Wisdom of TSF: Debt consolidation
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@Crucial said in Wisdom of TSF: Debt consolidation:
@booboo said in Wisdom of TSF: Debt consolidation:
@NTA menral illness is a bitch. And I think there is plenty on display here. Jeez mate: feeling for yoy.
Apparently the first sign of going la-la is spelling.
Typing on a "smart" phone ... but yeah ...
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@Paekakboyz said in Wisdom of TSF: Debt consolidation:
ps is that 5k in Aussie Dollarydoo's or NZ Kumera chips?
If it was Kiwi dollars we'd be done here
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Right, so the last nearly-8 weeks have been interesting.
Sold the car for probably less than what it was worth, but there were bills to pay. I fucking HATE selling cars. Tyre kickers, time wasters, the lot of them.
I've smashed a lot of shit to pieces with a hammer during the cleanup of her place - old furniture that was in parts rubbish (the 70s chipboard crap) to well made (the 1940s/50s proper joinery - some of the nails looked brand new! Shame to end it, really). Ripped up 60sqm of carpet, replaced lights, dumped about 7cubic metres of crap. Also got a bit of carpentry organised to sell the joint and did some painting with it.
Very therapeutic. Particularly the smashing bit.
Offers have come in which are acceptable - considering its the middle of winter and not exactly a red hot market right now.
Pay the agent, pay off her debts, and she should still walk away with a few hundred gorillas.
Unfortunately its not enough to get another place, or to put her in care with her fucking idiot dog, which is a shame, because as these two pointed out:
@Chris-B. said in Wisdom of TSF: Debt consolidation:
@NTA Sounds like your MIL needs to be checked out for early stages of Alzheimers or similar.
@booboo said in Wisdom of TSF: Debt consolidation:
@NTA menral illness is a bitch. And I think there is plenty on display here. Jeez mate: feeling for yoy.
Wife got her in to see the Neuro chappie: preliminary diagnosis is vascular dementia.
Not really a surprise, but still a bit of a shock to finally get a label applied to it.
I suppose the option of living with her Dad long-term is under question, depending on her faculties. Her brother has shown no signs of moving out yet, so he wants to stay close to the money (and pay no rent!) off the old man's lifetime of work.
But at this stage its the only real option until the old man dies, and more cash is freed up. If she starts needing serious care, the dog is then going to be a sticking point. Its anxious as fuck all the time when she's not around - I've had to look after it on my work from home days during various doctor appointments. Its testament to my patience that the damn thing is still alive.
Funny story: she rings us one wet June night in a panic, leaving two messages on our answering machine "Charlie has run away. I can't find him! Please help me! I beg of you!" (actual quote).
Mrs TA's brother goes over there - the dog has crawled under the old man's recliner while the footrest was up, and got trapped in there when he went to the shitter
Anyway, that's where it sits. Looks like the debt is sorted but the real shit is just beginning.
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@NTA Yeah, more tough times ahead. Good luck mate.
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@Catogrande you're not fucking wrong. I just want my wife back dammit! All this bullshit will give her early onset dementia
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@NTA said in Wisdom of TSF: Debt consolidation:
@Catogrande you're not fucking wrong. I just want my wife back dammit! All this bullshit will give her early onset dementia
Not something you hear often.
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@Catogrande she's a keeper.
But my concerns stem mainly from her stressing the fuck out about things over which she has no control which is not good for general mental health. And THEN she'll dismiss my methods of dealing with it.
e.g. the boy started high school this year, and one of the kids who was also at his primary school has been giving him some grief.
One incident recently, this kid has the boy pinned up against the wall and is calling him a Fat C*** - which is a bit unreasonable as he's stretched out a bit and lost a lot of the puppy fat.
My solution: "Boy, next time he does that, you drop that little fucker with an elbow to the jaw"
Her interjection: "No you can't do that because you'll get in trouble!"But afterwards she's all "If that little shit touches my boy again, I'm calling the police!"
