There are good ideas, there are bad ideas, and there is working with DoorDash and Klarna to finance your Cheesy Gordita Crunch.

CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos:

Klarna, the buy now, pay later lender that’s headed for an initial public offering, said on Thursday that it’s signed on DoorDash as a partner, another sign of momentum for public market investors.
It’s DoorDash’s first BNPL alliance in the U.S. and gives users of the restaurant delivery service a new way to pay for meals and products. Klarna said in a press release that DoorDash customers will be able to pay in full at checkout, split payments into four equal interest-free installments, or defer to dates that align conveniently with payday schedules.

Look, I have some sympathy for the young and the cash-strapped when it comes to these kinds of things. It wasn’t that long ago that I was young and cash-strapped myself. It wasn’t that long ago, back in college, when I found myself racking up a couple grand in credit-card debt. (The pitchers of Irish Red and the spicy honey wings at O’Connell’s in Norman were cheap — but they weren’t free.)

But a big part of getting a real job and growing up was getting the pretty basic idea through my thick skull that financing frivolous consumer expenses like eating out was a simply terrible idea. Some people learn this the easy way; some people learn it the hard way. I’d say I was more in the latter camp. It took me a while — i.e., longer than it should have — but I learned that through saving and paying all that off, student loans included, and by learning to live on a budget, not only was life not more constricting, it was liberating. I was finally free.

Back in the fall, I remember reading that the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that, while Americans spend about what they did in 1950 on food prepared at home (adjusted for inflation), we spend a huge amount more eating out. The average American spends something like $3,900 in restaurants per year. And that number has grown more than 20 percent in recent years.

In principle, I don’t have an issue with that: America is an extraordinarily wealthier country today than it was in 1950. If people have the money, who am I to tell them how to spend it?

But the fact that DoorDash is opening up exciting new financing opportunities for a take-out taxi service indicates that things have spun out of control for a whole lot of people.

Let’s face it: If you can afford to eat out, you don’t need to break up your pad Thai into four easy, interest-free payments. If you can afford a takeout Rueben sandwich, you don’t need the option to conveniently defer your payments to your payday schedule.

And despite the breathless — and embarrassing — coverage on CNBC for this monstrosity of an IPO, everyone with the minimum of amount of sense should realize that those easy-peasy interest-free installments are certain to get converted into shockingly expensive usury should you miss a single payment.

This is exploitation. It’s taking advantage of people who don’t know any better, even if they should.

Shun it. Shame it. Scorn it. And tell your friends: Don’t finance your burrito bowls.