Guys, what would you do in this situation. Let me give you a little bit of a back ground first. Three years ago, my dad suffered a stroke. A few months after that, he suffered another stroke. These strokes caused him to not act like himself. Before the strokes he was a pretty serious guy, because he was a plant manager, so he basically acted like how managers act. But after the stroke, he is out of control spending money on stupid things, and he acts like a little kid(literally acts like a Junior High kid). If he sees something that one of our neighbors got, he’ll go out and buy it because he wants something just like it. It’* like a kid that sees his friend has a new toy, so he’ll throw a temper tantrum if he can’t get it and will hold a grudge for a while. He’ll go out and secretly buy these things, until we finally find out that he bought it. The last example was that we found this mule (utility vehicle) sitting in the garage and we had no idea where it came from. Our neighbor had just bought one last week, and now we have one sitting in our garage, brand new, and we had no idea where it came from. He went out and bought one because he couldn’t resist buying it, he said he just had to have it. It goes in fads, he’ll concentrate on spending money on one thing, until he gets bored with it, and says it doesn’t make him happy, then he’ll switch over to spending money on something else. In the past two years, he’* spent over $35,000 on ‘toys’ (not including anything to do with cars, that’ * a whole other story) because he says they make him happy. But, the worse part of It all, he says he just HAS to have all this stuff, but he’ll use it for maybe a week, then it won’t be touched for months. He’ll buy it, never take care of it, then we, or I, have to take care of it for him. He bought a fourwheeler for $7000, used it a few times when he got it, and it hasn’t been used in almost 6 months. It’* two years old now, and he’* never even changed the oil in it. It’* horrible. He has taken out so many loans, and spent so much money from his savings that my college loans are being denied! My brother needed a new laptop for college because his old one had died, and he couldn’t get it because he couldn’t get it financed without a co-signer, my mom had never had anything in her name for a loan, and my dad couldn’t’ get the loan because he has so many loans right now already that we are struggling to even pay. (the finance was refused for the laptop BTW.)
Before this started happening, we had a spotless credit history. We could apply for any loan we wanted basically, but that isn’t the case now..
The last part of this long rant, is now he is spending all of his retirement money on these things to ‘make him happy.’ He is convinced that he is going to die soon because he has a heart ‘murmur.’ He doesn’t understand that he probably isn’t going to die for quite a long time (he’* 49) and that he won’t have any money at all whatsoever when retirement time comes and he goes to get the money, because there won’t be any.
So the real question of this huge LONG post is what can you do to get a man to stop spending money on ridiculous things like this constantly? What do you do when you max out your $5,000 credit card and everytime you start to pay it off, he buys something else to put on it? What do you do when he keeps putting more and more bills on you (his 18 year old son who works part time) so that he can feed this addiction of his, because this is what it is.. What do you do when, you have to take on more hours of work to pay for things to help him out, not paying attention to your schoolwork and getting good grades, which is ruining your future? Just… what do you do?!

This is tough, I know i've been there. My mom spent over $8,000 a year at this one department store (for many years). She would hide the stuff from my dad and I but we would always find it. Eventually she had a nervous breakdown and ended up in an institution twice.
I I were you i'd try to reason with him, if that doesn't work tell his doctor about the situation. Maybe he can give your father something that may be of help. Whatever you do don't give up on him, it is the scariest thing to see a parent go crazy and end up in an institution. :(

Talk and Doctor. Those are the first two logical steps. But before you talk to him, pull the whole family in on it. They're going to find out sooner or later, anyway. Does he have a Brother or Sister he'* close to? Think about all of them, and get them involved.

Deep ! You have PM

If there'* any light in this, it sounds like all of the 'stuff' has been put on credit cards and/or recreational vehicle loans. First, sell the stuff he isn't using anymore (i.e. four wheeler). Apply that cash toward paying down the loans. Once the loans are gone, look into a home equity loan. The interest will most likely be lower, and it'* tax deductible. Third, and probably the most important step, get rid of the credit cards. If your mom is joint on the cards, she should be able to close the account.

By the time this is done, you're parent should be down to only 2-3 payments each month - the house, the 2nd mortage, and maybe car payment.

Going to my earlier point, the credit cards are killer; all they do is score you debt you can't work down and ruin credit reports. You can get bad credit just by having too much available credit. Evil - credit cards are evil.

If your parents insist that they need a card (pay at the pump, put other monthly expense on the card) get an American Express. It'* not a credit card, but a charge card. That means the entire balance has to be paid off each month; no carrying debt on that one.

Hey, he didn't happen to by a new Ranger boat in any of his tyraids, did he? I might be able to help you out with that one.

I wish you luck.

I can't even imagine :? I'll be praying for you, and if you want someone to talk to, PM me and I'll get you my contact info, eg email addy and im names and whatnot.

--Christine

Don't give him credit cards. Or if you do, have the statements sent somewhere else. Get a card with a low limit too if possible.

That is a shame. I think your family should talk to his doctor and maybe let him see someone because he is looking for something to feel a void he has. I agree with everyone else to take away the credit cards. It may take the whole family to do an "intervention" type of deal because he is addicted to having stuff. I think maybe the strokes were a wake up call and showed him that we are all going to die eventually. We don't know how long we have and should just make the most of each day for tomorrow things may change. I wish you the best in getting this taken care of.

We've taken away the credit cards, the problem is that he just started buying stuff off of Ebay left and right now, so he just uses PayPal for that, or if that'* not available (if the card'* maxed out) he'll just use money orders. I've blocked Ebay before on his old laptop so he couldn't get to it, and blocked the other auction sites he goes to every day (he'* online looking at stuff to buy for atleast 2 or 3 hours a day). To get around that he just bought a new laptop. It gets better for a while after we talk to him. He'll stop buying and agree to pay off all the bills, but then he'll just start up again. Whenever I try talking to him he just threatens to cancel my car insurance and take my car away. (what good is that giong to do?) I'm not the one with the problem, it'* him. I really don't think it'* fair for him to take my car away because I'm trying to help him. The biggest reason is I pay for the entire car!