I can't remember exactly if the money was to be used for travel costs to see his son, or if he was spending it more "inefficiently", but yes, of course there are usually more options. Those options can be constrained by what the father and/or son consider fun though, and when your life is crappy and you're living month to month, you might not have the energy to think outside the box or try something new. There might be a problem though of people thinking having fun = spending.