About 7 years ago, I met a lady through work friends who was going through a horrific divorce. Backstory, she was married to her highschool sweetheart for 25+ years and had 5 kids. While I don't think they were crazy spenders, based on several conversations, it was clear they had no financial cushion despite decades of hard work. He was a building contractor specializing in gutting and redoing houses and she worked as a school administrator at the county level. Their kids were married with kids of their own at that point. Shortly after I met her, she filed for divorce after coming home one day and finding her husband at home with a prostitute! Devastated, she moved out of the house into a small 2 bedroom apartment (she needed the second bedroom "for her stuff" - which she piled up to the ceiling in the second bedroom).. She was so financially strapped she had to ask her church for first month's rent and deposit. Husband begged her to come back, but she had had enough. While married, they could scrape by, but once she moved out, their finances imploded. He fell behind on the mortgage and they lost the home to forclosure. Because they had never had any kind of cushion, she was left with nothing after the divorce.
As time passed, I would see her now and again and thought she was recovering well. She still worked for the county school system (had been with them for close to 15 years at that point, and I knew her apartment wasn't very expensive and she didn't have to come up with a chunk of $$$ to move in since her church had helped her out). Every time I ran into her, she always had a large Starbucks coffee in her hand and would pull up into whatever restaurant parking lot we were meeting at in her Lincoln Navigator.
Imagine my surprise when during one of these lunches she tearfully mentioned that she had just left the garage where she got her vehicle serviced and had insisted the mechanic rotate her rear tires to the front as the front tires had no tread left on them and she didn't have any money to get new tires. As it was winter and we lived in an area that got a fair amount of snow and ice, rotating the back tires to the front was "all she could do at the moment" given her finances.
I very very gently (given everything that she had been through at that point) asked her a few leading questions. 1) any chance your one of your adult kids could help you out? ("No, I don't want to be a burden". 2) can your church help out again? ("No, they said there are others in need, and they already helped with the apartment." 3) maybe a smaller apartment? ("No, I barely have room for all of my stuff as it is.") 4) a part-time job? ("Haven't I worked long and hard enough as it is? I shouldn't have to get a second job!" 5) any way you can sell the Lincoln Navigator and buy a smaller, more efficient car, like a 7 year old Honda Civic or Tercel (like I was driving at the time) where replacing 4 tires would cost the same as replacing 1 tire on the Lincoln Navigator? After all, if you can no longer afford to maintain the vehicle you have and it's no longer safe to drive, maybe you should downsize?
You would have thought I had suggested she harvest her grandkids for organs! She immediately turned and vehemently stated that she had always driven a large vehicle and was never going to be forced into a small car.
I immediately disengaged from the conversation and made a mental note not to park anywhere near her until she got new tires.
Fast forward, a few months after that conversation, she had to move into a smaller 1 bedroom apartment (not sure what she did with her stuff). And then within 2 years, quit her job with the county (I understand she quit before she had 20 years in, so received a significantly smaller pension and then moved in with one of her sons in another state). Apparently she could not make ends meet on just her county salary (while driving her giant SUV, meeting friends at restaurants for lunch, and buying Starbucks everyday) for another 2 years to get to her 20 years with the county. Any suggestions that she actually COULD make it if she cut back on her expenses was met with fierce resistance and even open hostility.
Don't get me wrong, I totally sympathize with the crap sandwich her ex husband dealt her, but couldn't help but feel sorry and frustrated for and with her that she just would not change any of her spending behavior even though it meant a smaller pension and loss of independence. She now relies on the good graces of her son and daughter-in-law with whom she lives rent free. Hopefully their goodwill never runs out...