Major Vulture Attack in Progress

[Brat]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

If Mom calls tell her you don't discuss anyone's financial issues with third parties, Sis herself must call you. 

Locate a good financial advisor of the credit counseling type in Sis's community, tell this person that you have a relative in need and ask how much s/he would charge for 8 hours of services- maybe pay this person a bonus if Sis never calls you again.  When/If Sis calls tell her you have arrainged for a financial advisor because you are confident that she can learn to manager her affiars, and after you are gone there will be no one around to help her.

 

[LRS]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

You don't need any more advice, yet here I am with my shovel-load:

What Andre69 said way back on page one is right. I just want to comment about wanting love and family-feeling from your sibs: they will not love you if you keep on giving them money, nor will they appreciate what you are doing for them. In fact, they will despise you even more and treat you like a fool.

You wish you could at least help your mom. But she is working on their behalf, not yours. All of them are willing to lie in order to get money from you.

Don't explain anything to them, or try to lie to them. If you do, they will wait patiently until you stop making noise, then they will clamor for you to shove more money down their gullets. When you have no more money, you will be of no further use to them.

Move, leave no forwarding address, send postcards at holidays from your post office box. Try developing friendships with people with whom you share common interests and a bond of trust. Transfer your craving for family there.

I agree this is harsh but you may actually be helping them more by removing yourself as the locus of their dependency. Their lives won't stop, they will manage to blunder on without you.

 

[bbuzzard]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

Amen. I feel like a must be a cold hearted B#!%#$d, but there is no way that a free-loading realtive would get $100k from me. If they are helping themselves, and need temporary help, that is one thing, but you have something else on your hands. Makes me glad that no one (family or otherwise) has a clue about my net worth. In fact, I suspect most of them think I am signficantly less affluent than they are, as a live a poor lifestyle. I did give my stock broker brother $200 when he lost his job in 1987 (we all remember the 1987 market correction) (don't laugh, I was in graduate school and just married and that was probably 10-15% of our discresionary income for the year). He did not ask for it, and has paid it back in varuious ways x10 in the following years.

 

[MJ]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

Maybe you should itemize all the times you have been extorted and present that to them. Say, "Look, I'm not a bad guy. I gave you $15K on this date and $15K on this date" and on and on and show them the total. Have the sister do a similar list with how she spent the money.

Just a thought.

CJ

Unfortunately just like in business, the attitude from these types of people is "what have you done for me lately". The good deads of the past are forgotten.

 

[astromeria]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

OAP, who's the bleeding heart here--you are SO nicer than me!

My kids got aged cars as college graduation gifts from me. In fact, my daughter's fiance still drives that ancient Acura, leaking oil and without a functional A/C, because my daughter couldn't afford to park it in DC when she moved there for grad school. And she wouldn't dream of asking me to subsidize her parking--she knows I would've said No, and without a moment's hesitation. Nobody in a city needs a car--they just want one.

BTW, my daughter used the Acura wihtout A/C during the summer she interned at  ExxonMobil headquaters in Dallas--in fact she drove from Boston to DC to my house in SC to TX and back wihtout A/C--and lived to tell the tale  I did offer to spend the $2k necessary to fix the A/C, but she refused on the grounds that it was an unnecessary luxury.

We breed 'em tough in New Yawk and Bawstin  8)

 

[shorttimer]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

OAP, don't take this the wrong way but you need help. A good counselor can help you at setting limits and exploring how you get sucked into this vortex of cash removal. I am no expert but it sounds to me like a co-dependency type relationship going on. Like those people who bring food to a person who is so fat they can't stand and the fire department finally has to come and cut a hole in the wall to get them to the hospital.

I am so cheap when my brother called to ask for $5,000 I said no. He has had more new cars in ten years than I have had my whole life, eats out all the time, and does not hesitate to buy stuff. He has a state pension and bowed out the first chance -he acts like he is an executive at Microsoft instead of a low to middle class citizen.

