My Father's Recent Bad Financial Choice

At Thanksgiving my father said he had a van for us, I told him I didn't want a van (we have 2 cars) and I knew he wasn't doing well financially. Also the gas mileage on a van is worse than my 4 cylinder hatchback any day and I'm all for the environment and saving money. He left the discussion at that, but I figured it wasn't totally dead.

At Christmas my father spent a couple of days at our house and we talked quite a bit. He mentioned the van again, but got into more details on it. For some background information, he has had several DUI, which caused him to have his license revoked until this spring coming up. He lives in a small apartment with my brother (not paying rent) and I found out he got a roommate like me to help cover the rent. He lost his job in December and is looking a bit but not much.

Well, the problem is that he doesn't have the money to get new license plate stickers for the vehicle and he had it parked in the apartment complex lot, but it got towed due to the expired sticker. He had until the end of the month to get the stickers or have it towed again. He asked if I could at least put it on my driveway so that he could sell it or save up for the stickers. I agreed and it's now sitting on my driveway with the stipulation that it has to leave within the next 6 months.

Your probably wondering with all that, what was his bad financial decision. It is several things:

- He bought this van with all of his savings.
- The transmission is bad on it and needs some major work done on it. His friend that had it was worried about putting more money into it and she having future problems.
- It has 170K miles on it right now and from 1997.
- He can't even drive right now, the state won't even let him register the vehicle since he isn't supposed to be operating one as it is.

I'm working at seeing if I can get it traded or sold for more than he paid to help him offset his towing and hopefully put a little in our pockets for our debts. I have one potential mechanic interested in coming on Friday to see it and if he doesn't pan out, it's going on Craigslist.

The only reason I'm willing to help is because the only thing it's costing me right now is a little driveway space and a couple hours of my time. Part of the reason I'm in the financial pickle I'm in right now is due to helping him out of another bad financial choice.