Mum demanding payments each month

This, in spades. She sounds awful OP and I think the best thing would be a break from her to be honest.

Either way, if you've been giving her £200 a month for at least a year (and it sounds like you have) then you've given her £2400 and that is more than enough. Time to stop.

You have been dreadfully abused by your mother.
This so called "debt" (it is not a debt, you owe her nothing) is just another way for her to control and abuse you.

Look up the 'grey rock' technique if you are not ready to cut all contact.
Stop venting to her or telling her anything about your life.

Read these threads:
"But We Took You To Stately Homes!" - Survivors of Dysfunctional Families | Mumsnet

Fancy coming in to all that money, and still wanting money from you. In her shoes, I would have told you that the slate was clear and I would have given you £20k at least as a gift. She sounds so mean.

It is very unlikely you 'owe' her anywhere near the amount you're paying back. She is a vile scammer and an abuser. The best thing you could do for yourself is cut contact but I understand that is not easy and you probably need some serious therapy to work through this

It sounds like you paid her off already if you think about what you borrowed and what you’re paying.
please don’t pay her anymore. She’s an awful mother and I don’t know anyone else who’d be like this.
Most mothers support their kids to make progress. She’s hindering yours.
Please do yourself a favour and start focussing on yourself. Stop paying her and start using the money to better yourself and your life.

Your mom is a leech who is sucking you dry financially. What she's doing is financial abuse.

Would it help to think of her as your egg donor rather than your mom?

She has no care for you. It hurts, but that's your starting point to tell her no and go no contact.

What are you afraid of if you do that?

You've overpaid her small loans and she profited off you when you weren't even in her care.

Who will she tell that she's gotten thousands of pounds from your meagre salary? She looks like a con conning her own daughter.

Please don't feel any guilt. You haven't done anything wrong, why should you feel guilty? Any guilt should be hers, she has been and still is an awful mother.

I grew up in an abusive family and realised far too late that my mother was a covert narcissist. Eventually she pushed me too far and I stopped seeing her. She told lies to everyone else, who sadly believed her. Whilst I accept that people who knew me but believed her, without getting in touch with me, are not worth having a relationship with, I am sorry I didn't let them all know the truth.

For your own mental health, I'd suggest you distance yourself from this dreadful woman. Get therapy if you can. As time passes you will feel less guilty and clear of the FOG (fear, obligation & guilt) that abusive parents instill in their children.

Have a look at the Stately Homes threads here, you will find similar stories and plenty of support. It's not you. It's her.

Use food banks,they're your friend. You owe your mother nothing. She may have still been claiming child benefit gor you when you moved out. Go no contact, I wish I had done at your age.

@Lifeisinshambles you need to see this as a business transaction.

Work out what you borrowed and what you paid back with approximate dates. Use a spreadsheet. Make it balance so if shows you have paid off the debt.

Then WRITE to her:

"Dear Mum,
Between <date> and <date> I borrowed the total sum of £XXX from you. Since then, I have paid back the sum of £XXX, therefore all outstanding debt has been paid off and no further money is owed. Best wishes, YOU".

If she responds, ask her to prove the further debt and send a copy of the spreadsheet.

Don't pay any more. Just stop.

As you moved out, did the child benefit get paid to you?

DONT text her asking what you owe. This acknowledges a debt and if there is nothing in writing then any money she has lent you could easily have been gifts.

Stop paying her, live within your means even if that is difficult and you have to get a second job. Try to build up some small savings.

Those little amounts you have been in the habit of borrowing could have mounted up but it sound like you have paid something back. Have you paid by bank transfers? If so work out how much you have paid. Did you mother hand you cash or were they bank transfers? If so you can see how much you have borrowed.

Use the money for counselling OP, you won't give her a penny after that.

It sounds unlikely that you owe her any money at all! If she can’t show you the debt, or even tell you how much it supposedly is, she’s not going to get far with any sort of small claim.

She is indeed acting like a loan shark, as people have said. Adding ridiculous interest or random amounts to this “debt” in order to keep you in the hook forever.

If you moved out 3 years ago at 17, you must still be only 20? That’s still incredibly young. Give yourself a break as you’re doing so well.

You need to tell her that you consider the loans repaid. I do think your best course of action would be to cut her off entirely.

Do you have any scope to move? How are you housed at the moment, is it a private landlord or through the local authority?

