I absolutely understand your point, VO. For a long time in my life I based decisions on what people told me I could not do....just to prove I could do it. I have learned now, not too late, that I'm not going to let people bait me into a decision.

On another note, there have actually been studies, I believe, that show when you tell someone not to smoke it just makes them want to smoke more. LOL. As an ex-smoker, it was absolutely true.

But back to your point, when someone just tells you something obvious, like, well, if you just spent less money on X, your finances would be fine, when they a) don't understand the whole picture and b) don't understand what the ramifications of making that change would be and c) can offer no help in making that change, it's just someone being sanctimonious, in my opinion.

I had people, when I was out of work, question why I didn't move out of my apartment to some place with cheaper rent. And tell me I was making a bad decision by continuing to live in my place. But to move, I would have had to pay 2 months rent to break my lease plus give 60 days notice, so four months rent. Pretty sure I didn't have an extra $4,000 hanging around. Plus I'd have to have the money to move. Money for a deposit on a new place, money to clean my old place, money to hire movers (since I can't do the move myself and have no one to help me)...the cost of moving to save money for a few months when I would inevitably find new work or figure something out was a knee-jerk reaction and did not take into account all the factors. Not to mention other factors as well that I won't go into detail here.

So that's an example of how someone thinks they're being helpful, but really just making you feel bad because they are judging you and your situation without understanding that them just saying "do x" or "stop doing x" is not really a solution. It's just a directive with no real solution behind it.

What's worse is when you tell so called "helpful" people to please stop offering their unsolicited advice and they won't.

Seesaw