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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To give money away someone else gave you?

67 replies

shockinglybadteacher · 29/07/2014 19:56

This isn't an urgent problem, but a confusing one :)

It's my birthday. (Well, not today, but it will be in a week or so). My relatives will probably give me money as a present, because I am not a kid any more.

I'm not talking loads of cash, just a nice sort of remembrance, which I really appreciate and like. Some people give me gift cards which I love and always use. Some, however, give me actual money.

This year, if it happens (tbh I am happy with birthday card without present! If I get a nice card I am delighted.) there is one person who I think might give me money. If they do I've been thinking about donating that money to a cause. The person who might give me money would not approve of the cause, to say the least.

What is the right thing to do here? Not use the money in that way thinking of the giver's views? Or use it as it is a present?

OP posts:

Flipflops7 · 29/07/2014 22:09

(By which I obviously mean the relationship between OP and giver. I am not commenting generally).

Original poster

shockinglybadteacher · 29/07/2014 22:10

Nothing so exciting :)

I would donate the money to pro-Palestinian groups. My relative thinks the Palestinians are getting everything they deserve and always have done.

OP posts:

Flipflops7 · 29/07/2014 22:11

Addicted

Flipflops7 · 29/07/2014 22:12

In which case it would be making a point and you have your answer. If you want to alienate them, be honest, and if you don't, don't.

babybat · 29/07/2014 22:12

If the relationship with the gift giver is a bit tense, and you don't really want to receive a present from them, I could sort of understand this. Someone I know is virtually NC with some of her family, and still gets gifts from them which she doesn't really want, so she donates the money because she doesn't want to keep it for herself, and in that situation I think whether the gift giver would approve is sort of besides the point.

OTOH, if you're not in that situation, and you just want to use this as a chance to do something charitable that you otherwise wouldn't be able to, but you don't want to make things awkward for the giver, either fib and say you've spent it on a haircut/something for the house, or just say thankyou and keep the focus on how kind and generous it is, and not what you're doing with the money. If they ask, couldn't you say that you hadn't spent it yet and you're still thinking about how to spend it?

LineRunner · 29/07/2014 22:14

What do you give them for presents?

Doesn't it all just pointlessly cancel itself out over the year anyway?

ShatnersBassoon · 29/07/2014 22:16

So it's something very specific. It would be like a finger up to him. Better to spend it on nice groceries and be able to be honest.

DogCalledRudis · 29/07/2014 22:18

Tel you spent it on your weekly shopping ;)

Original poster

shockinglybadteacher · 29/07/2014 22:26

babybat the situation is fairly tense, yes. The giver doesn't approve of me or how I live my life at all. This is also why I don't want to wind them up and be all "Ner ner ner, I'm doing this and so what". However I strongly disapprove of many of the attitudes held by the giver.

I normally do get nice things from the kind gifts that I am sent and I do appreciate that, definitely including from this person. However I am struck by the fact that this year I feel it is very important to do more than I have been doing in this case. I'm alright - I have clothes, food, nice stuff generally - and there are people fleeing bombardment. I don't need an extra £50. They do.

OP posts:

Pipbin · 29/07/2014 22:58

I agree with a pp. Tell them you spent it on a weeks food shopping but actually give it to the charity. Just giving it to a charity that you know they disapprove of seems rather bloody minded just for the sake of it.

MaxPepsi · 29/07/2014 23:38

Do you honestly believe the money you want to give to help these people will ever reach them?

mommy2ash · 30/07/2014 00:10

I would put the money away for yourself. if you are always broke you need it yourself and it would only look like you are doing it to annoy her.

MaidOfStars · 30/07/2014 00:19

Oh my good god. Either you want to rub their face in it or you don't. How can it be this hard for a grown up to invent a work around. It's almost...almost...like you want them to know.

Which is fine. Make a decision and own it. But what? You want credit for donating money to a Palestinian charity?

sanfairyanne · 30/07/2014 05:25

it makes you sound like a teenager in the throes of adolescent rebellion, frankly

just tell them you spent it on groceries if you cant bring yourself to, gasp, lie, or, gasp, not say anything

or be honest with yourself as well as them

Original poster

shockinglybadteacher · 30/07/2014 06:24

LOL, I wouldn't get credit. More likely to get a phone call of complaint

I spoke to my mum about this last night and she wasn't keen on the grounds of it involving deception. This may be it. I think that people who have said "do stuff with your own money, don't take money given not for that purpose and use it" have a good point.

Don't think it's hugely important the cause, it could have been the Cats Trust when the giver was violently opposed to cats, or anything really. It was more the principle, is it actually wrong to do this? It did feel like IWBU and I think perhaps I would be. I will swap it out, use my own money, keep this one and get something that I can tell that person about.

OP posts:

NewtRipley · 30/07/2014 06:31

I don't see the problem with lying here.

Put the money into a pot with some other money, pull out the amount and you won't know where it came from. Unless you write on it.

Greythorne · 30/07/2014 06:34

Total attention-seeking.

Once money is in your bank account, it's just money. Nothing is ring-fenced with the giver's name on it.

Just say I had a nice meal out (which presumably you do from time to time) and then donate whatever you want to the charity of your choice.

Pipbin · 30/07/2014 06:42

I also think you are damn lucky to have family to care enough about you to send you £50 is an adult. Frankly I wouldn't be pissing people like that off. What if you need their help if the lean times come back.

Bohemond · 30/07/2014 06:43

How old are you? You sound about 15.

pukkabo · 30/07/2014 06:44

Use her money for whatever else you were going to buy with other peoples money and use other peoples money for charity.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 30/07/2014 06:45

Or don't accept the gift.

Why would you take a gift from a person you have such a odd relationship with

Original poster

shockinglybadteacher · 30/07/2014 08:14

Pipbin if the lean times come back this person would be unlikely to be helping me. Having said that I wasn't exactly planning to say "I donated it here HA HA". I would attempt some level of subtlety

When I get a gift from this person I do get a bit audited though. It's like "What did you spend it on? How much does that cost?" This is the reason I was asking, should I do this and is it wrong? I can be a bit shite at such decisions and was hoping the massed ranks of Mumsnet could help me, which they have. (I remembered on Mumsnet there have been threads about people giving Oxfam donkeys and goats for presents, which this is a bit like.)

I do know this sounds a bit painfully teenage (15 LOL, thankfully that was quite a few years ago!) but it's something I hadn't thought of before and I wasn't sure what the right thing to do was.

Ineedasockamnesty yeah, it's a strange relationship. What can you do though, families. I think refusing a gift would be far more antagonistic than accepting one, even if I did something X wouldn't like with the money.

OP posts:

Original poster

shockinglybadteacher · 30/07/2014 08:15

Also NeedsAsockamnesty apologies for mangling your name! I must still be half asleep.

OP posts:

vrtra · 30/07/2014 08:33

Buy some Palestinian olive oil, dates, etc. Tell them you spent it on fancy groceries. Job done.

spiderswilldescend · 30/07/2014 08:46

Isn't it a bit odd that you are concerned (rightly, as everyone should be) about what's going on there, but this is what you start a thread about?

Tell her you bought books. If she wants to see them, I'm guessing you have books. At some point in your life, you will buy books. Books are always the answer.

Good luck at getting some attention though .

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