Back in 1988, M's father died, leaving M's mother in Missouri alone. Hubby and I attended the funeral (another story for later, as this was my first meeting with M and B), and then helped get M's mother situated in a retirement home.
It was a nice retirement home. Brand new, didn't even smell like old people yet. My comment of "gee, I'd like to live here" was not very well received for some reason. Very swank, nice rooms, pretty good food (for old people food), a meeting hall, planned events, the whole 9 yards. M made a comment something to the effect of "they better have everything for what we're paying".
Actually, they weren't paying for it, because M's mother had a trust fund established. There was a good amount in the trust fund to keep her mother in the home for a pretty long time.
A few years later, after hubby and I married, we heard that M had moved her mother out of the home, and into their house "for cost saving" measures. M figured that they had a big house, and they were getting ready to retire, why not have M's mom move in, and they would save money since they wouldn't have to pay for the retirement home, they could take care of her.
Part of M's plan was that since they wouldn't have to spend that trust fund money on the retirement home, why not use it to buy a brand new Eddie Bauer Special Edition Ford SUV? After all, she would be using the new SUV to tote her mother around to various and sundry doctor's appointments, so it would be going toward her care, thus justifiable.
Apparently, once the money was drained from the account, and once the executor found out that the money was drained from the account, and once the legal system found out that the money was drained from the account and used to buy a brand new car... they were not amused.
M received a notice saying that all of the money had to be replaced in the account. Instead of selling the SUV, she had B take out a loan on his life insurance policy to pay back the trust fund. So now they were paying interest on a loan against an insurance policy (that was pretty much tapped to begin with since they had taken out a loan against it before to buy a timeshare that nobody uses). This was all fine and dandy with M, because she figured that when mom kicked, she would get the rest of the money out of the trust fund to pay off the insurance loan.
Except... mom held on for quite some time, and soon was too much for them to handle, what with breaking a hip, then needing in-home nursing care, then finally having to put her in a home in Washington State (that was crappy and twice as expensive as the home in Missouri), until finally M's mom died... and after paying for the funeral (shipping her back to Missouri to be buried with M's dad), lawyers fees, debt to the nursing home and other miscellaneous fees... there's was nothing left.
She still has the SUV, they are still paying off the life insurance policy.