One of my coworkers is almost seventy and flat broke but comes in showing off her new QVC expensive clothes all the time "they were the buy of the day",cheap gaudy jewelry and spends a fortune on having her hair done. Very sad, but she blames it on being a widow. Could it be she spends more a month on clothes than DH and I do in a year? And of course, none of the kids work, they depend on handouts and who they can hook up with for money. One of her sons is in his fourties and has never ever had a job! Can you imagine?

As long as you lie down people will step on you. Get up, brush yourself off and take care of your own physical and mental health. The idea of showing your Mom how much you have given them is good. Get an answering machine. Move and get a PO box and communicate that way. Call your mom from a pay phone if need be with a phone card. Do you really think you are helping anyone? Really?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

You can go with the route that I've planned to offer if and when my family nightmare materializes.

"All of our money is tied up in investments that periodically produce enough income for us to live on, and maybe a little extra to help you for a very short time, which you would have to pay back. If we tried to free up as much cash as you need, the tax implications would be five figures at least and our long term budget would be screwed up. At best we would be blowing up any inheritance for our son. Can we help you work up a plan for you to sell some stuff or for other people in your household to pitch in and get jobs and cut your spending to help you get back on your feet?

Hello? Hello? Are you still there?"

All of it is true. No funny business, no avoidance, no lying, offer of help...

 

[Martha]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

OK, OAP, you have six pages of responses. EVERYONE says cut them off. Stop it, stop it, stop it. You don't need to beat yourself up about them anymore. You have given them plenty of money. Money doesn't help. The help they need isn't going to come from you.

Go to San Francisco. Give only your brother your telephone number.

You got rid of your possessions. Time to get rid of the leeches.

It seems like you do this because you are worried about your mom. Tell her that the only reason you have helped is because you care for her. Tell her that you are worried about her, but giving money hasn't helped. She is still depressed and rapidly losing all her assets to her greedy children. Suggest counseling. If her insurance doesn't pay, you could offer to pay the counselor directly.

 

[Martha]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

But you are not helping your mom. You money isn't helping her. Believe me.

If you care to try to help her, she sounds like she needs an intervention. Ignore the tears. Send her to counseling. No more money. End it.

No more "yes, buts".

 

[Outtahere]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

Standing next to Martha, nodding in agreement OAP you'd better listen to the Queen!!!!

 

[Sundance Kid]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

Barney Fife, may he rest in peace, always said, "Nip IT, Just Nip it in the bud."

NIP IT, NIP IT, NIP IT!!!

 

[astromeria]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

OAP, lest you feel all alone out there in your generosity, family guilt, and what-have-you, when my parents' stocks tanked in 2000-2001...partly due to investing in MY startup <eek! thank goodness it wasn't at my suggestion>, I made up for thier loss so they wouldn't have to liquidate stocks that were down (gave them 6 months of expenses). But at least they were bleeding money due to the market, not due to overspending. And yeah--we were at our peak earning years in Sillygone Valley when I did it.

 

[Brat]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

As I look over our comments all agree that giving Sis money won't help her long term, giving her money will only postpone the enviable.  I still think you should tell your Mom that if Sis has a need she should call you, but you need a script for what you will tell your sister and that script should only be an offer to help her attain knowledge about how SHE can get her financial life in order.  As has been said by others, you don't cure hunger by giving a person a fish, you cure hunger by teaching them how to catch their own.

Mom is problem because she has played the role of hero, maybe even facilitated dependency, but is no longer able to carry that role.   I would tell Mom that I will help my sister in my own way - that I love you both and I want to leave a legacy of self sufficiency.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

Tell them when you got off the plane in SF, you met some nice people selling books. After hearing about their terrific religion you moved in to their compound and gave up all of your worldly goods to them.

Your name is now "Shaaaaa".

Let us now meditate.

 

[MJ]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

astromeria and others who have called me nice or generous, I did not feel generous at all. I gave only because I was asked and had the money. It was during my working career and I was making good money and saving a bit.

