How about when your FIL calls to tell you that he's "Spending your inheritance" by buying a new, Special Edition, Custom Camero convertible? It never would have occurred to me to feel bad about his purchase if he hadn't said that. It's a $50K car, he's 65 with increasingly poor eyesight plus he has no garage to put it in. :O Oh, this was also the same call to tell us that he and my MIL would be gone for a month on a Med cruise. Another $30K there. That one makes sense to me but the car not so much.
I feel your pain!!
I love my FIL, so do his 3 kids, but we all pulled our hair a couple years ago - he traded in his not-yet-3-yr-old car for a brand new one.
He still owed money on the trade-in.
Remaining debt on that one was rolled into the price for the new car.
He called each of his kids to run the idea past them, they all said it was a bad idea (so did my MIL).
He did it anyway.
It could have been worse, he was going to take out HELOC to pay for this, until my MIL said she wouldn't sign the papers.
At least this isn't putting them in the poorhouse, but it seemed like a dumb idea to us all. And the car loan is the only debt they have.