I have no great fondness for Chris Pratt, he who makes anti-woke dog whistles, neglects to mention his son’s mother on Mother’s Day, and razes an architecturally historic Hollywood home to the ground. But, Pratt made some comments over the weekend that I think actually lead into a compelling conversation. He’s making the rounds to promote The Garfield Movie, which opened last Friday. (I haven’t seen it and likely never will, but I trust the review of my friend’s preschooler: he liked the movie theater candy.) While chatting with Sway Calloway on SiriusXM’s Sway In The Morning, Pratt shared that he was so green about money as a young adult, it took him only two months to spend his first big paycheck from an acting job, which was $75,000. That mismanagement ultimately led him to stop and think about financial planning:
Chris Pratt is opening up about the first time he received a large sum of money for his work in Hollywood.
Speaking on SiriusXM’s Sway In The Morning in a video posted on Saturday, May 25, Pratt, 44, revealed that he blew all of his first acting paycheck because he didn’t know how to handle the money.
Asked if his humble beginnings led to him struggling with how to spend money, The Garfield Movie star revealed it was the opposite for him.
“Oh, no. No, no. I was under the impression that I would never run out of money,” the former waiter said before laughing. “The first paycheck I got, I was like ‘Are you serious?’ I had lived on very little money for a long time, so the first big job I got… was a TV movie. I got paid $75,000.”
The star then sang his own rendition of George Michael’s song “Careless Whisper.”
“I was like, ‘I’m never gonna wait again. F— you, b—, I am leaving,’” he sang. “And about two months later, I was like, ‘Where’d that money go?!’”
Pratt revealed that he spent the money by going on vacation to different parts of the world like Hawaii and Australia.
“I was like, ‘Well, I’m gonna probably invest. I’m probably gonna get a yacht.’”
Pratt explained that he was never taught financial literacy when he was young and therefore didn’t know how to handle or manage money.
“It took a good amount of time for me to kind of stop and say, ‘All right, I gotta get wise about this. I have to think about, ‘What am I gonna do? How am I gonna get to the point to where if I stop working one day, I’ll still be okay? My family will be okay,’” he continued.
He added that coming up with a financial plan later in his life was “one of the steps of me growing up.”
The Jurassic World star also said that while the moments in his career where he felt like he had “made it” included getting his SAG card and a Carl’s Jr. TV commercial, buying his mother Kathy Pratt a house after appearing on the TV series Everwood was his greatest “I made it” moment.
Get ready to nerd out with me, because I am SO into the conversation of financial planning right now. Largely because, like Pratt, I came from a place of not being literate in it. The one lesson I remember getting from my parents came from my dear, late father: “Watch everything your mother and I do, then don’t do it.” He was equal parts joking and serious. My parents gave me many wonderful things — a sense of humor, critical thinking, a love of great art and food — but learning how to balance a budget was not one of them! Hearing Pratt talk about financial planning as “one of the steps of me growing up,” that resonated with me. I should probably be more ashamed to confess that it was only the onset of the pandemic when I began focusing on that part of growing up. I had no savings account! With the right guidance, I set things up so that a percentage of my paycheck started going directly into savings, which at some point I will invest upon further education. I’m sure these are baby steps to most people but it was a revelation for me! Watching that little pile build, however slowly, has been empowering to my mental as well as fiscal health. I mean, yes, everyday I inch closer and closer to Scrooge McDuck levels of obsession. But now someday I’ll (probably) be able to afford the therapy to deal with that!
And to give Chris Pratt his flowers, the floral shirt he wore when he recorded this show is dynamite.
photos credit: Getty, Getty Images for Netflix and via Instagram
Was kinda hoping that Garfield would bomb hard, and we could stop giving VA roles to basic b actors.
It did kind of bombed though, didn’t it ? It finished the weekend second behind Furiosa in the US and the media are calling Furiosa a bomb.
Furiosas budget was over 100million more tho :/. I hope Furiosa will make more with word of mouth.
I wish that financial planning/management would be core curriculum in schools. How to use credit, get a loan, read a lease, invest, get insurance, etc. Far more valuable than calculus.
My daughter is taking a course like that in high school now. It’s been very useful and led to some great conversations about money. I disagree that it’s “far more valuable” than calculus, as calculus is also necessary for STEM careers (and incidentally, NOT offered at my daughter’s large TX public high school), but they are apples and oranges.
I mean its Texas what did you expect? They are very conservative and expect women to follow the role of wife, care giver and nurturer. Need to move to a more liberal state that welcomes and allows women to grow and be the strong woman/women they are able too.
Don’t come at me. I moved to TX from the east coast, married and had my first child. The crap I was subjected too from others, mostly men was astounding. I can count on both hands how many times my husband had to step in because men at grocery stores would hit my pregnant belly with a cart because I was walking slow, or park in the expecting mother parking, or tell me I shouldn’t talk how I did because it wasn’t lady like, and my OBGYN, don’t get me started. This was after going through several because of their backwards views, it was always a lose-lose. This was in Houston also, we are in our 30s so spare me the whole, “grasp pearls and not us!” speech.
So glad we left and moved back North, while pregnant with our second never experienced any of that.
