagOfSpilling he doesn't start with the weapons he's earned from previous games]] is because he's had to sell them to make rent.

* All of Flint's original pirate crew in ''Literature/TreasureIsland'' spent their money like, well, drunken sailors. Billy Bones still had a little left at the beginning thanks to starting with more and bullying his way out of paying for things, but he's fast on his way there. The sole exception is Silver, who was the quartermaster and invested his in running a profitable inn (that caters to drunken sailors). He even had accounts at several different banks, so no one would realize the quartermaster made far more money than he should.

* All of Flint's original pirate crew in ''Literature/TreasureIsland'' spent their money like, well, drunken sailors. Billy Bones still had a little left at the beginning thanks to starting with more and bullying his way out of paying for things, but he's fast on his way there. The sole exception is Silver, who was the quartermaster and invested his in running a profitable inn (that caters to drunken sailors).

->''"This scary black bar is what you spend on things that no one ever, ever needs, like multiple magic sets, professional fishing equipment..."''
-->-- '''Oscar''', ''Series/TheOfficeUS''

* ''Manga/{{Aggretsuko}}'':

** Bojack himself is only narrowly better than Mr. Peanutbutter, being prone to having sufficient money he doesn't has to work since his late 20's, he is prone to waste money without thinking of it twice. One of his most frivolous purchases is buying an entire restaurant just because, later seasons show that he has even forgot to manage said restaurant and the staff has been taking care of itself.

* In ''[[Wrestling/{{ECW}} The Rise and Fall of ECW]]'' (the documentary and the book), it is revealed that part of the ECW's demise was because the bad financial management of Wrestling/PaulHeyman, which eventually resulted in the bankruptcy of the company in 2001.