How would you handle the money?

SV reX said:

He hasn't done a single thing to RECEIVE the money. He hasn't talked to insurance companies, or lawyers, or the trucking company. The closest he has coming to doing ANYTHING AT ALL is to keep asking "Am I gonna get any money from my accident?"  Then mom does the work. 

Perhaps the right answer to his question is "No. You will not receive anything at all if you don't man up and follow through and do something about it".

There is another in-between level of handling things that is most likely to yield the best results: walk him through the process to get it.

Don't do it for him, but don't cut him loose to (not) do it all on his own. Walk through the process *with* him, but requiring him to be the one who ultimately does all of the work.

He has already cost her more than the value of the wrecked car.  He's also an adult and (at least in PA) he can be evicted.  My friend just went through evicting her son.  

If she can't convince him to pay out what she's owed for the car, rent, and medical bills, she has a few options there.... but I'm neither a lawyer nor a parent, so that's all I'll say.

Beer Baron said:

 

There is another in-between level of handling things that is most likely to yield the best results: walk him through the process to get it.

Don't do it for him, but don't cut him loose to (not) do it all on his own. Walk through the process *with* him, but requiring him to be the one who ultimately does all of the work.

I think she needs to start putting simple bills in his name such as his phone and start teaching him how to manage his own accounts. This is something that needs to be taught by parents. Setting up a budget and financial goals to move on with his life.

Unfortunately many parents are also very bad at doing the same thing so they are bad teachers. I once was suckered into taking a Dave Ramsey course with my sister and a group from her church. The amount of people with no clue on budgeting and saving was alarming.   

Poorly, I would handle it poorly. Buy a car that is fun but has issues, travel a bit, and find a woman that's fun with a few issues. Good for you for trying to stop that from happening.  

My kids, mid 30's, are about to inherit a sizable sum of money. They are both gainfully employed and fairly responsible. In the younger ones case, he is underemployed, and not in a hurry to change. We also expect him to move back in with us soon, partially as a result. We were just talking about how we're going to handle the money thing, and I said I was going to encourage the older one to pay off his house, and strongly suggest that the younger one invest with our money guy until he either buys a place, or retires. These will be very strong suggestions that will be presented with facts, alternatives and worst case scenarios.  In the case of that kid, it's time for Mom to step up and lay down some rules.

Junior has an opportunity, best he not squander it. That's the advice I gave to my older one when he wasn't excelling in his apprenticeship. I also told him that if he did squander that opportunity, he could forget about us ever helping him in the future. It was really hard to do, but it worked.

if you're not putting your dick in it, keep your opinion out of it.

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

That's adorable. 
 

I'm involved. That's not up for discussion. 

Yeah, I'm on the side that says the real problem is Mom. If she's not going to change nothing else is.....

So, if she doesn't see the light she's never going to be able to lead him to a good life.

My son lived with me for free all thru college and law school (which he paid for himself) and when he graduated I had him move out (not the next day, but within a few weeks). He's done fine since......but that was in the early 90's, things seem different now and there are a LOT of mid 20's folks still living at home.

This kid has a golden opportunity to get his life launched, but if Mom continues to run his life for him (she handles his bank account?) he'll never do it.

First step is going to have to be hers......

In reply to MiniDave :

I agree. 

I feel like there's some real world examples we can look to for advice

Sv reX,   

Dude, and fellow builder of things.  I've thought about this through a whole bottle of wine and 100s of trick-or-treaters.   What if this money was to free the kid out of the cage he feels like he is trapped in?

I'm ending tonight on a positive note.  Just imagine.  What if this new money becomes his "escape capsule" into a whole new orbit.   What if he grabs a chunk, goes to Europe, wanders around, and then surprise, surprise... sees the light.   

Just saying a lot of us 60s folks actually contributed to society in the long run.

I'm just trying to be positive in light of so many of us piling on you all day.

Peace out. Sleep tight.   And I hope the new swamp in your life doesn't add to any stress.

Hookers & blow? At least it would get him out to experience a bit of the real world. 
 

