<prompt> Human: For my family, its always been understood that money is tight. Yet we never seem to have any problems paying the bills. I never thought much about it, but I am starting to get a little worried.I am largely in the dark on the situation; my parents dont talk about the details of our financial situation much, especially not any negative aspects of it. My father is the primary breadwinner for the family. My mom has a retail job but mostly just makes enough to cover groceries for the family. Ever since I started college, my Dad has been rather generous with money for me, always giving me stacks of 20s and 50s and sometimes even 100s when I come home to help me pay bills and for spending money. I used to gladly graciously accept it, but now it is starting to worry me.About 10 years ago my grandmother passed away, and left us a 350k inheritance. A chunk of that paid for some of my college, a lot paid for my brothers private education K-8th grade, and the rest seems to have been used over the years on various expenses. As a bonus, there is no longer enough money left to send my sibling to anything but Community College, since it was all spent on his lower education and my college.About the time Obama was elected, my Dad got the idea that the economy was going to collapse or something and started buying lots of gold and silver. Even bought massive safes to keep it in. Then he started a private company of just himself, doing the same small scale construction work he already does for his primary job, with the intention of eventually retiring and keeping working for himself. In starting this company, he has bought ridiculous amounts of equipment that, AFAICT, rarely gets used. Large boats, new trucks, ATVs, small tractors, supplies. He does get some small local projects but not nearly enough to be consistent or pay back all the equipment he has money tied up in. He claims that everything pays for itself through tax write offs. ???Recently, he must have realized the mistake of placing so much money in gold and silver, because he has sold all of it off. I think he lost money on it because he wasnt happy about it. From the tidbits I have been able to tease out, our family has NO financial backup plan, and essentially nothing in savings. My dad is banking 100 on his pension, and on his private company as he works through retirement. I also found out that I was still listed on one of his savings accounts. I saw that his paycheck is getting posted every month, and he is withdrawing every bit of it as soon as it clears. It is now becoming clear to me where he is getting these large stacks of cash every time I see him. I am not sure what advice I am looking for here, maybe I just want to know what to expect in the worst-case-scenario for myself and my family. If something happens to my father, I dont know what we would do; this worries me especially because he has historically had tons of health problems. I could easily see him getting seriously hurt while on the job for his private business, or even getting stuck in the field alone and injured. Or getting sick and being unable to work at all. Or getting fired by his bureaucratic government supervisors before he is able to officially retire and collect his pension. Anyone know what I might have to look forward to? I am finishing grad school, desperately searching for real jobs, hoping I can make enough to help send my brother to college. Sorry this was so long, thanks for reading.  <response>: He claims that everything pays for itself through tax write offs. Nothing pays for itself through tax write-offs. Even if you can directly deduct the cost of something from your AGI, youre still not buying it for free, youre just buying it with pre-tax money. 