Here is a slightly unusual way to watch your favourite films: forget about the hero and the villain for a moment and simply pay attention to the money. Who is broke? Who is spending as though there is no tomorrow? Who is about to put everything on a single bet?
Once you start paying attention to it, you see situations like these everywhere, from Hollywood dramas to the Bollywood comedies we have all watched five times on television.
Table of Contents
Why a Film Stays With You When a Finance Book Does Not
Nobody has ever cried because of a compound interest table. But plenty of us have felt a lump in our throat while watching a character pack their belongings into bags after being thrown out of their home.
We remember things that make us feel something. A good film can make us experience a financial problem in a way that a chapter about budgeting, which you probably only skimmed anyway, rarely can.
And most of us could genuinely use a little extra help with financial topics. The S&P Global FinLit Survey found that only around one in three adults worldwide could correctly answer basic questions about interest, inflation and risk diversification.
Since people are also much more likely to watch a favourite film again than to open a book about personal finance, movies are not such a bad place to learn a few of the basics.
The Bank Scene Movies Keep Getting Wrong
You know the scene: our desperate hero sits opposite a strict bank manager, is asked to provide proof of income, does not have any, and eventually walks out into the rain. Cut.
It works very well as drama. However, it is based on the idea that only people with a fixed salary and a stack of payslips are able to borrow money at all. That is no longer how things work everywhere today.
Many people earn money in ways that never produce a monthly payslip: freelancers, delivery riders, or someone running a small market stall or an online shop.
In Southeast Asia, there are now licensed lenders that specifically work with people like this. The Malaysian provider tambadana.my, for example, considers bank statements and credit history instead of insisting on a payslip.
Half of the movie characters who do something desperate in the third act might at least have had another option in real life.
One thing applies to every loan, however: read the entire repayment schedule and the interest terms before signing anything. A small monthly instalment can still become expensive overall if it has to be paid for years.
Budgeting When You Are Basically Broke
Movies about underdogs are where the importance of budgeting really becomes clear, because the characters have nothing to fall back on.
What Chris Gardner Gets Right in The Pursuit of Happyness
Will Smith plays Chris Gardner, who spends his days carrying around bone density scanners that no doctor wants to buy. He then takes an unpaid internship at a stockbroking firm.
Unpaid! Before long, he and his son are moving from one shelter to another. Then there is that terrible night in a train station bathroom, which is genuinely difficult to watch. The real Gardner actually lived through all of this.
But pay attention to the way he handles his money. He always knows exactly how much he has left in his pocket, sells whatever he can, and is still sitting at his desk on time the next morning.
A budget is not something reserved for people with high salaries. At its core, it is mainly about knowing where your money is going. And that matters most when hardly any money is coming in.
Debt in Movies and Debt in Real Life
Movies usually show debt in fast-forward: shopping bags, a pile of unopened letters, and finally a debt collector standing at the door.
Real debt is more subtle. It grows bit by bit: a dinner here, a new phone there. By the time you finally notice the problem, the amount may already be uncomfortably large.
Confessions of a Shopaholic and the Problem With Minimum Payments
Rebecca Bloomwood, played by Isla Fisher, earns her living writing about saving money, which seems rather ironic once you see her credit card statements.
The movie presents the situation humorously, but the way she gets into trouble is quite realistic. She pays only the minimum amount, the outstanding balance barely changes, and the statements go unopened straight into a drawer.
If you have ever deliberately left an email from your bank unread because you would rather not know what it says, you can probably relate.
Ignoring a bill unfortunately does not make it smaller. Paying only the minimum may keep you out of trouble on paper for the time being, but the interest continues to accumulate. Eventually, that dress or gadget may have cost twice as much.
If you miss a payment completely, it can remain on your credit history for years. That becomes particularly unpleasant when you later want to rent a home.
Big Bets and Even Bigger Risks
Then there are the films about people chasing big money.
Anyone who has seen Phir Hera Pheri remembers Raju, Shyam and Baburao falling for a scheme that promises to double their money within 21 days. We all know how that turns out.
It is a comedy. Even so, people in real life continue to fall for exactly these kinds of promises.
The Big Short and Why the Fine Print Matters
The Big Short, directed by Adam McKay, follows a group of investors who realised that the American housing market was full of bad loans while everyone else was still celebrating.
What most people particularly remember are the unusual explanatory scenes: Margot Robbie sitting in a bathtub explaining subprime mortgages, while Anthony Bourdain uses leftover fish to explain CDOs.
Strange? Definitely. But it also shows that these supposedly complicated financial products are not actually that complicated once someone takes the time to explain them properly.
And the investors who got it right were not geniuses with inside information. They were simply persistent enough to ask uncomfortable questions. Some of them even flew to Florida to look at the houses themselves and discovered that many of them were empty.
You can do the same thing with a mobile phone plan or a loan offer. Read the fine print. If something does not make sense, ask questions, and keep asking until it does.
Bringing the Lessons From Movies Into Everyday Life
Start by writing down what you spend for a month before you even think about creating a budget, much like Gardner kept track of every individual dollar.
The next time you are about to buy something, stop for a moment and ask yourself whether you really need it or simply want it. Rebecca learns that distinction the hard way.
If you are offered a loan or a credit card, calculate the total cost over the entire term instead of looking only at the monthly amount.
And perhaps every few months, you should review your subscriptions. There is usually at least one that you had completely forgotten you were still paying for.
It is these small, slightly boring habits that ultimately make the difference.
Checking your account balance more often is one of them. If you are with SBI, here is how to check your SBI bank balance using either a missed call or the app.
If you check regularly, the end of the month brings fewer unpleasant surprises. Just look at your numbers before they turn into an unexpected plot twist.