<prompt> Human: My mom is 66 years old. She makes 60kyr, and has about 21k in credit card debt. She claims the credit card debt was all accrued when she was unemployed and needed it to live. Thats probably partly true, but she also buys a lot of clothes and Im sure thats part of it, too. I recently started asking her questions about retirement, and it was clear that she not only had not even thought about it, but wasnt doing any active financial planning of any kind. She has also been carrying a lot of credit card debt for I dont even know how long. And because she can only afford the minimal repayment 500mo, shes not making any progress on the principle, just keeping her head above water with the interest. My wife and I spoke with a planner, and we worked out that if we pay off all her debt for her, and we start putting 500mo into a Roth, and also have her put the 500mo shes currently paying to the credit card companies into the same account, that plus social security will give her a retirement income of about 35k in her early 70s. Not a kings ransom, but at least better than shes off now. I brought up this plan to my brother hoping for some additional financial contributions, and hes not willing to pay anything to help.However, he did ask if wed looked into declaring bankruptcy, and honestly its not something Id thought about much, or know the details of very well. Is this something we should be seriously considering? Shes pretty close to owning her car outright, which is in good shape, so she wont need credit for that. And she rents her apt and wont be buying a house so she wont need credit for that. So maybe taking away all her credit cards will be a good thing, and we can take those same funds we would have given to the credit card companies and put that in a retirement account for her instead. Any thoughts or opinions would be appreciated, and thanks in advance.  <response>: If your mom wont admit she has a problem i.e., buying crap she doesnt need, then you might as well put your money in a pile and set it on fire. What makes you think that shes magically going to stop buying clothesthings she doesnt need? What makes you think that shes going to put her 500 in the retirement account? The first step should be her setting up a budget, sticking to it, and making 500month payments for a period of time e.g., a year. Then revisit the question of paying off her debt. 