Interview with Nichole F.

Nichole is a 26 year old full-time, first year MBA student at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business. Nichole currently waitresses at a local restaurant in State College two to three days a week. Nichole does not have any other means of income. Nichole worked for three years before going back to school and also relies on her previous savings as her income.

Nichole says that she spends too much money on clothes. She says that with the limited amount of stores in State College, PA and being that she is so busy with school, that she often resorts to shopping online. She admits that she usually falls victim to online gimics, such as “Spend $150 – receive free shipping”. Additionally, she says that she usually has intentions of not keeping everything she buys, but often becomes lazy about returning the shipments, and ends up keeping everything she buys.

Nichole says that she tries to keep track of what she buys online by keeping a log of the invoices, but often forgets to write some orders down. She also tries to keep track of her clothing spending by checking her credit card statements online, but since she is now in-debt on most of her cards, she usually pays the minimum balance due and neglects the total amount she has spend on clothes.

Nichole’s short term goals include gaining control of her spending, paying off atleast half of her credit cards, trying to work more hours at her waitress job and taking an additional elective class this summer. Nichole says that if she were to reduce some of her spending, that she would be less stressed and her concentrate more on her school work. Also, if she had more disposable income, she’d rather spending going out with friends.

Nichole’s long term goals include graduating from Smeal’s  MBA program, getting a job on the west coast, living in a nice apartment, and controlling her spending, and eventually buy a new car. She said that if she had a simple, organized way to manage her money and her spending, that she would definitely follow it. She said she is aware that her spending is out of control, but any attempts to regain control quickly fall through, as she becomes too overwhelmed with being in-debt and simply chooses to ignore the problem.