Truth, I have seen the same thing. My Uncle D had a construction co. since I can remember. My first job was taking the bus after school to the house he was working on and picking up scraps for the dumpster. He made good money when others were just getting by. In the mid 70s things were getting hard. Gas embargo, no work, if we did not have our unemployment time in for winter we were SOL.
Uncle D always had a new truck and car for service, Travel Trailers, took trips cross country to far away assemblies ect. He would build a home and sell it an then build another bigger and more elaborate. As a kid in the early 70s, I thought his one home a chalet that had a in wall stereo system that had speakers in all rooms as the shit. Pool table in the basement ect.
But he never saved a dime. He spent all he made and then some always being in debt on his home and cars never really owning a thing. The bank owned it all. Then when he could not run his business and got diabetes and had his leg amputated and had to shut his business down it was time to pay the piper. He lost his home, his cars, everything. He literally had no place to go.
A school buddy non JW who he had got along with all his life and was a real estate agent owned his own business, and invested in gas wells and other rentals and had a lot of money, set up a trailer, mobile home on a lot and gave it to him. His sister would come down and sit with him on meeting nights because he could not go to meeting and had to sit home alone with a fire in the stove to keep the place warm in the winter and she was afraid if the place caught on fire he could not get out by himself.
I worked for him most of my early years and he had one last property as things were going to shit, a mobile home on a lot he rented out. I bought it to rent and when I cam to his house the one he lost to give him the paper work to sign, he was going over the Daniel book that came out in the 90s like it had the answer to all his problems. You could tell he was looking for a time line, when would this end come, he needed help a fix and it was promised all these years. I was sickened to see what the cult has done to people like him.
He passed away 19 years ago, and it still bothers me today to think of how he was brain washed into making horrible choices.
When I worked in Wyoming in the early 80s, when the oil boom was on out there and the rest of the country was in recession. I worked pouring concrete with a family member who was a JW also. My wife and I started a bank account and my wife asked to hire on the road crew turning signs in front of the trailer park we were staying at while I worked Masonry work. The couple we stayed with would rib us all the time about our savings account. They would go to Rock Springs every week end and spend money like it was water. Telling me wife and I that we would be throwing our money in the streets soon so why not enjoy it.
That couple built a small home and I mean 20x35 with a basement home and had several kids. They now live in that home in the basement and one of their kids lives in the up stairs with their husband and kids. Its very sad. But they did it to themself with the help of the cult.