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@NTA You're certainly up against it mate with the MIL and any "hard yards" advice on how to handle things is unlikely to be appreciated. Dealing with a loopy parent is a highly emotional issue. Both my in-laws had health concerns before they karked it. He had dementia and kidney related issues (leads to urinary infections which exacerbates the looniness). She had cancer and was on large doses of pain relief. Sister-in-law (live in carer, happy to do so as she had her own marriage problems) woke up one night to the smell of burning, rushed downstairs to find the old boy in the kitchen making toast because he was hungry. Only problem was that instead of a piece of bread in the toaster he'd put in one of the old dear's morphine patches which had naturally sought fire. Close call but any advice on how to deal with such issues was not appreciated.
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A quick update:
House settles tomorrow. Spent all of yesterday trucking over the last of her shit, and cleaning the joint out. Would make a good investment but FUCK strata fees of $600 / quarter! Could not quite sell all the furniture so its sitting on the patio at her old man's place.
She now has a bedroom there after we cleaned out his "office". It looks like someone is squatting in the place TBH. They're all fucking hoarders. As a mate from the rugby club and I were moving all her stuff in, she laughed and said "How did I accumulate so much stuff?"
I refrained from screaming "THOUSANDS OF FUCKING DEBT AND AN END TO MY EARLY RETIREMENT PLAN YOU CRAZY MULE!"
At the same time, we've engaged a financial counsellor via Wesley Mission in order to try and get a bit of a reduction on the credit cards. The hardship applications all expire early in August so there will be a bit of ground to cover there. At least the mortgage will be gone.
Now that all her remaining shit is at her Dad's place, and she's living there with her (often absent) brother, I'm going on another cleanup campaign to get shit gone before her or her Dad start moving it back into the house.
When the old man dies - and he may outlive his daughter yet - if all that shit is still sitting on the back patio I may just grab some kerosene and a Zippo.
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@majorrage said in Wisdom of TSF: Debt consolidation:
@rocky-rockbottom you should go on Dragon's Den - I like that idea.
Give me a heads up though, so I can let you know who I am before hand.
Tip - not Deborah.
Evidence please.
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@bones said in Wisdom of TSF: Debt consolidation:
@majorrage said in Wisdom of TSF: Debt consolidation:
@rocky-rockbottom you should go on Dragon's Den - I like that idea.
Give me a heads up though, so I can let you know who I am before hand.
Tip - not Deborah.
Evidence please.
She drives a Porsche Boxster.
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Life gets busy. Sometimes you forget just what exactly has occurred and you lose track of time in general. This thread has been great for reminding me of the time frame this shit all went down. Hard to believe it was 18 months ago when we got rolling on this crap.
As we're nearing the end of the year, I thought I'd give a little update as to where the family stands, and get things off my chest in a forum (pun intended) where it doesn't get back to the fuckwits I'm saddled with as in-laws. Hopefully your Christmas is much better by comparison.
Here are my Five Reasons Christmas Will Fucking Suck:
Part the First
Mrs TA's grandfather aka MIL's father aka Nonno (wogs) is in fulltime care now after being physical incapable of continuing life in his own house. In some ways that sucks, but the old bloke is 90 now and has really lost interest ever since his wife departed ~4 years ago. He has actually improved since going into care, because people are caring for him. Who knew?
There will be a visit at some point Christmas Day no doubt, but I'm not sure trucking all of us up there is worthwhile.
Part The Second
Mrs TA's Uncle - son of Nonno above, brother to crazy MIL - is a fucking fluffybunny and has been angling for his Dad's money to get him out of his self-imposed trouble for years. Smashed cars, failed relationships (two busted marriages long ago), and drugs in his chequered history. He's been living at the old man's place rent-free, without doing a single thing to look after the place OR his Dad, for a couple of years now. So when the old bloke's legal stuff needed taking up (crazy MIL was his POA) he tried to move in, but didn't understand for that you need "Money for Lawyers" and "A Fucking Clue What You're Doing".That added to the wife's stress levels, even though I reassured her that he was a coward and a fuckwit and had no chance of doing anything significant. She was running around setting up hearings and other shit, when all she had to do was tell him what an obscenely useless fluffybunny he is, and in any case would receive the inheritance he was due once the old man passed.
