About this family drama...

[Valentine2]

This will probably out me to a couple or two people here but what the hell. I am fuming right now and came for some sane words. Sorry for the long story.
So me and DH are from not so well off families and have worked really really hard over the last few years. On top of that, DH has been helping (before our marriage and after that too) his extended family whenever he could, bring up the excuse of having been there himself once. This runs into a minimum of 15-20k and could possibly be more. His father does not work though his wife does some part time and we pay part of their rent (we don't own any property anywhere and rent ourselves since we are together). DH is also awful with money and I am the one who keeps the heck now and he totally agrees I should. So no problems there.
Now it has come to the point that the said relatives have actually been under the impression that we will be paying towards the tutoring of a few kids (even the fecking number keeps increasing). If it was for even a loan, I could probably consider but it's asked as a bloody HANDOUT!! We have two DCs ourselves. FIL caused a havoc some years ago which meant DH had to bail him out and we are still paying for that and will pay for three more years. We are trying our best to get on the property ladder right now. No holidays, no paid outings for DCs. Clothes and food absolutely basic. We have no chance of inheritance from anyone ever.
But one phone call and DH becomes convinced others need the savings more than us. I am sick and tired of this. I am not working right and I have contributed towards helping the relatives but I am so over it now. AIBU? Should I be more thoughtful? I am planning to cut the contact right down to one phone call per few months now to any of them. and absolutely no handouts!

Valentine

Paying for tutoring whilst his DC go without is just mad. Does he think he's not worth it and by default neither are you and the DC?

Pp - great idea to say paying off fils debt is all you can manage. That's it. No need to divulge your savings and salary. They shouldn't know all that anyway tbh. And take your DC on hols ffs- so what if his family freak out? That's the benefit of working hard and saving. They don't care about you guys - they just want your cash.

Do you all live v close to each other? If not, I can't see why they are privy to your personal lives etc. And if anyone gets into debt or fucks up and comes cap in hand you say ' how awful, what are YOU going to do about it? " and if they want money you say " haven't got any. Actually, my extended family want their turn at bleeding us dry" or something similar anyway.

You can't work to cover his family bills - to collude in this madness?

If FIL lives in a very cheap area, is it worth buying a cheap one bed flat, letting it to him at the mortgage cost and ear marking it as a future rental once he's passed. Could only be done if you can spare the cash and can't get out of the 10%.

Surely the idea behind this was to take care of older relatives when they can't take care of themselves?

Not to be sponged off??

I hope you get things sorted out OP.

I couldn't respect a man who thought that his duty was towards sponging rellies rather than his own kids.

Will he be expecting his kids to pay for him?

Convenient how FiL isn't voluntarily open with you about his employment/earnings status or his financial position, I wonder if that's because he'd rather you didn't know the full picture and was just given the money no questions.

Just say no more money now BUT if you can't get him to take no for an answer then it might be easier to just say "Once we've finished paying off your loan we'll look again at whether we have any spare cash to help you out with"...i.e. in 3 years time...i.e. kick it into the long grass!

I have sympathy because you mention that your husband's FiL single-handedly brought him up but you'll have to listen to your gut on whether your husband is actually being taken advantage of/guilt tripped for something he had no control over.

Sounds very hard for you both.

You could sit down with your partner and draw up a rough budget, putting money for things like a house deposit in savings that you can't access easily.
If you have a particular long term agreement with them then you need to account for that, especially if there's associated finance under your name.
Include budget for clothes, holiday, emergency the dishwasher has broken fund.

Then you know what is left to be able to gift to them, if you both want. There is no point also getting yourselves into a poor financial situation out of generosity. What's the benefit of paying out for short term tutoring for a relative when in 20 years time you could be unnecessarily renting? Then you will have nothing to give them at all when elderly relatives may need your help more.

I also wouldn't discuss any personal finance with them at all, people take a little information and estrapolate endlessly about your financial situation. The most I would say is that yes you understand, London prices are ridiculous, its hard to make ends meet.

I like ClearRoute suggestion of saying after we've finished off your loan we will look again. I would have no problems saying on top of that, that loan costs us £xx per month which is a lot of money to us.

Soosie, that is something I am looking at too. This way, I do end up with both the property and the money being ours.
Clearroute, I think I would much rather leave no hope for them for the time when DCs will be old enough to realise they don't go on holidays at all.

For everyone mentioning that I sit down with DH and talk, just to clarify that: I have had that sitting and showed him in writing what I meant. That's when he realised I think. He saw it written on paper and understood what was making me panic so much. So now he has basically totally left it on me. I also tend to repeat the discussion in an off hand manner every few weeks to keep the message clear and reinforced. I think it's finally working. But I am now going to make sure the savings are put away in a way that he could not touch them without me knowing in any way possible. I am so glad to have learnt some very useful things here and banks so much everyone for the lovely responses.

Good luck Valentine xx

Newmamatobe: thanks a lot! You have been very helpful. Xxx