Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I have some relatives who are "very poor." They have a very low income, but make incredibly inept financial decisions. They receive regular financial income in the form of part-time work, disability income, and pension. Yet they are completely incapable of budgeting or even basic cost analysis, and literally spend every-single-day of their lives jumping from one financial emergency to another. I've repeatedly spoken to them regarding the situation, talking kindly, yelled at, and even given thousands of dollars to them when they came crying about the latest super-duper-disaster emergency. At this point, I've refused to provide further assistance and told them to not speak to me anymore regarding their financial situation or troubles.
The tragic part of the situation is an older lady is literally working-herself-to-death in a kitchen to help out the other family members in this situation, yet her pension is what covers most of the expenses as well. Despite repeatedly explaining things and even getting acknowledge from her, she doesn't make any change to behavior or require change from the other family members.
So, despite being so-incredibly-poor (they literally do not eat some days) here are some of their incredibly stupid financial situations, which have been explained repeatedly to them: 1) They mortgaged a home in the middle of nowhere, a 30-40 minute drive from the nearest small town. 2) They frequently drive to town for groceries (note: because they are "so poor" they will drive to town and only pick up a couple things, because that's "all we can afford" despite all the fuel money wasted. 3) They frequently drive to town for social events / entertainment. 4) They drive to town every other day to work part-time. Sometimes they work so little (1-2 hours) the time and wear-and-tear does not appear to cover the driving expenses. 5) They pay for a full satellite-tv and internet ($100+/mo). 6) They own and feed 5 very large dogs and seven cats. 7) They frequently drive to town to give rides to other towns for friends and family members (who don't contribute money for gas). 8) They keep trying to make money "renting out" rooms to even worse people than themselves, or friends, who never actually pay rent, but who do manage to frequently request rides-to-town and eat their food. 9) They are very obese and in terrible physical health, and frequently drive 1-2 hours away to attend medical appointments.
I don't know, but they seem completely incapable of even making the most fundamental financially-sensible decisions ever - even on a day-to-day basis. They don't even consider medium or long-term decisions, because they are so busy trying to get through the current financial disaster (like repaying some payday loan they took out), yet they always have excuses why they can't do something sensible or claim to be trapped. I rather think it might make a dark-comedy sitcom where you'd laugh at their ridiculous situations.

I sympathize with what you say. I have some family members that are quite poor, but they seem to have a modicum of financial savvy. However, some of them can’t get ahead because they always pursue very risky business ventures and end up failing miserably. They don’t understand that there’s always a risk/reward trade off, so they always end up failing because they take on too much risk in order to “hit the ball out of the park”.
They’re always trying to get me to provide capital for their silly ventures, but I’ve always refused.

I am afraid that there is no fixing people who don't want to be fixed. And honestly, my experience is that the more closely someone is related to you, the more difficult it is to convince them to choose something different for themselves.
"I've repeatedly spoken to them regarding the situation, talking kindly, yelled at, and even given thousands of dollars to them when they came crying about the latest super-duper-disaster emergency. At this point, I've refused to provide further assistance and told them to not speak to me anymore regarding their financial situation or troubles."
I think that is probably all you can do and agree with your decision not to continue enabling their lifestyles.

I hear ya. I have several family members that are in perpetual financial trouble. I used to want to help them. I make far less money than them, but have a substantially higher quality of life; naturally I feel like I have valuable information to share. But they don't want to hear it. Not because they don't want help, but because my simple/frugal lifestyle qualifies me as a nut-job their eyes. That I have no debt, a substantial amount of savings, and a high quality of life is meaningless; I don't have a smart phone or a car, and live in a tiny apartment, so I'm the weirdo of the family.

This is an issue that hits very close to home. Growing up in my household was very tense due to my parents arguing about my paternal grandfather's financial mismanagement and disagreeing about the extent to which they felt obligated to help him. To date, my grandfather has declared bankruptcy three times. Last year, my mother-in-law had a massive financial meltdown that resulted in losing her house and walking away from $100K-$120K in credit card debt.
After putting a lot of thought into the matter, I've come to the following conclusions:
(1) People who are financially irresponsible are selfish. They are often much more blase about their situation than people around them, and they either don't understand or don't care about the stress, angst, and inconvenience they cause others.
(2) People who are bailed out tend to continue making the same mistakes, kind of like drug addicts who don't hit rock bottom.
(3) Although you'd think people who are intelligent and well educated would be better equipped to make smart financial choices, this isn't always the case.
(4) You can talk, scream, wheedle, and beg until you're blue in the face, and people won't change until they're ready.
(5) The only way to maintain sanity is to not become overinvested in their problems.

@llorona to add to that. Certain people also tend to believe it's better to just spend all your money.. go into debt... ignore the debt collectors and then declare bankruptcy and start over like nothing ever happened. I know quite a few people whose take on life is... Charge it.... you can always declare bankruptcy later!