Take the compliment OAP. If I was asked, I probably wouldn't give a 10th of what you have already given. I have denied myself a lot of simple luxuries to build a nest egg and I am not about to give it away so easily to improve someone's quality of life due to their lack of responsibility or lack of desire to live on a lot less.

 

[boont]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

I think you need to own up to your responsibilities and help your family.

I guess I don't really believe your story. That is your side of things.

b.

 

[ladelfina]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

So much great advice and creative ways to remove the leeches.. I can't add anything there.  Salt?

Here's what I'd do: one thing is, try to separate the past from the present. Your family screwed up big time, and will probably screw up again, but you are rightly concerned about the future, esp. that of your mom. You have a big stash, and you feel bad that the past "help" hasn't (helped).

There were some great ideas about counseling (credit or otherwise). You might take a look at your current situation and say, I can still live well without x amount.. Put that x amount into a trust for your mom. Explain that she will get y amount per month from it, and no more, since you are retired and the days of the endless gravy train are over. Provide for a money manager to give her counseling as needed, but in no way allow her to get more than a small stipend every month. Think of it like a parole officer that she has to check in with.  Then wash your hands of the matter. Refer all questions and requests to the MM. Give them his phone #, not yours. They won't starve, nor will they be able to continue to live high off the hog.

Instead of going crisis to crisis, you can shut off a lot of the "guilt" vibes by having bought them off with a decent sum that you have defined.. like a divorce settlement from your family. Put any one of the basic financial self-help books in their hands as a going-away present. "These ideas helped me be able to take care of myself and have something left over to give you. Now I have nothing else I can offer other than this advice and all my best wishes for your future. I've done my part; now it's time for you to do yours. Love and goodbye, OAP."

Best of luck!

 

[2B]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

Instead of going crisis to crisis, you can shut off a lot of the "guilt" vibes by having bought them off with a decent sum that you have defined.. like a divorce settlement from your family.

You've got to be kidding!  Give anyone who can't manage money a major windfall like this and you've just raised the bar for their expectations.  After their much needed trip to Europe and that new car they deserve, they'll be back in 6 months again.  This time it will be with the last amount given as their "expectation."  The only way deadbeat relatives will be happy is if you are as broke as they are.

I agree with whoever suggested you call your mom up and tell her you've had some  "problems" and ask if she can help you with some money.  I suggest you ask for the same amount you helped your sister out last time.  I doubt you'll get anything but; if your mother did find some cash, you've broken even on the last disaster.

 

[Lancelot]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

OAP,

Will she loan you money if/when you need it? OAP has to take care of OAP.

Personally, I would say no.

If I did agree to help out, I would pay the bank/debtor directly. At least that way you know where the money actually went.

Lance

 

[Outtahere]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

Whether you were grumpy or not, you still did it, they didn't apprecate it end of story. Time to take care of OAP and enjoy what you've worked so hard for.

And yes I'm up early too, actually already at work

 

[Outtahere]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

You'll find nakie babes all over one of these too

 

[justin]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

You'll find naked babes in one of these suckers too:

 

[Outtahere]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

I would be very disappointed if it didn't OAP!

 

[justin]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

justin,
my threads always seem to veer (no, careen) off topic but this one takes the cake.

Yeah, that tends to be what happens.

But I think you have a number of good pieces of advice in this thread to consider.

Let me know if you want Justin's Financial Collection Agency, Inc. to call your sisters and mother inquiring about your whereabouts and your ability to pay the $850,000 you owe to Dewey Cheatham Options Brokerage, Inc. I may even be willing to put on a suit and make a house call to them

 

[KB]

Re: Mod Please Move to OTher ? Major Vulture Attack in Progress

OAP

The general consensus here is to NOT give cash directly to your Mom (she gives it away) or any other family member.

You've tried to help your Mom before, and she has given the money to your sister...or another family member. Which implies that Mom doesn't really need it. Or is less concerned with her welfare than she is with other family members.

Hope you can figure how to help by paying the bills directly (not sister, only Mom).