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I've seen things like this first-hand, where it all goes horribly wrong with the best of intentions. It starts when you hit a Neccessity, look over at The Pot that you're supposed to be safeguarding, and think .. I could pay it back before they even notice it's gone. I mean, if The Pot says it has 400k in it, and I just borrow 5k for this urgent Neccessity .. in theory I don't even need to pay it back until they get to that last 5k. It doesn't need to be there now, it needs to be there when they reach for it. It's like the perfect line of credit. No interest, no approvals, no terms. All you have to do is be able to justify it to yourself. So the car gets fixed, you pay back The Pot, everyone's happy. Or another Neccessity pops up before the last one's paid off, and the hole gets a little deeper. And each time, the boundaries get erroded just a little bit more, and the bar for how urgent, or how neccessary, drops a little lower. If they honestly didn't believe a lump sum would be beneficial, the money should have gone in a trust where access was controlled. This often looks like overhead, but consider it a neccessary evil. There's a very good chance this couple weren't actually being malicious, just irresponsible. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, etc. |