Financial Disasters or Dead Man Walking

[Deleted]

This is really just a rant on how stupid my brother is with his money.

My 39 year old brother has been unemployed for sometime and had moved out of state to our mother's house to look for work there. He said they were having problems and asked if he could stay with me for a bit. I told him that he could and he moved in with me in December. For the first two weeks he did little if anything to find a job. His first excuse was that it was near the holidays and no one was hiring. I pointed out that many people think that so there is less competition for jobs. He did nothing. I suggested that since he wasn't sure what he might want to do he should try some volunteer work. He could pick jobs that sound interesting and try them out with no pressure. His response was "I'll give that some thought." And still he did nothing.

In January we increased our pressure on him to find a job. By February DH, DS and I had had enough of him hanging about and not helping much around the house that we told him to start contacting temp agencies and find anything. He did so and found a temp to hire position in a call center. This was a good thing because his extended unemployment was about to run out.

Once he was employed we discussed his paying rent. Our utilities had gone up over $100 per month since his arrival and although he didn't eat a lot of our food we did provide him with several meals a week. I also had to increase our Internet service level due to his computer gaming usage so that was an additional cost we incurred. We told him that we would like $300 per month. He paid for February and immediately went out and signed a six month lease on his former apartment. He was going to be paying $900 month plus utilities while making $12 per hour at a temp job!

We each inherited a beneficial IRA account worth around $30,000 when our Aunt passed away in December. Guess what happens next?

DB withdraws $20,000 of it to pay bills. He does have some outstanding medical and student loan debt. I have no idea how much of this he paid off and how much went into living costs because within two weeks of moving out of my house he stopped going to work. I know this because they called looking for him. He has not worked since March and no longer has any unemployment. His lease is through August. He just requested another $5000 of the IRA money!

I know he suffers from depression but half (or more) of his problems are due to his poor decisions. Family members have offered advice which he chooses to ignore. We have already decided when his lease is up he can not come back here.

Does anyone have folks like this in their family who have turned it around? Is there any hope?

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

...yes... there is hope... but don't hold your breath... protect your family (and your sanity) first... and try to love your brother, from arm's length...

[NancysSummerSip]

Yup. My late father's sorry-ass brother, his idiot wife and their kids, Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest. Inherited the bulk of my grandmother's estate, and blew it in six months. They've all filed for bankruptcy at some point in time. My family has no communication with them whatsoever. They lied to and stole from an old lady, shut her in a nursing home and let her die there. If any of them were drowning, I'd power my boat away from them as fast as possible.

Sorry to sound harsh, but I did not ask to be related to these people. Cyanne, you've clearly learned better lessons than your brother, and you need to not let his financial issues become yours. No matter how much you love him, keep the line between love and enabling very well-drawn.

[Deleted]

Jul 30, 2012 12:42:33 GMT -5 @lonewolf said:

The problem with my brother is that mom babied the heck out of him and never made him accountable for his poor decisions. She helped support him until she died. Now he is floundering.

This is exactly what my mom did with my brother. She always made excuses for him-at least up to now. After he moved out of her house in December she said she would never do it again!

[Deleted]

cyanne: don't make his problems your problems. He'll have to figure it out. You did enough to buy him some time.

[formerroomate99]

cyanne, I wouldn't even waste time thinking about this. It isn't going to do your brother any good and isn't good for your mental health.

I find it much easier to deal with my lazy parasitic MIL and BIL now that I've stopped caring about what will happen to them once FIL dies.

[Deleted]

I won't spend too much time worrying about it. I just needed to vent. I need my energy to worry about my kids instead.

[happyhoix]

I have an older sister like this, she's been pretty much a parasite off society since she quit working around age 50. She went through a very poor phase until she was able to con her way onto disability. She would call me up and whine about how broke she was, how her car didn't work, how she needed money for vet bills, I would say 'that's too bad' and then tell her I had something else I needed to do.

I know it's hard to turn your back on a sibling, especially one that may have a mental health problem (I think my sister does, too) but keep in mind that anything you give to him he will blow immediately. Helping will only prolong his inertia. My DS apparently can make ends meet on a small pension and disability, and that's good, because she's getting no assistance from the rest of us.