In my immediate family, we would probably let them end up on the street and then take them in. We tend to let each other make their own mistakes and hope they learn from them. Too much generosity interferes with that education.

We just packed one of my siblings off to Arizona. Altho she got $250K from the sale of her condo, after paying off mortgage, home equity loan, 401K loan and CC debt, she was left with $120K. She bought a house in AZ for $116K. She only has $30K in her 401K, so she intends to live on only SS and possibly earnings from a part-time job. Judging from the CC debt and loans when she was earning over $50K/yr, it's beyond me how she's going to live on so much less. I will be really torn when (not if) she gets into an untenable situation. Helping her pack, I couldn't help but notice that she had more clothes then I've seen anywhere outside of a department store--some of them still with price tags on. The boxes of XMas decorations alone would fill a small room (or attic). At least 30 pairs of shoes and more than 20 handbags. This is far more 'stuff' than I have. I've been trying to do catch-up on my retirement savings, so I've been pretty careful about how I spend money for the last 10 years. I'm hoping that one (or all) of her 4 children will be there for her, but with families of their own, they don't appear to be very sympathetic. It will definitely be a quandary...

2old