Does anyone else have family member or friend that does this - they seem like they're giving you a gift or doing you a favour, only to “call it in” at a later date?
For example - my birthday is in July. If me and my mum are shopping in April and she offers to buy a jumper, with absolutely no indication that it's anything other than a gitft, then in July say "I haven't bought you anything to unwrap as I got you that jumper from M&S remember?". I'm now wary of this as I actually like to unwrap things on my actual birthday, and wouldn't have agreed to buy a jumper I'd have bought myself if I knew it was going to be an early birthday present.
When DD was born, DH had just gone self employed and was making nothing, I was on maternity leave and i mean it when I say every penny counted. DD was our first and as a present my mum said she would go halves on her cot and mattress (I got both in a sale for a total of £180, she would give us £90). She lives abroad and said she would give us the £90 in cash on her next visit. We bought the cot and mattress, DD was born, money suddenly got very tight and prior to mum's arrival,we really budgeted and factored this impending £90 in to our food shopping and phone bill for that week.
Well when she arrived, the first night she wanted a Chinese. "I'll get it" she said - at that point we really couldn't afford takeaways but thinking it was a treat I said yes. She also came with a jumper she bought me from where she lives (she did call to ask a few months earlier but I was busy at work and hastily said "yes please" when she said "There's a lovely green jumper in X shop, would you like me to get you one?"). She also paid for a few coffees on that visit when we nipped out together. At the end of the week, she produced £15 for me for the cot and mattress. I said "oh I thought you were going halves" (Trust me I would not have said this had I not really needed the money) and she said "Well your and DH's part of the Chinese was £15, the jumper I brought you was £35, I've spent £30 on coffees and drinks when I've been out and I also paid for parking that day". I graciously took the £15 (and we ate beans on toast for a week and delayed our phone bill, luckily BT were understanding) but I would never have said yes to a takeaway, jumper (especially one I'd never seen at £35! I didn’t know the price until then) and coffees had I known they weren't treats. It sounds ungrateful, but it really annoyed me that the 'favours' were taken back.
Anyway, to present day - luckily me and DH much much better off now, but a similar situation has arose. My mum didn't get anything for the kids for Christmas and its their birthdays this month. She's coming next week and has said as a joint Christmas/birthday gift she'll buy them a plastic toy house with kitchen - lovely idea! She found one for £150 from Argos, I'm happy with it. Despite being in her 50's she can't get her head round ordering things online, she's asked me to do it with her card. She sent card details, and it declined. She's said "Oh must be something wrong with my card, why don't you buy it on yours and I'll give you the cash when I'm there next week?". Now we aren't in dire straits like last time but I don't want to fork out £150 to be told next week "well I got X Y and Z so here's £20". WIBU to tell her no, I'm not ordering it, just buy it cash when you're here? We can do click and collect! She'll ask why i won’t order it on my card (and no doubt throw in a passive aggressive "don't you have any money?") but not sure what I'd say!
For clarity, when she's here she stays in our spare room, doesn't offer to contribute towards food (though she does clean up after herself), we ferry her everywhere (including to and from the airport) but get no offer of petrol money and we don't get so much as a bottle of wine for having her for a very long week.