That’s an expression that comes to mind many times when I chat with friends about financial matters in their lives, but I usually dare not use it for fear of alienating or upsetting them. The first time I heard the expression, someone said, A woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle, which made me scratch my head, but I eventually understood the point being made (which was that Fish really don’t need bicycles, I think). Gloria Steinem popularized the expression, but she didn’t coin it; Irina Dunn did.
With this in mind I give you some of my own home-grown financial expressions that I hope are a little clearer than the fish needs a bicycle comment:
- Sam needs a pay day loan like a penguin needs a George Foreman grill.
- Arlene needs another credit card like a moose needs an ice cream scoop.
- Sammi, the new grad, needs a new car like Foghorn Leghorn needs a new car.
- Ottawa needs another Cheque Cashing Storefront as much as it needs more sinkholes.
Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle
For those who wonder what this analogy might look like, our friends at Guinness helped us out with this useful ad:
My list of debt commentary articles is quite long, so let's stick with the basics.
- Three Solid Ideas For Your HeLOC is a misdirection title. With interest rates going up, home equity lines of credit are becoming heavier anchors on your financial life.
- Pay Day Loans? Absolutely, positively NO! Go talk to a licensed insolvency professional before you do this.
- Surreal Paragraphs Found in Credit Card Bills, if you carry balances on your credit cards, you are in trouble. Look at their estimate for how long it will take to pay off the debt on minimum payments.
- A Mortgage Changes You, which is very accurate. When you get a mortgage, your life changes, and it will be a major element of your financial decision-making process.
- Make More by Reducing Debt with some elementary (maybe naive) arithmetic.
- Straight Talk on Your Money is not just a good book (and podcast). It explains how debt can get out of control quickly.
- Debt-shaming: Debt is Bad, but You Aren't having a poke at the "influencers" who say my commentaries about Debt being BAD is debt shaming.
- My coup de grace There is No Such Thing as good debt. Debt is a tool, like a chainsaw, and must be respected.
Yeah I’m with Money Beagle. I’m much more familiar with the hole in the head line. It is a pretty flexible line though. I think your friend using it about men may be of the lesbian persuasion.
My grandma used to always say “I need (that) like I need a hole in the head.” Don’t really understand the reference but I still use it.
I said, “I need that like I need ANOTHER hole in my head”, but given today’s generational love of piercings and such, maybe the saying is passe?