We bailed out my brother in law several years ago. At the time we bailed him out, he was picking up groceries at the food shelf in his "new" Land Rover.
Now, anyone who wants to read my back posts will figure out that my brother in law has the financial sense of a fencepost, but...
He'd been married (and was divorcing) a woman who took the joint money to pay the mortgage, and spent it. So he thought he had a paid for mortgage but turns out, he hadn't paid it in something like a year before the foreclosure notice showed up!
The LandRover was a leased vehicle. Leased when he and his wife were both working. The ink was barely signed on the lease when she decided to lose/quit (we were told she was laid off, in retrospect, I don't think that was true) her job and pursue her dreams. Later, he lost his job. The leasing company told him they wouldn't take the Land Rover back.
So when he leased the Land Rover, he was part of a two-income-no-kids family with two really good incomes. When he hit bottom, he was a man about to have his home foreclosed on, underemployed, separated from his wife, who had been unemployed for several years and who had been embezzling their mortgage money from the family account.
Now, if he had sense - and a backbone - he'd have confronted the wife long before he did - probably divorced her when he discovered he'd married a woman with $40k in consumer loans (and an equivalent amount of student loans). He'd have savings to cover his periods of un and underemployment. He'd not have leased a Land Rover. But he didn't buy a Land Rover off public assistance money. At the time the lease was signed on the Land Rover, it may have not been a "responsible" commitment, but it was a reasonable one - with the information he had, at that point in time, he'd be able to make payments on that, on the mortgage, feed himself, go on vacation.....not that different from many of the families in this thread who have car loans and Disney vacations planned, but not enough savings to cover a near simultaneous divorce and job loss.
Now, anyone who wants to read my back posts will figure out that my brother in law has the financial sense of a fencepost, but...
He'd been married (and was divorcing) a woman who took the joint money to pay the mortgage, and spent it. So he thought he had a paid for mortgage but turns out, he hadn't paid it in something like a year before the foreclosure notice showed up!
The LandRover was a leased vehicle. Leased when he and his wife were both working. The ink was barely signed on the lease when she decided to lose/quit (we were told she was laid off, in retrospect, I don't think that was true) her job and pursue her dreams. Later, he lost his job. The leasing company told him they wouldn't take the Land Rover back.
So when he leased the Land Rover, he was part of a two-income-no-kids family with two really good incomes. When he hit bottom, he was a man about to have his home foreclosed on, underemployed, separated from his wife, who had been unemployed for several years and who had been embezzling their mortgage money from the family account.
Now, if he had sense - and a backbone - he'd have confronted the wife long before he did - probably divorced her when he discovered he'd married a woman with $40k in consumer loans (and an equivalent amount of student loans). He'd have savings to cover his periods of un and underemployment. He'd not have leased a Land Rover. But he didn't buy a Land Rover off public assistance money. At the time the lease was signed on the Land Rover, it may have not been a "responsible" commitment, but it was a reasonable one - with the information he had, at that point in time, he'd be able to make payments on that, on the mortgage, feed himself, go on vacation.....not that different from many of the families in this thread who have car loans and Disney vacations planned, but not enough savings to cover a near simultaneous divorce and job loss.
