Did any of you ever have to deal with a big time spender in your life?

Sort of. But there wasn't a need to change her habits. She was a close family friend whose wealthy husband passed away unexpectedly a few years ago. They married at 18, and she never had a job, and never saw their finances. She just knew whatever she bought on her credit card was covered.

I taught her how to balance her checkbook, how to log in to her credit card account to check the charges, how to pay it online, etc. But she has more money than she'll ever need so there was no point in curtailing her spending. She was spending around $12,000 per month for context.

My MinL was a spender...but her husband left her a pile of cash (separate from children's inheritance), she had his pension and her pension, and she had metastatic breast cancer. It made her happy to buy scrapbooking supplies, to pay her son's car insurance, to pay one grandchild's catholic school tuition. She ran through that money like water, but her time on earth was limited & it was hers to spend. Her spending didn't impact us, but it did reveal the essential greediness of one sibling, who actually asked for an advance on his portion of inheritance from her to use as a downpayment for a house he really couldn't afford. Rest of the family was fine with her spending, acknowledged that it was her money to spend.

And wannabe is on the home and garden board continually talking about buying woodworking stuff

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And why did you not marry her?

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It would have been an awkward conversation with my wife, and my mom since the lady has been one of her best friends since high school.

My wife. Yes she curtailed my spending.

How did she fix you?

went on a cash system until I had broken the bad habit. That was when we were first married we made no money so it was easy for me to get on board. I'm about to return the favor though. We have been blowing through money really fast lately so its time for a budget.

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Did any of you ever have to deal with a big time spender in your life?
Whether that was a parent, sibling, significant other, spouse etc.

How did it affect your own finances?

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Yes.

A close friend of mine had a terminal disease and he asked me to help his soon-to-be widow out with her finances.

He had a life insurance policy of about 1.5 year's compensation and he pleaded with me to not let his wife blow it all but space it out. They had two children, one was 10 years old and the other was 8 years old, at the time of his death.

I told him I would but I didn't realize at the time his wife was a spendthrift. She bought things on impulse constantly.

After about six months I found myself having to give her money to cover bad checks she'd written in order to keep her from being arrested. She had already gone through his life insurance money...new car, new addition on her house, all new furniture, etc.

We (my wife and I) had a sit down with the wife and cut up all of her credit cards except one that she was only supposed to use for emergencies. She had maxed out the credit line on about 6 cards and she couldn't even make the minimum monthly payments. So I paid them off for her on the condition that she would NOT open up any new credit card accounts.

A few months later she told me she had opened up new credit card accounts and couldn't pay the minimum on them any longer. That was it for me.

I finally had to tell her I couldn't support both her and my family any longer. It hurt me to walk away from her but I felt like I had kept my word to my dying friend as best I could and it had cost me thousands of dollars and quite a few sleepless nights to do so.

Of course, she blamed me for not helping her enough to manage her money. As if I had the time to follow her around every time she went shopping.

So we lost her as a friend. Her choice, not ours.

She ended up having to give her children up to distant relatives who raised the children as their own. She was caught shoplifting several times along with writing hot checks and then got arrested for breaking and entering and ended up in a jail somewhere in west Louisiana. She died in prison.

My advice to anyone who commits to helping a friend or family member with finances is, using President Reagan's saying, "Trust, but verify."

Damn. That's terrible

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My advice to anyone who commits to helping a friend or family member with finances is, using President Reagan's saying, "Trust, but verify."

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Right - I've made a ton of mistakes and being raised lower middle class, still have some "big picture" concepts with money. But, I've cracked the code on budgeting, spending and consumer debt.

So, if someone wants my advice - I give it. If someone wants me to be responsible? I have to have 100% control.

I know we can't relitigate your friend's circumstances and stress of the moment typically robs us of perspective, but what I would do if a similar situation hit me would be to immediately call in the cavalry with a trust lawyer to come to the hospital room.

Make me the trustee. With children under 18 at the time, I would have put it through the youngest's 21st Birthday and then have it expire with a reasonable distribution of the trust's residual corpus at that point.

Once she (the wife) didn't do exactly as I instructed with the money, I would have sued - as trustee - and gotten her declared a spendthrift, etc.

She might have hated me, but she wouldn't have run out of money and probably wouldn't have lost her children. I know that's probably hubris talking, but I can't promise you something I don't have the power to enforce.

I'm an all or nothing kind of guy. Ask my kids - if I commit to something, I move heaven and earth and if I can't make good on it, I give a detailed (they don't want all the details) explanation as to the efforts made, challenges encountered and what was done short of fulfilling the commitment.

Which is why I rarely commit to anything.