Tending to your business

[n74tg]

I have a friend that I've known closely for a long time.  This woman married a spendthrift and over the next twenty plus years of marriage made every bad financial decision possible.  They were gadget freaks, so every new computer or video game that came out, they had to have it first.  I suspected not a dime ever went into savings.  He took care of paying the bills, and she let him, but never bothered to monitor any checking or savings accounts.  She enjoyed staying at home and raising the two sons for twenty years, so read that as "no employable job skills."

Eventually the good times ended and they divorced.  It wasn't long after that both of them declared bankruptcy.  He had agreed in the divorce to continue making her car payments, but you know how that goes.  So, nine months later, she is horribly surprised to find out that car payments haven't been made and GMAC wants the car back. 

Well, come to find out, the guy had been paying money to the bankruptcy "trustee" who was suppossed to be sending GMAC the payment, but apparently wasn't.  Why? -- who knows.  But, long story short, they came and got the car in the middle of the night and lady now has no transportation, no money to buy another car, and depends on her mother to drive her to work, back home after, to buy groceries, pretty much to everywhere.  Oh, and the mother is making the daughter's rent payment too.

Okay, so what's my beef about all this.  It's that no where in all those nine months did anybody think to call GMAC and check if the payments were up to date.  Everybody was completely asleep at the wheel.   

I don't see how people can be this irresponsible.  If someone else is "doing something" for me (as oppossed to me doing it myself), and especially if it involves money, you can bet I'm closely monitoring every step along the way.  I guess that's why things like this don't happen to me.

Okay guys, so here's the question.  Am I looking at this situation wrong.  Is there some other, more appropriate or more realistic way to describe this as being anything other than "financial incompetence."   

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

n74tg,  I don't think you're looking at it wrong.  My sister is in approximately the same situation... only she is younger and still has little kids.  It was helped along by her husband who had a gambling issue.  She doesn't make as many bad money decisions as he did, but still is not that great at it.  Keeps going through the dead broke hamster wheel every few years, and is hiding her truck from the repo man and driving a borrowed car because her ex didn't make the payments he was supposedly going to make.  First, they lost their home, then they got a divorce, and then she even had to move out of the duplex they'd moved into when they lost the house, and now they're in a tiny, seedy little two bed apartment and struggling to make the rent, which is only a few hundred less than the duplex (another bad decision IMO, when she could have moved closer to work, found a cheaper place to live within walking distance to her job, especially since the apartment was already a move that changed her kids' school district.)  It aggravates me and yet I feel for her at the same time.  But, everyone but her could see it coming years ago and tried to warn her.

[Squirl]

Well, here is another added opinion.  According to your story this individual took no responsibility for herself for most of her life.  It can be pretty common. She did not work, save, or have responsibility over her own finances for 20 years and most likely 18 years before that when she was living with her parents. If she has spent almost 40 years of her life being completely dependent on someone else, why would it be any different now?  Those skills are not learned over night.  If she has been avoiding them most of her life, I can't see her learning them now. 

Some people are just dependent in life.  That is who they are.  And it works most of the time because they find someone who likes to provide.  You are looking at the situation through your independence and sense of responsibility.