Straightforward Financial Advice From S.N.L.

Sometimes financial advice can get overwhelming. Put your money here until this time, then move it here, and you’ll have X percent growth by this date. Well, Saturday Night Live has some simple, straightforward financial advice for you.

This SNL skit starring Steve Martin, Amy Poehler and Chris Parnell is the epitome of funny-because-it’s-true: the kind of funny that, because it’s true, might make you want to cry.

In the commercial parody, Martin and Poehler play a couple trying to balance their checkbook. Poehler exclaims: “Credit card debt, does it ever end?” That’s when Parnell enters playing a spokesperson for his new book, Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford.

Martin and Poehler’s characters are confused on how the plan works. For example, Poehler’s character asks what she should do if she wants something but doesn’t have any money — to which Parnell’s character replies: “You don’t buy it.”

Makes you want to cry

The sketch is amazing satire on both financial books and the way Americans live their lives in debt.

Martin: I think I got it. I buy something I want, and then hope that I can pay for it right?

Parnell: No. You make sure you have money, then you buy it.

Martin: Oh, then you buy it. But shouldn’t you buy it before you have the money?

Parnell: NO!

As Parnell’s character puts it, “the advice is priceless and the book is free.” To which Poehler responds, “I like the sound of that.”

And in the most-funny-because-it’s-true line of the sketch, Martin says, “Yeah, we can put it on our credit card!”

Bonus info: According to a 2015 study done by the Pew Charitable Trust, eight in 10 Americans are in debt — and seven in 10 say that debt is a necessity in their lives. This SNL sketch may be from 2006, but it looks like its more relevant than ever today.