Uncle Cockhead is in his early 60s, has about $70K in super, and keeps getting made redundant from jobs. No kids, no career prospects, and no idea how much shit he's in financially. He'll die alone, and for some reason my wife will probably feel guilty about it. Fuck him. He's not invited over this Christmas. And I'll bet he'll spend it with his current squeeze's family, moaning about how he's been ostracised or some bullshit. They'll find out what a fucking scumbag he is, eventually.
Part the Third
Mrs TA's Dad is a drunk, and a former chronic gambler (when he had money), and he just came out of cancer treatment. He'll have a few VBs on the day then start giving out advice before tearing up and getting maudlin about how his life turned out. Shut the fuck up mate - we've heard it all before and nothing changes. Yeah you went to Vietnam. To play drums in one of the entertainment troupes. Let's not pretend you were in combat.Part the Fourth
The big missing chunk of this story: MIL got put into a facility last year not long after I got back from my solo trip to NZ (November). It was clear that dementia was taking hold and she was no longer able to operate at her Father's place, with her ability to look after him nonexistent. The facility is a fucking nice place, arranged through Mrs TA's work (she's in aged care as I think I mentioned). She also had to give her dog away which was a source of angst given it was her whole fucking life.For Xmas 2017 she came to our place for lunch, and while things were a bit emotional, we mostly got through it. However, during present opening she was talking to her Dad - in Italian the sneaky fucks - and he was saying she should come back and live with / look after him. When Nonno wanted to leave, she got up and tried to follow him and when Mrs TA asked her what she was doing she yelled "I DON'T KNOW!" and then sat back down, staring daggers at my wife's back.
Anyway I dropped her back after lunch and she started getting all emotional so I ditched that shit. Later the same day we get calls from the home - she has used her mobile phone to call a taxi to take her to Nonno's and they're not letting her leave, and the taxi driver is losing his shit over a fare he's not going to get. At that point, we got her moved from the Standard accommodation to the Flight Risk i.e. Batshit Crazy wing. And it has been that way ever since.
Mrs TA visits the old bat - whom I refer to as The Dementor - about once a week. It is clear she's deteriorating at a rate of knots, which is apparently not uncommon for early onset dementia patients. This is probably the last Christmas we'll have her at a location other than Droolsville. Or she'll be dead, which happily for us involves an inheritance of whatever she hasn't burned through in care. Yay.
Part the Fifth
Mrs TA's brother got kicked out by his wife nearly a month ago. After years of being a bit/lot of a fluffybunny to her, she finally snapped over something like a smashed phone. Fuck, bitch... you put up with his shit for 25 years and basically acted like a doormat during that time. NOW you decide enough is enough?After burning a couple of thou in a serviced apartment the first two weeks, he's now living with us - Mrs TA announced o me over the phone (I was out camping/drinking piss with an old mate when all this went down) that she'd offered our place then apologised for not consulting with me. I replied
"I would have preferred you asked, but it was a tricky situation" when I was actually thinking "Yeah fucking thanks. At least you're out of family members to fuck up their lives - and ours by proxy - so it couldn't get much worse though they'll probably find a way"
So he is now living with us while he sorts shit out with his complete fucking idiot of a bogan wife.
In Summary
Even Mrs TA has said she's not looking forward to the day - to which I responded "Excellent. Then let's not spend a heap on food that people might not eat anyway" to which she had no response.I've already announced plans for us to have the festive season in Japan for 2019, and experience a different kind of crazy.
Merry Fucking Christmas.
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