I know this is a common problem around here, but most of the threads I've seen on the forum talk about really spendy parents, and my situation is slightly different. Mine are used to living on lower amounts of money but what they make just isn't enough, and due to a combination of bad financial decisions and bad timing over the years, I am very concerned about them (mostly my mother). Here's the situation: they have 5 kids, and I'm the oldest. They've never really been very financially stable, with a series of cars always on their last legs, always on the verge of needing expensive repairs that they have no emergency funds to cover. They both have college degrees (in fact, my father has 2 master's degrees, one in engineering), but have never earned salaries commensurate with their educations. Their parents were financially stable, so I'm not really sure what went wrong with them. My father worked in a low income job for many years, never making over $50k, and my mother was a stay at home mom who brought in some extra money doing childcare at daycare facilities or eldercare for friends with aging parents.
They were actually not doing so badly until 2008 - they had saved up about $100k in my Dad's retirement plan (not nearly enough for people in their 50s, but they had no credit card debt or car loans, and they were very slowly paying down the mortgage although they still had about 20 years left - their parents had helped them with a down payment and they bought after I had already left the house). Once I left home, I knew they wouldn't be able to afford to pay for my education or anything else, so I was on my own. I figured they'd never be rich, but they'd be okay. Then in 2008, my Dad decided to move near his father to help take some of the burden off of his sister.
Obviously, this was very bad timing. He didn't look for a job before moving, just quit his job and moved and put their house on the market. He didn't get a job and their house took a long time to sell, and in the meantime, they were living in a house his sister owns. To make matters worse, they took money from the 401k at the bottom of the market to renovate the house in the hopes it would sell. I told my mom that she couldn't depend on my dad, and she needed to take matters into her own hands, so she got her certificate and became a CNA. While this was an in-demand job, the pay is not much above minimum wage. She does have health insurance and is contributing to her HSA. Dad had a job as an adjunct for a year making a few thousand, and then nothing since. They finally sold the house but did not make much money from the sale, and it is gone now. They got a small inheritance from my grandparents a year or two ago, but I just learned that they have spent it already and are starting to take on credit card debt, which my mom says is due to rising gas prices. Dad turns 60 in a few months and shows no sign of getting a job, so I have told my mom she needs to accept that he is retired. I can only hope that they have enough in their 401k to last them for 2 more years supplementing my mom's pay until he can claim SS.
I told my mom when she first got her CNA job that it was a good start, but she needed to train herself up to a higher salary level since her job offers tuition reimbursement. I told them that their current situation was unsustainable, and they needed a plan. At the very least, I said, my dad should get his CNA certificate and the job would double their income. They did not do this. Then I said if dad wasn't going to get a job, they needed to apply for food stamps, stop tithing, and ditch the second car (both are over 15 years old, and one will need a $1k repair soon), and that would help make some room by reducing expenses. My brother already pays their cell phone bill, and my aunt is subsidizing their housing. I had hoped that if they were suffering financially for a while, it would give them motivation to improve their situation, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen, and my dad is basically unemployable now, especially if he continues to be picky about the kind of jobs he wants. Also, he's very bad with money and likes to buy expensive vitamin supplements, books, or luxuries like a Mac laptop (instead of a $300 Dell or something else that would make sense) when he perceives that they have a surplus.
I am really angry with my father for allowing this to happen and for basically forcing my mom to support him now, when her health is not great (thanks to the years she did not have health insurance and neglected her health to the point where she is now on medication for the rest of her life). I would not mind helping her out, since she is at least working, but I can't help her without also helping him. I have only recently in my early thirties gotten my own student loans paid off and am finally starting to build net worth and pay down the house after years of dead end jobs in my twenties. I know I am lucky to have a good job, although it is stressful and I am trying to work toward early retirement, but I resent knowing that I will have to support my parents when they already received support from their parents and wasted their chances at life. Anyone else in a similar situation?