I wonder if there might be other undiagnosed issues like anxiety or ASD? If you can identify the real reasons he prefers isolation it might be easier to help him take the steps to become more independent. 

Regardless of who gets the money, if he didn't own the car I'd assume she would get it really......her property was damaged so I'd assume a chunk of it at least is hers, I think this screams for punting him out and making him live on his own at least. The main reason he hasn't moved out is money right? Now he has money.

I wouldn't control the money at all, it's basically "free" money( as hard as it was for him to get it) and if he blows it, he blows it. Coddling/helping hasn't got him moving so it's time to do stick and not carrot.

Here's an idea: you are close to the family and could probably get him a job, I have a feeling being a laborer for awhile in construction could slap some reality into him. I very much doubt that he will succeed at it, but the 2 weeks or so of total failure could be the asz kicking he needs. Maybe if she is bound and determined to set some guidelines , maybe working with Uncle SvRex is one of them.

As a caveat too.....I don't have kids and my parenting skills are limited to preventing a 110lb 9 month old puppy from doing stupid E36 M3

stay out of it and watch the money disappear

For the money, I'm not a huge fan of CDs, but if one were to get a chunk of money and break it into chunks, leaving one part cash and getting staggered CDs with the rest, one could quasi force a distributed dispersement.

OR

Turn it all into gold bars, bury it somewhere, post obscure clues about it on the internet, and tell him if he wants his money he needs to go dig it up before somebody else finds it. Hire a film crew and make a documentary about it.

I appreciate the feedback from everyone. 

If Mom hasn't taught  "do-the-right-thing" mindset, right from wrong or basic economics (work = income) in the last 20 years, she won't in the next 20 weeks waiting for a settlement.

Go hug your kids .....

In reply to SV reX :

Great questions. 
 

He's not ignorant. He's quite brilliant. 
 

I'd say many of your descriptive words are accurate, but they are almost exactly in reverse priority order. I'd say he is exploitative, lazy, high anxiety, too coddled for years, and scared. In that order. 
 

(although, people never like to admit they are scared, so that one is probably higher in the list, and impacts many of the others)
 

I think it's likely that he needs direction and confidence. Smart, anxious people tend to see how they can fail much easier than seeing how he can succeeded. If the status quo works, they can be less inclined to change it.

The Mom should be paid back for her expenses related to the cars. Beyond that, he needs a plan going forward. It sounds like he will get enough money to give him a leg up on a new start. Any interests in a career? Entering a trade? He could relocate to an area with better job opportunities. Then show him how his money can work for him Vs. pissing it away. Explain investing and show him a compound interest calculator. I'm run examples with the calculator with young people, and you can hear their eyes pop when they see what even a modest commitment to investment can return when you start young. Time is a huge resource. I also agree with getting some of his bills in his name, and teaching him about budgeting. As far as rent while living with Mom- I like the idea of charging rent, but setting it aside for him for when he leaves, like a forced savings. Contingent upon him doing something to improve his situation, like school or leading a trade. 

SV reX,

I skipped most of pages 2 and 3, so my apologies if most of this has been covered. Also, I'm breaking a personal rule by responding in a non-car thread, but here we go.

It sounds to me like Mom has been an ineffective parent for quite a long time, so 1) she is unlikely to follow advice that you give that requires her to do effective parenting, and 2) in the super-unlikely case that she did follow that advice, the kid is unlikely to follow it because it's such a big change and he is unlikely to be interested in change, on his own.

Most 20-year-olds are recoverable, as long as he doesn't have significant mental illness, or is (I don't know the current term for this) far to the left on the IQ bell curve. You didn't mention that he had those issues, so I'll assume he doesn't.

Changing his trajectory will take a good bit of work, and Mom isn't the one to do it (in this case). He needs a solid male role model and life coach. He needs someone who will show real interest in him, explore with him why he has made the choices he has made, explore what other choices are possible and why they might be better, set expectations, provide an example of a responsible, hard working, stable, emotionally and physically healthy man, and hold him responsible for executing the plan the he developed (with lot of guidance). You wrote several times that you're close to this situation, so you might want to consider getting even closer and being his mentor.  If not you, is there someone else close to him who could be pressed into this role? The kid needs to be pointed in the right direction, and supported, encouraged, and listened to while he changes his habits, establishes goals, and begins to execute them.  Five years or so ought to do it, with decreasing intensity if this is executed correctly. You, or whoever fills this role, needs a coach too. 

