<prompt> Human: My mother has a 2002 van that will probably need to be replaced in the next year. She is horrible with money. She doesnt make much to begin with, but the real problem is she continually buys crap she doesnt need with money she doesnt have. I do not have a good relationship with her, but I feel obligated to help. To be clear I am resentful to be in this situation, especially since I know this will only get worse as time goes on. She is well meaning, but stubborn, emotional, disorganized, exhibits hoarding tendencies, and to be blunt, is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But shes my mother and I know she has no savings to replace her van.My wife and I make about 170k combined and are MMM level savers. When all is said and done, we are stashing away about 100kyr in cash and various tax advantaged spaces available to us. I also have a sister, who has a much better relationship with our mother and is staying a float, and could contribute, but the relative burden on her would be greater than one me. The common theme in all this is that I feel like I am being punished with this obligation because my sister has her own set of problems and my mother has the financial maturity of a 4th grader. I wish I wasnt so resentful, but thats a different topic. She is also insistent that she continue to have a van. If Im going to be purchasing a new car for her, I really do not want to shell out extra for a van. I drive a corolla myself and my resentment would only increase if I had to purchased a van. Her van is still functional, and there is no emergency, but I figure my sister and I need to start planning for this now so it doesnt become an emergency. Basically the questions I need to figure out are: How to resolve this situation. The options are: 1 do nothing. 2 get major work done on the van so it is reliable to some unclear amount of time in the future. 3 get her a new car. 4 get her a 3-5 yr old used car with reasonable mileage. 1 do nothing. Im not sure this will work. She is my mother and needs a safe car but probably doesnt have the means to pay for it. 2 get major work done. I am not thrilled with this idea. My gut just tells me that for any dollar value I choose to spend on this problem, it will go farther towards a car swap than keeping the van, in terms of time she has a safe car to drive in the future. But this does allow her to continue having a van without my having to buy one. 3 and 4 I would much rather get a 3-5 yo used car than a new car. Saying this makes me feel guilty bc I bought myself a new corolla 2 years ago, but given my mothers stubborness and our relationship, I just want to solve this problem the most cost effective way possible. How much should I plan to contribute? I have no way to determine this. Could I go out an buy her a new van? Yes, but it would deplete a substantial fraction of my cash savings, and I really simply just DO NOT want to do that. My goal is to solve this problem for maybe like 5k of my own money. Then maybe if my sister can contribute 2k, and I can get my mother to save 1k over the next year and the residual value of the current van, maybe get up to like 10k. How should I be approaching what the bottom line should be? I am more concerned about bottom line and I have no desire to take on some sort of monthly payment, I just want to make one upfront payment and be done, while my sister would prefer monthly payments due to her situation. If my mother is so insistent on having a van, one thought is I could just give her a block of cash and then she is responsible for any price difference. Problem is, she is utterly irresponsible with money, and I am barely convinced she would even use it for a car. And if she did, she would still find a way to get a bad deal and end up with a high interest loan she couldnt afford despite my help. Should I ask my mother to contribute? My thought is, if she can save just 80month easily within the scope of the wasteful spending she does in a month shell have about 1k to contribute, which would make me less resentful knowing she has at least a little skin in the game.So what do you guys make of all this? I know I come off as rude and maybe condescending. But truth be told, I am financially responsible and I feel like my mothers choices are bringing me down and I am going to be subsidizing her BS purchases. I just want to pragmatically solve this problem for as little as possible.Assistant: TLDR. bottom line. buy her a car for her if you want. dont except to get your money back. seems she irresponsible with money, so youre just enabling her. Human: I dont expect my money back...asking her to pay me back is just a waste of breath. I realize I am enabling her, but the alternative is that she is driving around in an unsafe car. I think when safety is a concern, its harder to justify the decision to do nothing by using the enabling excuse.  <response>: Whats inherently unsafe about a 2002 van?Probably nothing. Keeping up to date on the tire and brake maintenance would need to be done on a new car too. 