An Analysis of a 2 Broke Girls Episode

If you're interested in personal finance and you haven't been watching 2 Broke Girls, what in the world is wrong with you? that's probably okay.  However, the show, at least tangentially, revolves around ideas that have a lot to do with money, and, for this reason, here's a post about it.

For those unfamiliar with the show, the two main characters are Max, a gruff, sassy waitress who makes cupcakes for (mostly) fun, and Caroline (pronounced Care-oh-line, so you know she's uppity), a saccharine-sweet, suddenly bankrupt daughter of a Bernie Madoff-like character.  Despite the tough-girl front that Max puts up, you can tell that she, slowly and grudgingly, is coming to like her new friend Caroline, mostly because every episode seems to feature Max feeling slighted by something Caroline does, Max writing Caroline off for being like every other person who has ever mistreated her, and Caroline making a GRAND GESTURE that gets Max to like her again.

3 Personal Finance Lessons NOT to Learn from Storage Wars

I am a man of guilty pleasures; this I freely admit.  While I'm not a huge fan of reality tv in general, Storage Wars on A&E is a guilty pleasure of mine.  I am frequently in awe of the money that can be made from the abandoned units, especially from units that are apparently full of trash.

This is what came up in a search for trash. 
I am uncomfortable making any jokes about it.

For those of you unfamiliar with the show, each episode features auctions for unpaid/abandoned storage units.  There are four or five main characters who are primarily trying to make a profit from buying what is in the units for a cheap price, and then selling those same items at a higher price.  The catch to the auctions is that the bidders are not allowed to walk into the storage units; they have to base their bids only on what they can see.

One of the things about the series that draws me in is that I think the show describes a fun and interesting way to make money.  I also admire the series's regulars in their commitment and tenacity to making a living through arbitrage.  Plus, it is honestly exciting to see something rare and valuable found in a unit that was bought for relative pennies.

Even so, every episode has some combination of bad personal finance/business practices that SHOULDN'T be learned.  Here they are.