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Just want to let you know that I both sympathize and empathize, OP.
It is hard not to let the bad choices of the people you love bother you because if you love someone, it is hard to see them struggle. Sometimes I just feel like giving them a good shake and shouting "Wake UP!"! at them. However, I just have to keep telling myself that this -- whatever "this" is -- is NOT my problem and that they have to make their own choices and live with the results. (It is especially hard to do this when there are children involved, though.)
I have a mother who liquidated her 401K last year and didn't realize there was a tax implication for doing so (she is only 56). She also walked away from a house which eventually went into foreclosure because she left her ex fiancee with it after she put the $100K down payment on it. He was an alcoholic who didn't work and she was tired of being abused. They recently bought a used ford fiesta at 12% interest for my step dads daughter when she turned 16. She ran away with the car and now they are stuck with the payments.
My sister is on unemployment and recently divorced her husband making $180K/year because they "weren't in love" anymore, noble I guess... Now she dates some loser who also doesn't work and she can't afford her blood thinner medication due to multiple lung clots she has had. While she was married she was an unemployed stay at home wife who we begged to go back to school to develop a skill, she chose to do nothing instead.
Long story short... you get numb to it after a while.
My sister is pregnant with her 3rd child (being induced today) up to her neck in medical bills from the second child.
She is not working and her husband and her family just moved into our parents house to help them out since she is not working and child care would crush them.
within the first month of living with my parents, her husbands car was totaled by a drunk driver while it was parked on the street. They went out an leased a top of the line Honda minivan (leather nav etc.) the lease is $500 per month!!! She started driving it and her husband started driving the 2013 ford that she pays $550 a month for with 2 years left on the loan.
so now they have $1050 in car payments.
But her husband is now commuting for work and the ford is a bit of a gas hog so he went and traded it in for a brand new Hyundai Senota ( fully loaded)
Payments are the same so they are still at 1050 in car payments alone.
They had 2 opportunities to get into something affordable and it drives me crazy!
Edit: BTW My wife and I make over 100k/year combined yet we drive 15 year old cars and my wife commutes to 60 miles to work each way.
We keep 1 spare 20 year old lexus as a back up that we rarely ever use. The only use it really ever got from us is when i tore my Achilles and couldn't drive my manual trans
All you can do is shrug your shoulders and stay back, and whatever you do, do not loan them money. Let them lose their rides so they learn from their mistakes.
Yep, I suffer from the same condition. I try to save people from making, from what I see is, a mistake. I'm a very compassionate person, but can also be a bit of dictator. If someone doesn't take my advice, I get really annoyed. My latest person I'm trying to help is my wife's friend.
She's a 35 year old single female bankruptcy attorney making about $140K/yr, but is drowning in debt. She's got $280K in education debt at various interest rates, $60K in consumer debt, nothing in savings, and about $60K in a 401(k). I calculated her average weighted interest at 7.95%. She's paying $28,470 in annual interest, $2,372 in monthly interest, or $78 in daily interest. I helped her refinance her 3yr @ 9.99% interest loan on her Lexus IS250 (I really hate her car) to a 5yr @ 1.99% rate. I had her open a balance transfer credit card and transfer her 29% interest rate balance onto the car for 0% for 18 months (she should be able to pay it off it 18 months). This feasible saves her $6K in interest payments a year.
However, she fails to keep a budget and spends money that she doesn't have. She recently upgraded her 1 yr old iPhone to the iPhone 6s 128GB; contrast that to me just upgrading to the iPhone 5s 32GB for $49. She goes to live concerts monthly, buys last minute airfare to visit friends, etc. What annoyed my wife and I the most was that she made a comment about how she's waiting for her white knight to come and save her. In retrospect, the last relationship she had seemed rather forced and unilateral (he just wasn't interested in her). We tried to warn her, but she kept insisting that she could make him admire her. He apparently is a divorced partner at a law firm and likes to date women 20 years younger than him. I've learned that you can't fix everybody and to not let their problems affect your personally; you've got to stay objective.
