My mom spent all my dad's money. Now wants me to take care of her.

Tell your mom to start training for the Marathon Majors. If she wins a couple of those marathons she should have enough to retire

This is highly disturbing. She's messed up. She bought a car expecting you to pay for it? That's absurd. Probably a good decision to cut her out. She acts like an entitled teenager. She's been handed too much free stuff in her life. She needs to learn the hard way.

I had an ex gf who's mother was a financial train wreck, she had a serious shopping addiction and could not control herself when it came to spending money. She inherited a house that she lived in, and took out a second mortgage on it to pay off her credit card debt, then ran up her credit cards again. She was just about retirement age, quit her job, took unemployment for a few months, and didn't really look for another job. Eventually she just gave up and mooched off her family/friends. My ex had a really hard time telling her no, and ended up supporting her a pretty good bit.

Eventually, we broke up, and I walked away from it. I'd bet she is still dealing with her nonsense though. I guess the lesson is to cut her off now, and be and a-hole about it. She will never change unless she has to.

Tell her that if she runs across the country with an RV, people will throw money at her, as long as she does it "For the children". Hard to spend much money when you are riding in an RV at 10mph all day.

Serious answer: tell her to start dating/remarry.

Hi,

I haven't sifted through responses below yet, but I would recommend not doing this.

I have been in a similar position for the last few years with my Dad. Except for the fact he has not been working and has no money to pay for rent, food, other basic living expenses. I've been assisting him with rent, food, and whatever else. I live in the part of the country that it is almost impossible to pay for myself, let alone another person.

I recommend holding her accountable for her actions and avoid assisting her financially. She doesn't have to retire and she has a job. Help her with other things because assisting financially might be hard to pull back from...and if your salary increases, the amount of financial assistance you give her might increase as well.

Perhaps I'm too biased here because of my own situation, but I would at least be cautious and set very strict parameters if you are going to help.

good luck!

Hi Again,

I just posted about me and my Dad.

So, I think the information you left out was important. My Dad is emotionally abusive, and I have been trapped supporting him anyways. I would try your best to avoid supporting her, as it can be destructive to you and your life otherwise. I'm just a little older you and honestly it is very hard and very emotionally draining.

She needs to be held accountable. She can always go back to work.

Two simple rules:

1) If you're not maxing out our 401k contribution(inc 50+ catchup this is $24k per year but your company may have other restrictions) and you're not maxing out your Roth contribution(in 50+ catchup this is $6.5k per year) then you are not doing enough.

2) Depending on lifestyle and other obligations, medical issue, etc you will need roughly 8 to 11 times your final year's salary/years earnings at retirement(not early retirement!) to make it work.

May be too late for you but all you millennials need to pay attention!

Who thinks they are going to retire at 55 anymore? the early Baby Boomers took care of that. Social security kicks in a 67 for most of us, and pensions are destroyed, the market is a crazy cycle. The only bet you have to make is to create multiple streams of income - some investments and some work - and keep them going after you quit your day job and go on medicare.

OP, who divorced whom? I think $$$$ was MORE than partly why your parents divorced.

Also, why did you lie to us in the original post??????????

"Do everything you can to try to keep her from retiring at 62. Her SS benefits will be lousy compared to retiring just a few years later."

A little misleading. True, there is a coefficient applied to benefits as a function of retirement age, but the relationship between monthly benefits and retirement age is linear. Although the SSA defines a 'full retirement age", it is just a benchmark, and there is no threshold before which you take a big penalty or after which you get a big benefit.

pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

another runner wrote:

Wow thats nuts. Why does she feel so entitled to your money?

.

Because she is a liberal. Bet she votes for Hillary.

My mom did the same thing (w/ money and spending and that's what led to the divorce). And I know a few other moms who did the same thing that also led to divorce.

kipp,

Your mother should not retire at 62 unless she has serious health issues. Her FRA (Full Retirement Age) is probably around 66+, which means retirement at 62 will cut her benefit by 25%. Furthermore, if she is in good health, I would assume she may live until 90. Therefore, working past 66, and delaying Social Security benefits until age 70 would result in additional benefit of 8% per year. Your mother most likely has benefits based on your father's earnings record. Schedule a conference call with your mother and Social Security to explore the various benefit scenarios, including taking benefits on your father's record, while delaying her own benefit.

Family is family, but you are no good to others if you hurt yourself.

Igy

I

messi wrote:

OP, who divorced whom? I think $$$$ was MORE than partly why your parents divorced.

Also, why did you lie to us in the original post??????????

I didn't really lie so much as write the post as if I was writing it 6 months ago. I was having pretty strong emotions and feelings about everything and wanted to gauge them against people's reactions here. I cut my own mother out of my life with the understanding that I will probably never speak to her again before she dies... It's a pretty rough and intense thing to go through.

As far as the divorce, my dad divorced my mom because of a lot of things. Money was just one. He had to put her on an "allowance" when they were married and have separate accounts because she would spend every dollar she had access to, and I guess there was one year she spent around $100,000 without my dad even knowing where the hell it went. My dad always kept money in a safe in our house for emergency purposes (maybe a thousand dollars cash or something; I don't know the exact amount), and my mom would "steal" it to spend on random stuff without saying anything to anyone. Stuff like this went on for 20 years... It bothers me because she almost never gave any money to me or spent it on me. I never really asked for anything and don't have an entitlement attitude, but it kind of shows how important you are to your parent when they spend $30,000 on extra stuff for themselves one year but won't even give you $20/month for gas so you can drive yourself to track practice. Now she wants me to take care of her and refuses to work like a normal person.

I really appreciate all the responses here. It might sound crazy, but this is all just the tip of the iceberg with my mom. Since it's been this way my whole life, I've never known anything different, so it's a little bit hard to gauge where exactly "normal" is. You all have made me feel more secure with my decision to cut her out of my life.

kipp,

Read my post above you're if you wish to give your mom good advice that costs you nothing.

Igy

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

kipp,

Read my post above you're if you wish to give your mom good advice that costs you nothing.

Igy

She already retired. I don't know the specifics of her finances, but I know both my sister and I have made it clear she will not be leeching off of us. She is not disabled but does have a lot of health issues (high blood pressure, slightly obese, chronic fatigue, etc). She has never smoked or drank excessively, so it wouldn't surprise me if she dropped dead from a heart attack tomorrow or still lived another 10 years. I really don't think she'll be alive 15 years from now, but we can never really know. She has become delusional though in that she's created a false reality in her mind where she has never done wrong to anyone and all other people are the weird ones. I think she's about 1/3 of the way to the looney bin. Not sure how long it will take to go the rest of the way.

My dad, who probably has a better idea of her finances than I do, told me multiple times that retiring at 62 would be a very bad decision for her and urged to convince her not to, which I sort of did... I didn't really try too hard because my Mom doesn't really listen to anyone no matter what, so I knew engaging with her on the matter would not be productive.

Thanks again for the replies.

Hello. It's really terrible. I can't even imagine what you were feeling. However, I had some similar problems when I was younger. My family is not rich, and, we were facing different financial problems. That's why I started to earn money when I was 15 years old. I was trying to earn some money buy selling items, renting stuff and so on. I have read on https://iliketodabble.com/how-to-make-money-fast/ some simple ways to save and earn money, and it really helped me to get out of this situation.