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Money in the News: The Redonkulist. $777 Burger and Most Expensive Foods

The Consumerist recently posted about a burger in vegas that cost $777.

For some reason we can’t fathom, our siblings at Consumer Reports didn’t include the $777 burger at the Paris Casino in Las Vegas in its survey of the country’s best and worst burgers. So it was left up to the folks at NPR to try out the high-priced hamburger for those of us who either can’t afford or would never, ever in a million years spend that much on a food product.

Which then led me to find the following redonkulist foods:

BoingBoing posts about a $1,000 sundae.

Made with “5 scoops of the richest Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream infused with Madagascar vanilla and covered in 23K edible gold leaf, the sundae is drizzled with the world’s most expensive chocolate, Amedei Porceleana, and covered with chunks of rare Chuao chocolate, which is from cocoa beans harvested by the Caribbean Sea on Venezuela’s coast. The masterpiece is suffused with exotic candied fruits from Paris, gold dragets, truffles and Marzipan Cherries. It is topped with a tiny glass bowl of Grand Passion Caviar, an exclusive dessert caviar, made of salt-free American Golden caviar, known for its sparkling golden color. It’s sweetened and infused with fresh passion fruit, orange and Armagnac. The sundae is served in a baccarat Harcourt crystal goblet with an 18K gold spoon to partake in the indulgence served with a petite mother of pearl spoon and topped with a gilded sugar flower by Ron Ben-Israel.”

And Always Foodie posts about a cake worth over a MILLION dollars. What??

It is not only the most expensive cake in the world, I bet it is also the most expensive food in the world. Apart from the 223 diamonds, I guess what the ingredients might be, whatever it is it must be as rich and luscious as the diamonds.

To help counter some of our foodie redonkulousness, Money Talk News posts a detailed break-down of how people waste money on food and coffee (As in, thousands of dollars a year), and how much that money could add up over a 30 year career ($500,000 investment loss).

In case you missed it, here’s another look at the math. Spend $3,000 yearly on coffee, lunch, or other workplace treats, that’s $250 per month. If you invest $250 monthly and earn just 5 percent on it, after a 30-year career, you would have saved $208,065. Manage to earn 10 percent on it over the same period of time and you’ll end up with $565,122. Wouldn’t that make a nice addition to your retirement nest-egg?

And to wrap up this Money in the News series, a rather sad story from The Consumerist of a man who commit suicide over Wachovia messing up his mortgage.

The couple were put through the usual “we haven’t received all your documents” wringer by Wachovia. Even after the bank, in April 2010, told them it had all the docs, a month later their application was denied because of supposed missing documentation.

“I had the money…I had the money. I had everything to make that work,” the wife tells CBS Los Angeles.

They sold the house in November 2010, but their lawyer was able to get a judge to issue a stay. That eventually fell apart and earlier this month the family was given five days to get out of their house.

So that they would have somewhere to stay, the husband bought a motor home. But even that stopped working as soon as he got it back to their soon-to-be-former house.

The next day, Mother’s Day, the man took his own life in his bedroom.

Lets all try to take a step back and keep things in perspective, folks. Money, unfortunately, is a huge part of our lives. It’s one of the top causes of divorce in America, it can drive people to suicide, it can ruin lives, and yet others will spend it like it’s candy. Clearly there’s some sort of gap here that allows it to go from one extreme to the other. Be excellent to each other.

About Crystal Groves, Google+

Crystal Groves is a farmer, web developer, musician, blogger, and personal finance enthusiast from the back hills of Maryland and Pennsylvania. She started Money Drain as a project to encourage people interested in fixing their financial situation to share their stories and learn from the stories of others. We all make mistakes, but in order to change we have to make changes.

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