Parents in law subsidising ridiculous son in law

[chouchouu]

Mr Louis Vuitton belt is the DH of a friend of mine. His wife is a nice lady, shops at Aldi and is happy to purchase second hand products. Mr Louis Vuitton on the other hand insisted on buying his wife a Gucci baby carrier for their first daughter. When my DH met mr LV the first sentence mentioned that he was building his family a house. Mrs LV had told me they had problems getting a home loan so they could start building. Later on she mentions that her parents helped them out with a home loan.

Last week she tells me that her repayments would be less than the cost of renting. I was puzzled, her house costed about 700k to build but her rent was less than $500.  This didn't make any sense at all, surely her interest alone would be quite sizeable. Mrs LV then tells me that her parents put down a 50% deposit. That's right folks, Mr LV has such bad credit that no bank would lend to them without a 50% deposit, which her parents paid! As you can guess new home has a home theatre, all new furniture and appliances, around 85 lights (I still cant figure this out, where!) and is a significant commute from where Mr LV holds his main job.

How did such a nice lady end up with such a schmuck?

[sunshine]

Maybe besides missing basic financial common sense he is a very nice guy. She's a much to blame as he is. She could have refused the money from her parents. She could have returned the expensive baby carrier. Maybe she is very used to large infusions of cash from her parents. Who knows. As long is someone is happy with their choices it's live and let live to me. If living beyond your means makes one ridiculous the world is full of ridiculous financially uneducated people. We can just be grateful we have the knowledge to not live that lifestyle.

[MgoSam]

Wait their mortgage balace is around $350k and they pay less than $500 a month? Even at 3% the PI would be around $1500 and that doesn't account for insurance and taxes and if they have such bad credit, their interest rate will be far higher.

Either someone mispoke or more than a 50% deposit was put down.

[chouchouu]

Wait their mortgage balace is around $350k and they pay less than $500 a month? Even at 3% the PI would be around $1500 and that doesn't account for insurance and taxes and if they have such bad credit, their interest rate will be far higher.

Either someone mispoke or more than a 50% deposit was put down.
[/quote

Less than 500 a week.

[marty998]

How did such a nice lady end up with such a schmuck?

Mr LV certainly isn't the schmuck. He's just scored $350,000 of free equity.

I'd call that a good strategy...

... until it all falls apart.

[ash7962]

How did such a nice lady end up with such a schmuck?

Wouldn't call my dad a schmuck, but my parents have a similar pattern though definitely on a smaller scale.  Its caused by a combo of mom not having the confidence to have a different opinion until hindsight kicks in, and dad getting excited about the usual status items.  Mom shops grocery sales and outlet malls, and on her own is a decently frugal person.  Not MMM frugal, but definitely a "live below your means and save the mainstream 20%" type of person.  My dad enjoys shelling out the cash to show how successful he is.  He's always got a new thing or is treating for meals and so on.  I think my ma wouldn't buy a lot of the stuff on her own, but dad kinda gets excited about things and hypes it up for mom.  Like recently dad got a new job with a 30-40min commute and within a week started talking about buying a new car with better gas millage.  At the same time my ma was like "I walked to work the other day and it wasn't bad!  I plan on doing it more often".  Which is great because they live less than a mile from her work.  Then 2 weeks later mom is all like "yeah we're thinking about buying a new car" in the *look at us we're so cool* tone.  Then goes on to tell me about how they're thinking about a hybrid which isn't that just so great for the environment?!  At that point dad had given her all the "lets rationalize this bad decision" reasons and gotten her on board.  So yeah I'd say its pretty easy for someone to end up with a nice partner who makes questionable decisions while thinking they are good ones.