To be upset by finding out my parents have more money than I thought

[JaceLancs]

Expecting to be flamed here.....
I recently found out my elderly parents have a fair bit of money in savings, well at least an awful lot more than I thought anyway, as they always say and act like they don't
They are getting more absent minded and managed to lock themselves out of their online banking plus other similar issues and asked me to help them sort it out, so it was hard not to see the details of their various accounts and investments
It's not that I expect them to give me any of it, just to be more aware that I am not in such a fortunate position and sometimes really struggle
Examples of things fairly recently - my very ancient car was off the road and I couldn't afford to get it repaired quickly, so had to hire a car for a few days, as transport is essential to my job, I kept the hire car for an extra couple of days to do a favour for them, as my DF couldn't drive due to a recent op - they never offered me anything toward cost and I assumed they couldn't afford it
They asked myself and also DD to take time off work recently to take them to health appointments (even a taxi would have been less than £10)
The worst however was that not very long ago they were very stressed about some pressing financial matters which needed dealing with in another country (DF country of birth) and couldn't fly due to health issues. I took over a week off work and drove 1000s of miles, being nursemaid, carer, general facilitator, marriage guidance counsellor on more than one occasion, and obviously chauffeur. On our return they presented me with a bill for £900 for my share of the costs, which I had to pay back in instalments - they obviously thought it was some kind of holiday for me!
I also recently asked to borrow a small sum of money from them for an urgent house repair, which they agreed somewhat begrudgingly, then withdrew the offer when the estimate was for more than I thought it might be - eventually I got a friend to 'bodge' temporarily as couldn't afford the proper repair and parents were nagging about when it would be fixed as it was holding up an arrangement for something else I had promised to do which was a favour to them (as although rather rundown I do have more space in my house than they do)
I've kept it vague - as I don't name change, and someone may recognise this

YANBU. The £900 bill for helping THEM out makes them sound awfully mean. Surely we all know someone like this - you know the kind that split the restaurant bill down to the last penny and then behind your back they swipe the tip you leave for the waiter on way out.

YANBU. I really can't understand tightness like this. Why would people rather the government got a proportion of their money when they die than give it to their kids while they are alive?

My mother can be like this with us - she couldn't afford to come and visit her only grandchild (at that time) for a year but she could afford to go on 2 cruises. I find it particularly galling because she can always find time and money to help out my brother and his family but doesn't bother with mine. She has never helped me financially since I went to uni at 18 but paid my brothers uni fees, living costs and then bought him a flat. She also ignores my other brother so it's not just me. We don't want anything in particular but it's hard to explain to our son why that granny doesn't visit/acknowledge birthdays/ Christmas etc
I don't expect anything from other people generally but if you are helping them out then you shouldn't be billed for that help.

I wonder if it's a generation thing. DH's grandmother, is in her 80's, and lives in a village in the middle of nowhere. Mil lives 200 miles away and has had to tell her to use her money to pay for taxis to get places. GM thinks it's an extravagance but we've all nagged her and told her we would get more enjoyment seeing her to spend it on herself, rather than leaving it in her will. So she now uses a taxi once a week to meet up with her friends.
It's also a family joke how if anyone takes her for coffee, her hands always remain firmly in her pockets.
I think in your situation it must be very difficult. I think I would probably start letting them know that the favours you are doing for them cost you money. So if you have to take time off work, just let them know that you will lose £200 wages so you can't afford it. If you take them for coffee, return to the table and let them know it cost you £20, etc... They probably aren't doing things from malice, just a different understanding of today's world.

I agree with M4Blues: "I'm stunned that they billed you for £900 after you did them a favour. But I'm even more stunned that you paid it."
It was foolish and naive of you to assume that they asked for the money because they couldn't afford it themselves.
I wasn't surprised to read that they brought you up to feel that your needs weren't valid. It's crazy that you had to insist on your own hotel room - you're a grown adult FFS, of course you didn't want to share with your parents!
They sound toxic, not just stingy, and I think you need to do some work on your own self esteem and your boundaries with them.
You definitely need to stop taking time off work to do them favours, or doing any favours that cost you money.

My initial reaction was that you were going to be all 'woe is me' and a bit grabby but having read your OP, you are definitely not being unreasonable and they sound mean and selfish.

My ex PIL were like this - completely unhelpful if you asked them to lend a hand. Nothing to do with money but mean with their time. Once my car wouldn't start when I was 5 miles away from them and I phoned them asking if they would jump start it so I could take it to a garage. They refused, saying I should pay to get it transported or get the AA to do it. Fortunately I was an AA member, because that's just what I had to do.

