Money is the Root of all Evil

I think I've talked about money issues on my blog before, but I really just need a place to rant right now.

My dad has long been pestering me about money. He constantly tells me to get a job. He tells me to fight with my school to get as much financial aid as I possibly can. He's even tried to use my student discounts to buy things for himself.

And yet, time and time again, he spends money on things that no one would normally consider buying when you are low on cash. Earlier this year, he bought my mom a brand new laptop. What in the world would my mom do with a laptop? She had the cognitive mind of about an 8 year old when he bought it. Guess what happened. She barely used it. What a surprise.

He also bought her a Kindle Fire. Again what would she do with this? After losing motion on the left side of her body, my mom developed hemispatial neglect. This meant she couldn't read the words on the left side of the page.


This is a picture my mom drew of her sister.
You can see that a lot more detail is drawn on the right side.
She forgot the left arm entirely because of her hemispatial neglect.

We ended up mostly using the Kindle Fire to play her music after she had fallen into a coma-like state. Not exactly a worth-while purchase.

And now that my dad has received my mom's life insurance money, he isn't spending it any better.

While he still pesters me to get a job and made me take out thousands of dollars in student loans, he's bought another laptop, a new ipod (when he has a fancy Android), has planned several vacations to places like Hawaii and Los Angeles, and has decided to get a $1500 dog from a breeder. (I think getting a dog is a horrible idea altogether because both my dad and my sister are so busy, they don't have time to take care of a dog. Plus our house is filled with my mom's Persian rugs. Imagine what a puppy would do to white silk Persian rugs? But if he really wants to get one, why not get one from the local shelter?)

He's also donated thousands of dollars to the UCSF Neurosurgery Department. I don't have a problem with this, except that he made me take out the same amount of money in student loans. Isn't the point of life insurance money to help pay for things like college as if my mom were still alive? I can already tell that next year when I'm applying for financial aid again, my school is going to say "You seem to have received a lot of untaxed income this year. Why are you claiming you can't pay the full tuition price?" Because all the money will be already spent and I will have to take out more loans in my own name. And my dad will complain to me that we're not getting the same amount of scholarships as we did last year.

In 2 years my sister will be going off to college. I worry for her. My dad should use the money for our education. That's what my mom would do. There's a reason why she was in charge of our family's finances. She was so much more pragmatic about it.

Also, she'd never ever ever get a pet dog. She hated pets. But I guess my dad and sister always wanted one, and now that Mom's dead they can finally get their dog.