In working or trying to work with people to educate them on basic personal finance, help them get a plan, get on top of things and get ahead I can tell you most don't actually want to change. That's to say they want more money in the bank, they want investments, financial security etc but the one thing they don't want is the work and effort it takes to get there
I have a mother who liquidated her 401K last year and didn't realize there was a tax implication for doing so (she is only 56). She also walked away from a house which eventually went into foreclosure because she left her ex fiancee with it after she put the $100K down payment on it. He was an alcoholic who didn't work and she was tired of being abused. They recently bought a used ford fiesta at 12% interest for my step dads daughter when she turned 16. She ran away with the car and now they are stuck with the payments.
My sister is on unemployment and recently divorced her husband making $180K/year because they "weren't in love" anymore, noble I guess... Now she dates some loser who also doesn't work and she can't afford her blood thinner medication due to multiple lung clots she has had. While she was married she was an unemployed stay at home wife who we begged to go back to school to develop a skill, she chose to do nothing instead.
Long story short... you get numb to it after a while.
I think it's worse when the relative is your parent... I have the same dynamic and although I've firmly established how I'll deal with it later (I won't.. those weren't my choices and I've got dependants and my own future to worry about) I know I'm going to feel a constant tension of societal expectations of what I ought to do to help her.
It does bother me to a certain extent. Unfortunately some close friends and family will guilt trip you into a loan if they can manage to persuade you.
When it comes to close family, their financial blunders can impact your future inheritance. Like some of the previous stories have mentioned, siblings have borrowed from or sponged from parents. Most never pay it back and your inheritance becomes a lot smaller. Unfortunately they don't see it that way and expect the same amount as you when the time comes.
yes, In every generation of my family we have the same problem. I have accepted that there will be nothing left when my parents go. My other sister has put my mom into 200k worth of debt for student loans they will never be paid off and my dad owes money to the IRS so they live paycheck to paycheck just trying to get by. In the end there will be nothing left but It doesn't bother me much. My Aunt that has bad habbits has put my grandmother into so much debt with failed buisness ventures, same with some of my cousins. My family is very caring and giving to those who ask for it, Some poeple take advantage of it while i want nothing to do with it.
Yeap, I totally understand your position. My brother borrowed over 50k from my parents to buy a house, help him start his business, pay his credit cards, etc. If my parents refuse, he makes them feel guilty for not helping his disabled daughter have a better life. And the help never last with him. He continued to make bad financial decisions that cost him the house, his business, accrue more debt, etc.
It's hard to keep quiet. All I could do is talk to my parents and try to persuade them to stop helping him. At the same time, he uses their grand daughter as leverage. After awhile, I gave up and stopped trying to help my parents. By this point, my brother and I have no relationship. I don't see him as family anymore. Sadly, when people who make bad decisions continue to do so and drags innocent people down with them, all you can do is stay away from them and let kharma handle the rest. Your love for your family cannot help them.
Seeing a situation like this in my own family that I would rather not describe in detail. It is the the point now that something has been done that is an outright crime that no doubt mom and dad will be throwing money at to make go away. I don't want anything to do with it when it finally all hits the fan. I can do nothing to stop it. It hurts to finally have to face it that I need to forget about certain people and move on. To just mind your own business isn't always possible. When it has been going on for so long and the takers are 50 years or beyond its time to worry about elderly parents being taken advantage of and the possibility of them asking you next when the bank of mom and dad dries up. I think one thing all of the users have in common is that none of the bad situations they end up in are their fault. They believe other people are always at fault for them being poor.
What I find especially irritating is that comments have been made that my financial stability is due to my parents giving to me which is not true at all. I understand where the OP is coming from. These are suppose to be your siblings. You've known them longer than anybody and want to be able to have a close family with people you can trust. It does hurt you.
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I'd tell them to talk to the hand; they made their beds, now lie in it.