They were also absolutely vile to an elderly relative of theirs who lived on her own and didn't have a pension and savings, despite working all her life. She didn't presumably live the little narrow lifestyle they had approved of, of living in the town of your birth and working in the public sector. Said relative was generous to a fault and always buying people small presents, and paid her own way, yet they absolutely loathed her for that.

They too were loaded, due to at least two very large inheritances which they like to keep secret, so they can tow the line of having worked for what they have.

I put it down to them ending up surprisingly well off due to lucky circumstances and being born in the generation which could buy large impressive houses cheaply and retire early on final salary pensions, not being able to believe their luck and trying to pretend it was due to some skill or hard work on their part. They aren't comfortable with money, and they don't use it well.

I wouldn't have dreamed of asking them for money, although they seemed to assume that all their children were just hanging about waiting for their inheritances, as they talked about it all the time in terms of not expecting anything. Just vile.

well now you know!

meanness isn't very appealing.

I feel for you OP but would like to remind some posters that it is not a 'generational thing' - there are mean and stingy people of all age groups and for each 'mean' well-off pensioner there are many others who help out family with very little money of their own
I, like many other elders, helped my son and DIL buy their first house, help them towards a car, and while my income is now just about enough to keep 'body and soul together' they know I have some savings which would be available to them.
I have a theory that the more some people have the more likely they are to keep their hands on it as that is probably how they came to have so much.

My mum is like this....except with my golden.child.of.a brother of.course
This.month she has 4 health appts that I.am taking her.to...she woke never even think.of offering petrol.money.
My netbook.her and my Aunt to an airport that is quite a.distance away....again, no.petrol money offered.
But.if my brothers wife.took them (never happen!) £100 would be.pressed.into her habd.
Galling, but what can you do?
She has a free bus pass she refuses.to.use.

Its a tricky one becuase at the end of the day, it is their money... But having said that, i could never watch my children struggle whilst i am sitting on a large sum.

I dont think youre being unreasonable. I do think youre parents are being quite mean and if i were you, i wouldn't put myself so out of the way for them in future if it is going to cost you an arm and a leg! Make them get their own bloody taxi!

I was going to say YABU but having read it all, YANBU.

On our return they presented me with a bill for £900 for my share of the costs

I'd have told them to fuck off at that point. And have, in a similar situation.

My grandfather is exactly the same.
He lived in a shithole house that hadn't been touched since the 1940's and never let my poor grandmother do anything she wanted because they "couldn't afford it".
When she went into a home, the finances had to be sorted. My grandfather refused to pay extra money to put her into a nicer home and would only allow her to go into a home that was the cheapest.
My mum went through their finances and discovered that he had almost £30k in his current account alone as well as numerous savings accounts and ISA's and found £2k in cash in the house.
I had been driving him back and forth to see my grandmother (a 60 mile round trip) when he knew I was off sick and on half pay and struggling. This went on for 3 months and he gave me £20 for petrol the whole time and repeatedly refused to help out my parents over the years if they were struggling.
I still see him but it leaves a bitter taste.

Well it is there money & they don't have to help you out.

That said, they certainly shouldn't be making you pay for helping them out!

It's very odd that they charged you & odder still that you paid as others have said.

their not there

I have been working on my self esteem, but it's an ongoing thing, and am getting better at saying no to them as well as others
That's why I recently talked to them about using taxis when they needed them
I've also encouraged them to get a cleaner and some gardening help, I just wasn't aware that as well as having enough to pay for these sorts of things they were also accumulating money
I was under the impression that their finances had only recently allowed them to do these things, as they started getting things like attendance allowance, rather than that they had money and just chose not to spend it
It's the sort of deceit that's upset me, I've always been aware that they were self centred (one more than the other, but dominates the other anyway so same result

They are mean. My parents are penny pinching when it comes to anything "luxurious" for themselves (like taxis), and I do give them quite a few lifts to stop my dm trying to drag my ddad to hospital appointments on the bus when he's poorly but they are very open handed with us/grandchildren. When dad was in hospital recently my mum was trying to reimburse me parking costs for visiting him and had to be (kindly) handed a (very small) grip.
OP I think it is fine and good that you continue to help your parents with computer type things, and visit them but please stop doing things for them that cost you money. You sound like a lovely daughter but they are being selfish in a way that the elderly can be as they get more dependent.

*On our return they presented me with a bill for £900 for my share of the costs

I'd have told them to fuck off at that point. And have, in a similar situation.*

I would refuse to pay if it was my parents (not that they would ask!) because I know they are well off. If I thought they were elderly and struggling as the op did then it's different.

