While reporter Wally Jones's editor, Charlie, is looking for him to fire him, Wally is attempting to borrow an engagement ring. He wants to give it to his fiancée, Dorothy Summers, that night, but he has not made a payment on it for a year, and the jewelry shop owner, Mr. Vanderbrocken, will not allow him to borrow it. Wally then meets Dorothy for dinner, and, upset about his irresponsibility with money, she tells him they are through. Wally asks Charlie for money, but Charlie fires him for not following through on an important bank robbery story. Wally then takes his remaining ten dollars to a gambling casino, but after a winning streak, his luck turns sour and he loses everything. Meanwhile, casino owner Big Jim Bradley and his friend, Sonny Rycross, have gotten into an argument about whether anyone could spend $1,000 a minute. They make a bet that requires a person to spend $720,000 in twelve hours by purchasing different items. Just then, Wally comes into Jim's office to ask for a loan. Jim refuses the loan but tells Wally about the bet and also tells him that he will get $10,000 if he succeeds. Wally agrees, and with Jim's employee, Benny Dolan, along to make sure that he sticks to the rules, Wally begins his buying spree. He starts at Vanderbrocken's jewelry store, where Vanderbrocken assumes he is being held up by Wally and calls Wally's buddy McCarthy and Ryan, two policemen. Vanderbrocken discovers that Wally's check is good, and Wally leaves without being arrested. McCarthy is suspicious, however, and after talking with Dorothy and Charlie, decides that Wally must have been involved in the bank robbery that he was supposed to investigate. Wally, meanwhile, buys a racehorse from New Deal Watson and then an expensive fur coat from the Reville Fur Co. McCarthy and Ryan question Reville about Wally's purchases, and Dorothy is crushed when McCarthy suggests that Wally bought the coat for another woman. Dorothy still believes in Wally though, and when she catches up with him while he is buying a car, she warns him that the police are after him. Wally and Benny escape from McCarthy and Ryan and buy a yacht, then a champion Great Dane dog named Cyril. After Wally buys a rare wine collection, he and Benny are chased by McCarthy and Ryan and wind up in the hospital after colliding with an apple cart. With only fifteen minutes and $25,000 to go, Wally frantically tries to buy a much-needed radium capsule for the hospital, but he is $25,000 short. Jim and Sonny arrive and tell McCarthy about the bet, which Jim is just about to collect when Wally receives the prize money won by his race horse that afternoon. The prize is just enough to make up the difference for the radium capsule, and Wally spends all of his money just in time. Jim gives Wally's reward to Dorothy for safekeeping, and the sweethearts are reconciled.