Mum keeps asking for money

[tiredmumma8696]

I thought I would come to Mumsnet to understand if it's me being unreasonable for thinking this way.

My mum lives in a large house, she's early 60s; no mortgage. Still working but on a low ish salary and lives alone. The house is 5 bedrooms and is worth around £650-700k. Mum is struggling to maintain the house due to the investment needed (it's a Victorian house). She's lived their 30 years and done very little to it.

She is struggling for money on monthly basis and is asking for help. My siblings and I have broached the subject about selling the house but she refuses saying it will be too stressful.

I feel resentful handing over money when she is sat in a huge house by herself. Our mortgage is about to go up by £1000 per month (we were on a low fixed rate and now remortgaging). We also have two children in nursery which is expensive.

To give some more background we are not particularly close. My oldest is over 3 and a half and never been offered so much as an hours babysitting or anything like that.

I feel like there is a lot of guilt tripping on her part and I just offer some money to help but starting to feel resentful given she is sat on several hundred thousand if she sold.

AIBU?

@Holly60 thank you. This is how I feel. Although my kids are small, I would never want them to feel they owe me anything.

You say your mum is in her early sixties. It sounds like the right time for her to sell up and downsize, while she still has her health. It isn't just about freeing up capital, although that is clearly a major reason if she keeps asking for money, but she also needs to think about what sort of property will best meet her needs for the next twenty or thirty years. Yes, selling up now might be stressful, but things will only get harder, so the sooner she addresses this the better for both her and you and your siblings.

Tell her you can't afford it - your children are your priority - and she has the option to sell the house she can't afford.

Thank you everyone for your responses. I thought maybe I was being selfish but it's sounding like lots of you agree with me.
Any spare money we have should go on my children and be put away for their future. I think I need to have this conversation with her and if it causes a row so be it

No. Her parents were / are well off. They bought her first property for her many years ago. She has never had to support them

Well it sounds like your Mum has been rather spoilt and is selfish as a result.

If she goes off on one stand your ground. You have your children to look after.

☝I'm mid 60s, still work in NHS so not rich but I would never ask my kids for money! They didn't ask to be born, I had them for purely selfish reasons and it is my responsibility to look after them no matter how old they are not the other way around! I frequently give them money, they don't need it but it gives me pleasure to pay for things for them. Your mother is an adult and should be sorting her own finances. Tell her that it's no longer possible due to the interest rates and leave her to sort her own finances out😏

No, your mother is the selfish one! Your little ones will become even more expensive when they start school, and start things like swimming lessons etc.

For context mum died in her early 60s. We had three young children in childcare and mum was the one helping us out financially!

She could release some equity if she doesn't want to sell.

Tell her you're selling yours and moving in to hers as you need to combine households in order to afford giving her money. That may concentrate her thoughts!

Every time you give money to your Mum you are taking money away from your children to give it to a woman who has a huge amount in equity.

Tell her now with the CoL you can’t give her anymore money. If you are willing to you could offer her help with moving.

‘Actually mum I was going to ask if you could give me some money since we’re struggling to pay our mortgage and fees our kids’

OP, I am around the same age as your mother, and disabled. Since moving to our current home a few years back, my DH has gone from being a healthy man, to suffering from just about every ailment you could think of. Life has changed dramatically for us, and while, like your mother, we could bury our heads in the sand, and let all the hard work and love that we've put into making this house and garden into our dream home, go to wrack and ruin, we know that that would be an awful waste when someone younger, and perhaps with a family could enjoy it as it is, and then continue with the work that we've done, as the need arises. We have therefore decided to sell up and move, hard as it will be both physically and mentally, to somewhere smaller and more manageable for us, because this is the 'sensible' thing to do.

If we didn't do this, we would then become a burden on our family, much as your mother is doing to you, and we have much more self respect than to do that. It's time to tell your mother that she's a grown woman, there's nothing wrong with her, so far as you have told us, and that she is being utterly selfish, expecting her own children to bail her out, when she's perfectly capable of moving to somewhere smaller, more affordable, and probably far more pleasant to live in, than a big old house, that is gradually going to fall apart around her, and is probably a nightmare to keep warm in the winter. You really don't owe her anything OP, and if she can't see that for herself, then she needs to be told. Good luck!

She needs to cut her cloth accordingly.

She needs to downsize and live within her means.

She needs to downsize and do it now while she's able. Once she gets older, she will end up trapped in a house that is too big, falling into disrepair and where she might eventually be unable to access most of the rooms due to stairs. Tough love perhaps!

This. Always ask for money when you have a pest like that.

@UpaladderwatchingTV
Thank you for your message. Hope all goes well with the move and you settle into your new home ❤️

She would be fine in a smaller property, a flat maybe. Why not offer to help her with moving? It's true that moving house is stressful but with help she should be able to manage it. Stop giving her money, she might come round to thinking about moving.

It's a common phrase but one you could well do with taking note of. You cannot change other people's behaviour, just the way you react to them. When she asks for money just say no, I'm not subsidising you chose to live beyond your means.
Despite what other say I don't think she's staying there because she knows you'll bail her out. I think if you stop subsidising her she'll just bury her head in the sand and let the building go to ruin, but that's her choice. By all means advise her, and maybe offer to support her through the move, but dont expect her to suddenly change. Prepair yourself to emotionally distance yourself because it'll be hard to watch her suffer.

@Craftsandgardens
Both my siblings and I have offered help. We've offered to call estate agents, solicitors etc to get things going as well but she just won't make the move

@JudgeRudy there is definitely a lot of burying head in the sand. And I agree, I think if the help stopped she still wouldn't move. The house is already in a poor state of repair and very cold in winter etc

Then she is responsible for her own intransigence.

Her choice. Her responsibility.

Does she ask your siblings for money too? I think you need to sit down with them and agree to protect your own interests and m, if asked again, you'll say you don't have it. Then you know you have each others backs and she can't try to bully one of you into giving up.

You absolutely do need to have the conversation with her, but you don’t need to justify not handing her money by saying you need it for the children. You shouldn’t be expected to give her money If you were single and had no kids.
She’s not old, she has a paid job, she has no mortgage, why can’t she afford to live? Is she bad at managing money? Has she allowed the house to get in such a bad state it needs very expensive repairs? Does she have no savings? There are plenty of people who claim they have no money but actually have a savings stash that they think doesn’t count!

@OneLittleFinger yes we've all been helping her out with bits a pieces both financially and practically. A lot of the practical help is also stuff she could easily do herself. I think over time we've all given in for an easy life as she can be manipulative and horrible if she doesn't get her own way. She often makes a scene and we are walking on eggshells to avoid that happening. We have all discussed this and agree it is happening but we all care for her and don't want to see her suffer. It's hard taking that step in being cruel to be kind but we all know we need to

1 person in a 5 bed house? That’s crazy.

selling your house isn’t as stressful as she’s making out. She’s being a CF