Sounds like the little E36 M3bird needs to leave the E36 M3nest.  If he doesn't have any other reasonable career path, give him the cash when get gets his honorable discharge.

Tough to really give decent advice without the whole context.  Unless this kid is YOUR kid, its not your fight so don't lose too much sleep over it.

Antihero said:

Coddling/helping hasn't got him moving so it's time to do stick and not carrot.

I disagree with this. Because no one has yet *tried* the carrot.

Coddling is not a carrot. Coddling is keeping them in a soft room with no carrots or sticks. It is avoiding consequences (both positive and negative) for actions.

"The Carrot" is positively reinforcing desired behavior.

You first have to identify what positive behaviors you want to encourage. You need to keep this realistically small. It's easy to say, "I want to encourage getting out of the house and getting a job," but there are a LOT of behaviors that go into that. You need to break those down into their component behaviors. Things like: research an opportunity, send contacts, follow up, go in, etc. You then need to reward positive behavior changes. He needs to be able to see that proactive independent actions benefit him in the short term.

Then you demonstrate the stick so there are consequences for negative behaviors. Keeping in mind that absence of a positive behavior is *not* the same as a negative behavior. Identify what those negative behaviors are and what appropriate corrections are.

All of this needs to ALL happen. It's "carrot AND stick" not "carrot OR stick".

For an example... we're teaching our dog to play fetch. This is a much smaller challenge, but it's more complicated than it would seem. He likes chasing things, but then want to worry or chew on them, and play keep-away. So we need to teach him: return with the ball, back to our feet, pay attention to us, drop the ball, pay attention to us, stop guarding the ball, let us touch the ball, let us pick up the ball. We are using treats to encourage each of these behaviors. The "stick" is verbal correction if he growls, nips, or physically acts against us to guard the ball.

Kicking the kid out of the house is a stick, but not one that can be directly connected to a specific behavior. It also doesn't teach what behaviors are positive and rewarding.

Purple Frog (Forum Supporter) said:

I'm ending tonight on a positive note.  Just imagine.  What if this new money becomes his "escape capsule" into a whole new orbit.   What if he grabs a chunk, goes to Europe, wanders around, and then surprise, surprise... sees the light.   

Honestly, I think this may be the best suggestion so far. It also fits my behavioral model of training the kid by rewarding the positive behaviors of being proactive and independent.

Take the money. Help broadly outline a trip to go backpacking around Europe for a month or two. Then... let him go do it. Don't plan the trip out. Just help him secure a means of transportation (train ticketing) and understand how to find and book a hostel.

That trip will be fun and rewarding. It will clearly show that being out on your own, making your own decisions, managing your own money is a lot more enjoyable than sitting in mom's basement.

It will also be a good opportunity to adjust mom's behavior. It will break her out of her normal cycle of him just leaching in her house. She will see that both of them are happier.

THIS is the real carrot that hasn't been used yet.

It should also be an easy sell to all parties involved. (Again - carrot.) To the kid it's "Wouldn't you like to go tour Europe where you're old enough to drink?" To mom, it's "Wouldn't you like to give your son something he will really enjoy and appreciate?"

I don't get how 2 years income for most folks = he could live off it for 10 years? 

You mean if he still mooched off his mom? Then that makes sense. 

My  advice, unless she's your wife and/or he's your kid, then you aren't close to the situation. Mind your business and let those 2 adults sort their life money and relationship.

In reply to yupididit :

Because he lives on almost nothing, and could easily couch surf for years. 
 

I have said repeatedly that I am close to the situation, and involved. I AM minding my own business. I'm leaving it at that. 

Plot twist SVreX is the guy on the couch. Wants to validate if he should buy a Supra.