OP yanbu in any way at all, you sound like a kind, generous person.

"They can be generous on occasions, especially in terms of charitable causes that they hold dear, and believe in giving a percentage of their income to those 'less fortunate' which obviously doesn't include me"

Oh so generous
They donate money to charity and tell you about it to make themselves look good.
What kind of "generous" person demands £900 from their own child for doing them a massive favour - especially when this child is a single mum with a low income and no savings, whereas they have thousands in the bank?!
It also makes no sense to assume they had no spare money if you knew they donated to charity, surely if they were so skint they wouldn't have been able to.
I think you convinced yourself they had nothing to give to make yourself feel better about the fact that they are and always have been stingy fucks towards you.
What I can't get over is how much you do for them, you must have very low self esteem (thanks to them) to put up with that treatment and still bend over backwards for them.

OP, you say you are not sure whether to tell your siblings.

I think it might be wise. Especially if there's a chance that a situation crops up where they might be asked to pay out for helping.

At least then, they'll be informed and can make their own decisions.

Ex PIL also had a golden child. Not only did they buy him his first and substantial part of his second homes, they paid for the furniture and ordered it all online for him too. Their other two children receive no help. All 3 have university degrees and good jobs.

OP I actually think from what you described that your parents are verging on being financially abusive towards you. I think you need to learn to say no. Whats the worst that will happen? They will ask your siblings, the siblings will sooner or later say no and your parents will learn a lesson that they can't sponge off their children.

Badders sounds like your mum and mine are very similar - I too have a golden child brother - who has worked 2 yrs since 16 (now almost 56). I always suspected mum gave him and his wife (who does work but sends a lot abroad to her family) money but if I ever alluded to that, mum's mantra was 'I have never given him a penny that I havent given you'

Mum was in hospital then respite after a fall last Autumn. I needed her to write some cheques and it was obvious from cheque book stubs that she was writing regular cheques to my brother. Her money, her business, but why keep quoting the manta above to me?! (I have never had a penny off her since leaving Uni 31 yrs ago - dont want it - my husband and I quite capable of earning our own money)

However what really hurt was when, in a slightly confused period whilst in respite, she blurted out a very large sum of money. Not sure why it came out when it did, but it turns out she had given this to B & Sil 3 years earlier as a deposit to buy house they were renting. It wasn't just that I didnt know, but that 3 of my cousins did - but were sworn to secrecy so I didnt find out. My 2 closest cousins told me they felt awful keeping the secret.

She is now housebound, has terminal cancer and reliant on me and/or my husband/son going (2 hrs each way) weekly to take her shopping - golden child lives much further away and doesnt drive. I now dont feel guilty getting petrol money off her, esp I know she pays DB train fare when he goes to stay and is also still giving him lump sums eg to 'pay off his credit card, as who else would pay it for him'!! He's 55 FFS .... will have to stand on his own 2 feet one day when she is gone!

What saddens me is that, whilst she always favoured him over me, so the house deposit wasn't a big surprise (but extent of her secrecy was) she has been a wonderful DGM and treated both my 2 DC and his DD the same. However my DC are old enough now to appreciate how hurt I was last year and it has definitely sullied their appreciation of her. I have also made it clear to them both that I would never favour one of them over the other. If either needed financial help, they would only get it if I could give the other one the same.

After my dad died I was executor...I'm the eldest.
I saw lots of financial stuff 're my brother I wish I hadn't
I don't know why it upsets me.....twas ever thus

OP, you poor thing. When people say 'it's their money to do with as they wish', they ignore how hurtful it therefore is that your parents don't wish to help you.

My mother died when I was in my teens and left a small amount of money which went into trust until I was 21. My father refused to pay for a thing for me - new socks, toiletries etc were all put through this trust. Meanwhile he was down the pub every day. On the day of my last A level and my brother's last GCSE he told us he couldn't afford to buy us a pizza as he headed off to the pub.

In adulthood I spent money from my small salary on helping him out, buying him a new cooker and fridge, paying vet bills for his pets, and taking him to hospital appointments even when I had small children and he lived two hours away. I moved out of home at 18 and never asked for anything after that. My brother stayed till his late twenties and was paid for, including cars and credit card bills.

When he died he left me some money, but left more of it to my brother, as his 'trust fund' had been smaller.

Every single time my father refused to use his money to help me out in any way, or demanded things from me that he could afford himself, it made me feel unloved and unwanted. I'm not grasping at all, but I can't imagine treating my kids that way, because I love them.