Giving — 2/4 — Beating Broke

How to Handle Financially Toxic Parents

April 12, 2016 By MelissaB 5 Comments

Your parents provide for you as you grow up, but what happens when they ask you for money? Should you give money to your parents?

The answer depends on both you and your parents.

When Parents Need Money for Younger Siblings

My friend, Joan, became friends with another girl, Leslie, in high school. Leslie had an unstable home life and eventually moved in with Joan and her family. When we all graduated high school, Leslie went to college for engineering and also worked full-time to support herself.

At regular intervals, Leslie’s mom, who still had four younger children at home, called Leslie and asked her for money. For years, Leslie gave money to her mom because she felt guilty. After all, her stepdad had just left, and her mom had to provide for the younger kids.

When Parents Are Bad at Money Management

Now, I’m on the flip side and am old enough to have friends who have adult children. One of those “friends” (and I use the term loosely), Heather, continually writes on Facebook about her money troubles. These posts always appear as thinly veiled requests for money.

In the most recent post, Heather wrote about the financial troubles she and her husband have and went on to say that their 20 year old son, who is working two jobs and taking a full load of college classes, is giving them money to pay for their utilities and gas to and from work.

However, in that same week, Heather posted about going out to eat two different times and having a manicure and pedicure as well as getting her hair highlighted.

Say what?!

Should You Give Your Parents Money?

As an adult, if you find yourself in the awkward position of deciding whether or not to give your parents money, there are a few questions you should ask yourself:

Can you afford it? Do you have the money to give your parents? Can you loan them money without causing your own financial hardship?

Why do your parents need the money? Are your parents in a truly tight financial spot because of unemployment, sickness or another issue? Or, do they have a history of mismanaging money and now, like so many times before, they’re in a bind?

Are they trying to change their situation? If your parents are facing financial difficulties, are they taking steps to try to improve their situation? Are they wisely cutting expenses and learning how to manage their money so they won’t be in this position again? You probably can’t give them advice here because they likely won’t listen, but you can recommend your favorite financial blogs or books to help them get a better handle on how to manage their money.

Should You Cut Your Parents Off?

If you do decide to lend your parents money, how often can you do so? You should set boundaries for the limit of your generosity in the beginning. Leslie, the girl I went to high school with, regularly gave her mother money for eight to ten years. Then, as her younger siblings grew up and left home, Leslie saw that her mother often caused her own drama and financial woes.

She cut her mom off about 15 years ago, and now she rarely hears from her.

I don’t know how long Heather’s son will lend his parents money, but I hope it’s not for too long. There’s no reason why a son should be financing his mother’s highlights and pedicures when he himself is working two jobs to pay his way through college.

Have your parents ever asked to borrow money for you? If so, how did you handle it?

Are you a parent? If so, have you ever asked to borrow money from your children?

How to Handle Someone Who Gives Too Many Gifts

January 5, 2015 By MelissaB 8 Comments

First world problems, right? How can you complain about someone who gives too many gifts?

Believe it or not, that’s something I’ve struggled with this holiday season. I have one relative who, simply put, is buying too many gifts for me, my husband and my kids.

If this relative was independently wealthy, that would be one thing, but I know that she’s also trying to save money for some home repairs and a trip of a lifetime to Europe. I wish she would buy each of us just one gift and put the rest of the money in her vacation fund.

Do you also have problems with someone in your life who buys too many presents?

If so, there are things you can do. (Though you’ll probably want to implement most of these suggestions AFTER this holiday season.)

Set a gift giving limit. Most people buy gifts because they want to be nice, and they want to do something special for you. However, people can overstep their bounds. This year between all of my relatives who like to give gifts to our kids, the kids are getting more than enough presents. Combined with the gifts my husband and I were going to give, my kids were going to have way too many gifts.

I set aside some of the gifts I was going to give; I’ll use them next year. I also had my mom set aside some of her gifts for birthdays. I’ve also asked some of the relatives to set a limit of one or two gifts in future years so that our children are not drowning in presents.

Accept and be appreciative. Another idea is to simply accept the many gifts and be appreciative. After all, as Trent Hamm, guest blogger on The Christian Science Monitor, points out, “These gifts are given out of love.” Hamm, who struggles with his family members giving his kids too many gifts, explains, “People give our kids gifts because they love them so much and it’s their way of expressing it. For me, telling them not to do so is akin to saying, ‘Please don’t express your love and caring for our children.’”

If someone like a grandparent routinely goes overboard with the gift giving, you can reduce the number of presents that you get your kids and save money. You can just reap the benefits of saving money, or you can take the cash that you saved by not buying so many gifts and instead give the cash as a present to the prodigious gift giver. Everything comes full circle this way.

Direct the gift giver’s generosity. I remember when I was little, my mom’s friend wanted to get me a Christmas present. I was a prolific reader, and she got me Green Eggs and Ham. I was well beyond that book. Too often, people try to be generous by giving a present, but the gift they give is not necessarily what the recipient needs or wants.

You can direct the gift giver’s generosity by steering her to a wish list. You could create it on Amazon, and then you would be able to keep track of what has been bought, and you could also have some say in the plethora of presents coming into your house.

Do you struggle with well-meaning relatives buying too many gifts? If so, how do you handle the situation?

A Two-Step Approach to Preparing Kids for a Giving Holiday: Part Two

October 15, 2013 By MelissaB 4 Comments

The holiday season will soon be upon us. If you find yourself stressed out every holiday season by financial and time demands, now is the time to decide that this year will be different. Now is the time to decide on a giving holiday. Not only will you benefit, but your kids will as well.

Last time we talked about teaching your kids to give during the holidays, and this time we’ll talk about the second part of creating a giving approach to the holidays–teaching your child to have reasonable expectations for presents.

Years back, the holidays weren’t simply a time to get-get-get. As a girl, I loved reading Little House on the Prairie, and I was always amazed by how delighted Laura was by the simple presents she received. One year it was a tin cup and an orange. Another year it was a corn cob doll. Now, our kids receive oodles of presents and still demand more and are disappointed when the present opening is over.

How to Set Reasonable Expectations

If you’re the parent of older children and you previously gave them too many presents, you might sit down with them well before the holidays and let them know that they won’t be getting as much this year. You can explain that you want to focus more on giving rather than receiving. Plan on some resistance, but if you hold firm and continue to treat holidays this way, your kids will adapt.

If you’re children are younger, you can start the tradition of a simpler Christmas now. Your kids may express some resentment as they age and see how much their peers are getting, but if it’s your family tradition, they will likely understand.

How Many Presents to Give

You and your significant other will need to decide what works best for your family.

Some families decide on a dollar limit per child and don’t go over that amount. This is the way that my mom always handled Christmas for my brother and I, but she carried it a step further and made sure that we each got an equal number of gifts, too.

Other families say that Jesus received 3 gifts from the Wise Men, so they give their kids 3 gifts for Christmas. Another take on this is to give your child 3 specific presents–something they want, something they need, and something they’ll wear.

In our family, we are blessed with grandparents and godparents that give our children many presents. So, we buy our children very little for Christmas. The one time we did buy our kids a lot of Christmas presents, they simply received too much.

Finally, some families take an extreme approach and don’t exchange presents at all. Instead, they donate all the money they would have spent to charity.

If your children are already used to lavish holiday celebrations, scaling back may be difficult, but it’s not impossible. First teaching children to be givers and then scaling back may help ease the transition for your child.

How do you determine how many presents to buy your child? Do you worry about going overboard with gift giving?

Original photo credit: Theresa Thompson, on Flickr