Edit - also, when you say physical fights, do you mean physical abuse on you, or fights between your parents? It sounds like you haven’t fully recognised this as abuse, and that’s why you’re somehow still looking for their “forgiveness” for telling the authorities- when it’s they who have done the only wrong in this situation.

You were under age- so I do not think a loan agreement would be legal if you signed one.
If you did not have a signed loan agreement past 18 you owe nothing
Say you are not paying anything anymore. If the relationship ends you are better off anyway

As both someone who left home at 17, and a mother of a 17 year old, from the bottom of my heart, I want you to tell her to get to fuck.

At 20 years of age, you've lived alone for 3 years!!! At 20 I hope my DD is still at home, using her earnings to live life and save towards a house deposit so she can have a slightly easier life - and I'm not quite potless, but I don't have £150k in the bank.
In fact, many of us treat our kids friends/boyfriends better than your mother sounds like she has treated you.

How dare she treat you like this? Oh you borrowed 2 and 3 here and there, a 10 or 20- when she should have been feeding and housing you.

I know, I know, it's harder being on your end of the situation- it's always easy to tell someone to leave the situation with family members who are no good. I was told repeatedly- and through fear of what they'd say about me, fear of them turning up at my house, and the fear that I was the problem- and judgement I would face all kept me in a cycle of continuing on a relationship.

I haven't had contact in 11 years, and it hurt quite badly for a year, but then I started to live life in the moment, I stopped worrying, my mental health improved and I could really breathe without their drama.

I wish you all the best, I'm sorry that this is the relationship you have with your mum.

OP, just out of interest, if you text her right now and said 'can you give me an exact figure of how much i owe you please, I believe I borrowed £30 once a month for 2 years making it roughly £720, I have paid you back £400, so thats £320 left, does that match the figure you have?'
To be clear, I think she's taking advantage of you and you shouldn't give her anything, but what would she say if you ask for an exact figure?

Stop blaming yourself. Your Mum failed you, not the other way around.

Theres no record of what is owed. How can she work out how much is still to be paid if she doesn’t know the total sum or how much has been repaid?

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. It sounds awful and like she has consistently been awful for years.
I don’t think demanding this money back from you is reasonable at all. Letting it go would be the very least she could do to try and make up for all you’ve been through.
I would seriously suggest you consider how you do benefit from this relationship and whether it is causing further hurt. If she thinks your relationship is conditional on repaying money, it’s not healthy for you.
I wish you all the best x

Just stop paying her. I assume the borrowing and repaying was all in cash, so it's impossible to prove. When did you last borrow any money from her?

If you really won't stop paying her (which you should) at least transfer it electronically and don't deal in cash with her anymore.

But really and truly, just stop. It sounds like she's exploiting you. I guess she lost child benefit and possibly more when you were removed and is taking advantage of you now she knows you have a job

Just stop paying and cut contact. Cut loose. Enjoy your life. Move to another city if necessary.

She was abusing you then (physically and verbally) and is still abusing you (financially). £400 pm is outrageous and obviously far more than you’ve ever borrowed. It’s ridiculous.

I would say enough, walk away. Hard to do but she needs to know you won’t let this abuse continue. Wishing you well.

She’s taking the piss out of you op

ask her for receipts bet she won’t have them

If there is no record of these loans, just stop paying her. She is going to disparage you no matter what you do. If it isn’t over money it will be something else.

A decent parent doesn’t behave like this. They might engage in some financial discipline to help their child learn to be an adult, but that is wildly different than what is going on here.

Sometimes we don’t get the parents we deserve. The best thing you can do is to stop seeking approval and to stop giving them control. As an adult, they only have power if you let them have power. It’s a hard thing to put into practice. I still work at it, but I woke up in the middle of the night in my 40s with this utter clarity that it was time to be free from the coercion and my life has been so much better since that moment. Try to do it earlier than me, you will be so much happier.

She is lying to you. You have already repaid a reasonable amount for what you have borrowed. If there's no written agreement then it was reasonable for you to assume the other money you received was a gift, it is entirely normal for mums to give small sums to their offspring and entirely abnornal to try to reclaim it years later. Let her know that you believe you have now repaid in full all reasonable debts and you will not be making any further payments. If that causes her to cut off contact that's her choice. Loving relationships are not something it is possible to pay for, if she wants a regular income from you in order to have a relationship with you then sadly that isn't love.

She doesn’t care about you at all and just wants power over you. She couldn’t possibly see you suffer and struggle like this when she has so much if she does.
Cut her off and you’ll feel such a weight lifted after a while.