My Mother Is Terrible With Money

[ComeUpOutDaWahta]

I'll try to make this as brief as possible, but I'll throw a little background info behind what I'm sure will turn into quite a rant. Sooo, away we go.

 

I'm a 25 year old going through school (started a few years after high school graduation), and have just recently had to move back home. Not something I'm particularly proud of, but I had been living with my now ex-girlfriend since I was nineteen years old, and I wasn't given a lot of options once that relationship fell through. Being back under my mother's roof is what makes this all the more complicated.

 

Anyway, as the headline reads, my mother is terrible with handling finances. Always has been, from what I can remember. I can recall the first few years after she and my father divorced, which happened when I was about 12 or 13. She would constantly take various musical instruments my brother and I had (guitars, keyboards etc.), as well as video game systems and temporarily pawn them off to get a little extra cash. I didn't really mind it at the time, since I would eventually get these things back and I didn't want to seem ungrateful, but she seemed to do these things fairly often, so it was more of a habit she had rather than a occasional way to make ends meet.

 

Fast forward to my early twenties. By this time, she's been re-married to a 20-year Navy vet with a very good job, and they collectively bring in well over 100k a year. During these years, I'm out on my own. I'm paying all of my bills myself, working a pretty decent job, and putting myself through school in the process. Yet throughout this period, I would still get calls about twice a month from her asking to borrow money. She would know what days I had to pay car insurance, what days I got tuition re-imbursement checks in, and would carefully plan those requests for money around the most opportune times.

 

Now, she would always ask to "borrow" money until some date afterward when she could repay me, but it readily became apparent than any money I would "lend" her was gone permanently the moment I handed it over.

 

Once things fell through with the ex and I moved back in, I already knew what was coming. She asked me just to "help out" financially whenever it was needed. This ambiguous terminology, accompanied by the fact that she knows I just received a very healthy tax return, would almost certainly lead to me being drained dry by her habits, so I immediately told her to get with my step-father and work out a set monthly rate that I would pay as rent so as to avoid getting those requests mid-way through the month. I'm trying to save up money to get my own place, so having a set amount I would have to pay each month would help me more easily manage a budget and maintain my finances. I've made those payments at the first of the month without fail (if not sooner), and yet by the first two weeks, she's already asking for more.

 

Odd thing is, my stepfather thinks I'm living in their home for free, because she insists that I don't let him know she's getting money from me.

 

Well, this morning, it finally came to a head. I'd paid the rent for April on March 22, and yet today on April 2, I'm awoken by a text from her asking for an additional 200 dollars. I told her I couldn't help her, which naturally led to the guilt trip she lays on when she gets an answer she doesn't like. I went off on her pretty harshly. I told her that she doesn't seem to care that this constant leeching is holding me back from my future. I told her that she and her husband are supposed to pool their finances, not keep them seperated. She says she doesn't want him to "think she is a failure" and that she "pays all the bills." So apparently I'm spending more money keeping this household afloat than he is? Then she tells me that "all their money goes to bills" which is pretty much impossible to believe. It was all pretty cryptic, and I've pretty much avoided her all day.

 

I really do love my mother. She's been through a lot over the years and she has done a lot for me and my brother. But I'm 25, make 22k a year, and I'm trying to get myself through school. I'm pinching every penny possible, and even scrapped my 8 year cigarette habit as a means to save money. She and my stepfather collectively make over 4x what I do, constantly go on trips, keep their kitchen stocked full of food, and they don't seem to spare any expense, and yet she needs more money from me.

 

If I honestly thought that she needed the funds, I'd hand them over without missing a beat. But it's become clear that that's not the case.

 

Am I just being ungrateful? How should I go about handling the situation? Any and all advice and opinion would be greatly appreciated, and again, sorry for the rant. Thank you!

[carhill]

No parental unit who 'makes 4x what I make' needs money from their child. Just say no. You're an adult; they're adults. They voluntarily and, hopefully with love, created you. That in no way states or implies you owe them a lifelong debt.

 

Just say 'no'.

[ComeUpOutDaWahta]

Just say 'no'.

 

Oh I do. But then the guilt trip gets laid on pretty thick. "I think you have a pretty good setup here" and "I did (this) and (that) for you when you needed it."

 

How do you handle something like that?