I'm refusing to help my sister pay for her children's school uniform

[mumlifeischaos1990]

My sister has 3 children and this year all of her kids are going to school, her youngest is starting nursery because my sister needs to go back to work. My sister and her husband struggle a little bit financially, hence why my sister needs to go back to work. Obviously it's that time of year where everybody is buying school uniform. Which can be extremely expensive. So my sister asked me if I could help her with the cost of the uniform.

Now her reason for asking me was that me and my DH can afford to send our children to private school. So my financial situation is different than my sisters financial situation. And of course I would love to help my sister...however I just spent almost £2,000 on my kids school uniform this year, which was more than I was expecting however they've both recently gone through a growth spurt and their school is very strict about uniform. And I can't really justify spending more money on school uniforms this month, cause I do still have a budget each month. So I politely told my sister that sorry I won't be able to help her, however I could help her look for shops that have shirts, skirts, tight, etc for a much cheaper price.

Of course my sister didn't overreact when I told her, but she definitely seems a bit annoyed at me.

I couldn’t leave her struggling if I could help. Even £50 could make a big difference

Yabu and tight, family should help each other out.

@mumlifeischaos1990 state school uniform is SO cheap. Much cheaper than having to buy regular clothes for them to wear every day!

A pack of 3 polo shirts is about £5. A couple of pairs of trousers/skirts for £10 and a cardigan is about £6. So £21 per child.

Not to mention huge amounts of second hand stuff given away for free or very little money.

If you're not willing to give your sister £75 towards uniform when you've spent £2000 on you own kids uniform well that makes you super stingy!

You obviously know your own sister, so fair enough if this doesn't apply, but most people young enough to have school kids would know how to google/look at reviews to find cheapest shops, so could it be she found that insulting? Of course if she has some difficulty doing that for whatever reason/you're helping her travel to those shops, ok.

Easily adds up to that much for 2 if everything has to come from school blazer and they’re older with multiple sports kits and expensive blazers.

I think you’re being harsh though not to pick up a few supermarket bits for your niece/nephew though OP. A pack of polos costs about £3, a pinafore £8. Could you really not get them the basics? And if things are that tight with the school fees that you genuinely can’t then you probably should have gone for the second hand sales for your kids rather than spending £2k on new.

I hope you never need help from anyone.

Unless your children regularly roll around in the mud, they don't need as many sets of things as you seem to have bought.

However, spend your money on what you want. I also agree you should not feel obligated to help out your sister, but I can see that your very differing financial circumstances are not going to make for an easy relationship.

It does sound quite arbitrary on your part: you've decided that you've already spent 'enough' on school uniform, so you've decided to say No on that basis. What would you say to her if she asked for help in buying other essentials for her kids that you hadn't already had to buy (very expensive) equivalents of for your own kids?

If it turned out that you'd forgotten or misunderstood and needed to spend another £50 on an extra uniform item for one of your own kids, would you decline to buy that too - as the notional 'uniform budget' has already been used up?

Yeah also this. Would she not know supermarkets have cheap uniform and why would she need your help researching? It sounds quite patronising.

I understand that uniforms you bought are expensive and I'm in Ireland and just had one uniform this year and it's crested but buying multiple and other bits do add up and it cost just over 300 euro so 2k for a private school for 2 for everything would be expensive and you shouldn't have to worry about your sister's kids and we all try to earn and budget but if you could afford something towards the uniforms it's your niece's/nephews that benefit.

Would you be willing to buy a pack of school shirts, trousers and a plain jumper for each child? I'm sure that would be appreciated if you could afford to do it?
I have done this for a friend in the past as I knew she was struggling and I wouldn't have wanted her to have the added upset and stress of uniforms. I simply said it was a gift from me.

Are any of the posters ready to reach into OP’s pocket ready to reach into their own?

All these people telling the OP that she should just buy the uniform!
Why should she?

The sister knew that they’d be going back to school so why didn’t she start saving earlier on in the year?

She can look on vinted, go into the school and ask as they will have lots of lost or donated uniforms, look on Facebook marketplace, gumtree, local clothing banks etc

Aldi sell school uniforms very cheaply.

The OP has just spent a lot of money on her own children’s uniforms and has her own bills etc to pay.

What next? Should she also buy their Christmas presents?

I am NOT being mean and I’m actually a very generous person (to my detriment tbh!) but there are plenty of other solutions out there.
FREE solutions.

And?

Should we get violins out for your choice to send them there?

It's not like she's asking for money for crack. Sounds like she is scraping the barrel and you really are not. I would rarely agree on the other side but it's weird you won't help. YABU

I would if I were very comfortably off and one of my siblings were really struggling, certainly.

If I'd blown £2K on private school uniform and my sister was struggling to buy the state school basics for her three while she returned to work to improve their financial position, I don't think I'd think twice about send her £100 or so to help out.

Even with second hand uniform shops and supermarket prices, new shoes for three can be a hell of a burden.

The OP may not have the spare money to give her sister BECAUSE she sends her own DC to private school. Many parents make sacrifices to go down this route. They're not all millionaires. Her sister decided to have her own children so she should be able to fund them.
The private school i attended in the 80s had an restrictive uniform policy and many components. Eg official school coat, Sunday dress, school hat. So I can understand the 2020's equivalent.

Do you not have any savings you could dip into? Or a credit card you could put it on and then pay back next month. If you don’t have either of these things maybe you should consider going state yourself.

If this was for my nieces I would have offered in advance and yes YABU.

Yeah you should definitely not help your nieces/nephews out with some uniform that you could probably get for less than £50.

Then later in life if they are the only relatives you have left in your old age, they wont feel obliged to help you either.

🙄

You are mean

Why on earth should her children have second clothes to accommodate her sister?
Seriously?

The OP has her own household budget. Maybe she can’t afford to help because she has just bought her own children’s uniforms and still has the rest of the month to go.