My sister in law is in severe financial trouble, how do I stop her spending?

[mummytoonetryingfortwo]

My sister in law has revealed to me last night that she’s in real difficulties and has asked me for help. She’s 23.

She works 25 hours a week for £12.60 an hour, so brings in £1,200 a month. She is studying for her masters, so cannot work more.

She has told me that she has nearly £5,000 in credit card debt, £1,500 in Klarna debt and, I believe, a personal loan around £7,500. She also has an interest free overdraft of £500.

She is spending the majority of her wages to pay off her debts, meaning she’s living in her overdraft. She just cannot stop herself spending. She’s almost addicted to it. She wants new things all the time, it spirals, and she gets into this mess. She’s now told me she’s felt suicidal over these debts.

I am able to clear these debts. I want to, but I want to do it on the condition that she breaks her spending habits and starts to get herself sorted. What can I do to help her on this path? What tactics can I use?

She is. If you read the updates you’d know why.

I have read all your posts and I’m just not buying her story that she splurged £15k on designer clothes because her mother criticised her ASOS dress last Christmas.

Don’t buy it then. I’ve experienced the extreme bullying from my MIL, I know what she’s like and how cruel she can be.

Nice ableist language.

It was a typo, for ‘spaff up the wall’. 🙄

I kinda agree with you because the spending is extreme. £15000 debt (plus £12000 per year salary) is serious spending.

interest on the debt can make it very high very fast. Its quite common for younger borrowers to get in credit card debt this way.

Ah this hitting a nerve for me too. Tread carefully OP.

This sounds just like me and my sister and our mother, even down to the comparing us with me as the ‘successful’ one, my sister being amazing with my children, all her mental health problems are because of our awful mother …

I agree with the pp who say she’s selling you a total yarn and appealing to the ‘rescuer’ in you, especially as you have had run ins with her yourself.

No matter what the MIL is like (and I would bet good money my mother is worse) your SIL knows that spending £15k she hasn’t got in 5 months is extreme and not proportional. It’s been caused by considerably more than a disparaging comment about an ASOS dress.

I love my sister SO much but she would and has lied to me and manipulated me to get what she wants (money, support, for me to prioritise her and not my kids). I would bet money her ‘no’ to your offer to pay her debts was an opening gambit to make her seem more sympathetic, and she will come back to this offer …

My sister’s mental health problems have been caused by our mother absolutely but in making these awful choices my support actually doesn’t help it makes things worse.

Moving her in with my family and my children was something I very very quickly regretted for many of the reasons people state above and it was a very happy day in our household when she decided to move out.

Maybe I am projecting but there are so many similarities here I couldn’t not comment. I think you need to guard your own heart a bit and not get emotionally invested with this idea that you can save her from her awful mother. She has to save herself

I had 7 years of therapy on this topic, so I understand exactly how you feel. And I bet you are thinking ‘but no one understands how bad my MIL is, I am special and can rescue SIL’, even if you don’t want to admit it that vanity is there and she is exploiting it.

Some people are just so damaged we have to take care of ourselves in how we help them.

I think you are projecting. A lot. She’s spent the last day listing everything on vinted - and I mean everything. She’s already clawed back a good £700 in sales. She’s very quiet and not acting like herself at all, which breaks my heart. She’s usually so bubbly and happy. We’re going to speak to my BIL and wife over the long weekend, so they’re aware of what’s happening too.

Off topic but am fascinated at your financial situation at a relatively young age with a child and having to work at night in the earlier days. And now at 27 to be earning more than your Magic Circle husband. You’ve done remarkably well. Incredible.

Perhaps I am projecting but there are some quite striking similarities to me, both big and small so I felt it my duty to comment.

Sometimes we recognise ‘types’ of people, and not everyone has dealt with this personality type before and ‘normal’ people don’t understand them … My sister goes through stages like this too, where for a few days/weeks she will be ‘good’ and ‘make healthy choices’. She can be a wonderful caring person who is a joy to spend time with, and also a ruthlessly self-obsessed addict who spends money like water and considers it her right to have everyone put her first and bail her out.

Your SIL is at the very least displaying disordered patterns of thinking that need professional intervention. All I am advising is for you to try and be a bit less invested in the idea you are ‘saving’ her, and try not to let her take advantage of you.

It absolutely was/is for me for sure. Well worth looking into.

Ask her to contact a charity that specialises in helping people like her. Do some research and attend with her.

Only after she has taken their advice and you can see that she has plans in place to manage differently should you help out.

Help out in away that the advisor says will be best.
Make the help provisional on her adhering to the new spending regime. See that she clears her debts gradually.

Ask her to confide in you when she is feeling like spending out of bounds. If she is going back to her old ways, insist that she starts again with the financial advisor and sees a GP about addiction.

@mummytoonetryingfortwo it’s great you’re moving her in and she will be working/doing the internship, as are the vinted listings etc. I know you want to clear the debts but actually, it is likely a massively important part of her recovery process to ‘own’ this rather than you clearing it. I think let her work with the organisations (with you supporting) and there is always the opportunity to provide extra help as and when she progresses (like milestone treats or something). With this kind of vulnerable (addictive) behaviour it is vital that she feels the recovery. I’ve been there - I am still prone to dopamine shops, I really have to take proactive steps. I needed to sort it out (massive high rate credit card stuff, paid it all off - all to do with self-esteem).

@mummytoonetryingfortwo i think you’ve hit upon the best approach. She needs:

1. some support
2. to be away from the parents
3. to have some agency in her problem
4. some counselling
5. a fresh start with people who actually aren’t raving snobs
6. to work out her own style and ‘lifestyle’ that makes HER happy

Just remember there will be hiccups along the way. But what she’s doing right now shows she’s not a lost cause - she just needs help finding the way out.

A girl I grew up with got herself into a financial mess in her 20s. Her dad stepped in to work out a plan for her to handle it, and she followed it. It worked, we were all proud of her, and she learned from it so has never got into such a mess again. It can be done.

Don't lose sight that the debt isn't the problem it's a symptom
The problem is that in response to a horrible situation she chose to go shopping a lot way above her budget buying things she didn't even like.
I have a difficult relationship with my mother and it has driven me to self destruction but that was always the symptom and not the problem. It's taken quite a bit of therapy to process the relationship with my mother and now it doesn't matter what she says to me I don't turn to self destruction.

It is going to take careful handling to manage her emotions and mental health so that the next time she's in distress she doesn't go on another spending spree.

Another perspective on mental health and spending. I'm bipolar and when in high moods I overspend and often don't pay much attention to what I am buying.