But this is also CB, you all turn, spin and create whatever fits into your daily agenda so whatever it is. Remember, you can look back in the archive and see the gross disdain your beloved posted about Britney, Kate (but long deleted) and others to see the hate for woman. So much for GIRL POWER.
Financial planning is so important. When I was in my thirties, my husband and I hired a financial planner to guide us with saving for retirement. The financial planner gave us a laundry list of what to accomplish, so we chipped away at it until we are now comfortable with our goals and when we can retire. So many older people Don have a plan, they think they can live off of social security, like past generations could do.
I encourage everyone to visit a reputable one and learn about the various retirement plans to put money in. Start early.
Honey, I agree with you 100%! Chris Pratt is actually not wrong here, and this holds true of how I was raised. My Dad did all the financial stuff and he didn’t teach us—I had to learn after school and leaving home. It would be really helpful for national financial literacy (apart from just math) to start teaching this in elementary schools. Not every family passes this knowledge on, and (I need to both praise teachers and apologize for suggesting yet another thing that they need to cover) schools usually are a learning ground for this kind of stuff.
Financial literacy is essential, for everyone, whatever your background and means. To me this also links to the strikes and the important of residuals in an industry where you can get a huge amount of money one day then nothing for a long time after. How many times have we heard the “I was down to my last $$ when I signed for XYZ”. Also Sidney Sweeney (??) who spoke maybe last year about the cost of being in the system when you’re not yet making $$$. New actors need to be supported in learning about all of this.
My parents both came from comfortable middle class backgrounds and had a complete live for the day mentality themselves, they divorced when I was young and now I’m supporting my mother in her retirement and I don’t think either will ever own a home (I’m estranged from him but get occasional news via the family grapevine). I have always lived with a massive scarcity mindset and even though I’ve been largely financially comfortable for many years thanks to lucky/smart career choices I can still tell you how much to the nearest £100 is in my savings. But I do treat myself to nice things now!
Don’t like the guy, but I do like this conversation about money and financial literacy. As Kismet says, financial literacy is very generational: if you learned it from your parents, you likely take it for granted. If you didn’t, it’s an uphill battle. Fortunately, there are many resources out there to develop those skills, offered by financial institutions (banks, investment companies) or non-profs.
I did a course that was hugely helpful for me to unpack what I learned and didn’t learn from childhood that I need to be more financially empowered. It’s called the Trauma of Money / Tom and it is amazing. I need to go back to the course materials as I didn’t quite finish it… Highly recommend. There is a focus on how finances intersect with systemic racism and marginalization. It was a very healing space for me.
https://www.thetraumaofmoney.com/
Love the financial discussion in here and hate that the worst Chris brought us here, but oh well! I also really became interested in my finances with the pandemic and my partner moving out and like tracking my expenses (sometimes, not always!)
I never earned much, had very basic jobs all my life but I own a home and have retirement savings. I never learned about money but realised early on it was up to me to figure out. Some years I worked 3 jobs, some I didn’t.
However, there were no coffee runs, no uber eats, no uber either (my car or public transport), not many meals out (zero take out) and holidays were more staying with friends or camping. Budgeting on a lowish wage takes time but it’s worth it. I had bagged lunches and my trusty coffee tumbler. My biggest tip is meal prep and strict shopping lists. I know what I’m eating for 2 weeks at a time. I know where the bargains are. and I bought an inexpensive freezer to freeze meals.
Is he really great at handling money or does he make so much money it doesn’t matter? Does he have a prenup? How much did wife 1 get? Does he travel by private plane? How much did he just spend tearing down a beautiful historic house? What is his financial strategy? What is one single genius financial move? Does trad wife get a say? How big and expensive is his entourage!? What about his taxes? We learn nothing.
Good points. Also, how does this guy keep getting jobs? He’s terrible.
He’s almost unwatchable and acting in different versions of the same character… dude must have a hell of an agent….
I was like, yeah, I could immediately spend $75K paying off debt and taking care of everything I need to do at the friggin’ dentist.
I will leave it to our British friends, who already know how they use the word “prat” in their region. Nothing to add.
My husband & I were not taught anything about money, probably because we never had any growing up. We educated ourselves, created a budget and a plan, including retirement and college for our daughter. We educated our daughter, too. She will not have college debt and she pays herself first. Half of any cash or check she got as a kid, along with her paychecks, go in her savings account. People made fun of us but she’s the one laughing now, because she can buy a car and pay cash, take a trip, etc. She’s had an investment account since she was 7, and she & her dad do the research for all the trades. My kid has more sense & money at 20 than I did at 30.
YNAB was a life changer for us. If you don’t have a system yet that works well for you, I highly recommend checking out https://www.ynab.com/. It emphasizes making your money work for you, based on your priorities. It allowed us to use credit cards responsibly when we didn’t know how to do that and how to account for those expenses that are infrequent that used to cause major stress. It’s great for people living paycheck to paycheck and for people with all they need. This concludes my YNAB commercial. 😊
I always remember his hunting comments and the way he got rid of his elderly cat; however, this financial planning topic is definitely interesting. David Bach and Morgan Housel are my recent favs. It’s basically saving and investing, and the saving part appears to be the hardest part for most people.
Nice work, Kismet! Financial planner here – and those habits DO make a difference over the long term. Like many things, financial literacy is also generational but it’s definitely never too late to start.