I’ve been helping my son out financially but I think I’ve made things worse

[Tentenet]

My son is 29 and I’ve always helped him when he’s been stuck but lately its getting to the point where I’m worrying about money myself and I don’t know how to handle it without causing a massive falling out.

He’s working full time as a delivery driver and lives with his girlfriend in a rented flat. They’ve been together about 3 years. Neither of them earn a fortune but they’re not out of work and I know they’re struggling with the cost of everything like everyone else.

Over the last year I’ve probably given him about £2700. It started off with things like his car needing repairs and him being short for rent one month when his wages were messed up. I didn’t mind helping, he’s my son and I had the money at the time. Some of it was meant to be paid back and some I just gave him but if I’m honest I’ve lost track of which was which now.

He’s asked me for another £600 because there’s something wrong with his car and he says he can’t keep getting to work without sorting it. I do understand that, he needs his car for his job and if he can’t work he’s going to be in an even worse position.

The thing is I found out last week that him and his girlfriend had booked a weekend away and bought concert tickets. I wasn’t snooping, he was telling me about it and it came up in conversation. Apparently they’d booked it before the car problem and the money for the weekend was already paid so he doesn’t see what one has to do with the other.

I can see his point to a degree but I also think if you’re having to ask your mum for money every few weeks then maybe you shouldn’t be booking weekends away and concerts. I said something along those lines and he got quite defensive and said he wasn’t going to spend his whole life sitting in the flat because he couldn’t afford to do anything.

I do get that as well. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have a life but I don’t understand how I’m supposed to keep finding money when things go wrong.

I’m 56 and work 30 hours a week. I’m not badly off but I’m certainly not rolling in it. I’ve still got a mortgage and my car is getting on a bit now. I’ve been putting off getting a few things done around the house because I don’t want to spend the money, and then I feel a bit daft when I realise I’ve sent him a few hundred quid again.

I have a daughter who’s 24 and she manages her own money. She rents with a friend and works as a teaching assistant. She doesn’t earn loads either but she budgets and if she can’t afford something she just doesn’t have it. She’s never really asked me for money apart from the odd tenner when she was younger.

I don’t want to compare them because their circumstances are different and I know my son has had a harder time getting himself sorted. He left school at 16 and has never really found a job that pays particularly well, although he has always worked. He’s not sitting about doing nothing and I don’t want anyone thinking I’m saying he is.

But I do sometimes wonder if I’ve made it too easy for him to come to me whenever he’s short. If I keep helping then he never really has to work out how to manage when something unexpected happens. On the other hand, things are genuinely expensive and I don’t want him getting into debt or losing his job because I’ve decided to make a point.

When I said I couldn’t just give him £600 without talking about how he was going to manage things going forward, he said he couldn’t believe I was treating him like a stranger. He said I’ve always helped him before and now I’m making him feel like he can’t come to his own mum when he’s in trouble.

That upset me more than I expected. I told him I wasn’t saying I’d never help him again, but I can’t keep handing over money without knowing whether it’s actually a loan or whether I’m just giving it to him. He said he didn’t realise I was keeping score and that he’d sort it out himself and wouldn’t ask me for anything again.

I haven’t sent him the money but now I’m feeling guilty. I don’t want him thinking he can’t come to me, but I’m also starting to resent being asked and I don’t like feeling that way about my own child.

My mum thinks I’m being daft and should stop giving him anything. She’s 79 and has always been very strict about money. She thinks if he’s old enough to live with his girlfriend he’s old enough to pay his own bills. My daughter has said something similar but was more tactful about it.

I don’t know if I’m being unfair because I can afford to help sometimes, just not all the time, or if I’m actually making things worse by doing it.

Would you give him the £600 for the car and then make it clear that you can’t keep doing this, or would you stop now? And if you did stop, how would you explain it without making your child feel like you’ve abandoned them?

I mean, he is 29 not 19. I think you are absolutely within your rights to not give him any more

It is (on average) much harder for his generation than your mum's, so I don't like it when older people think that if they could easily buy a house and have kids and one parent stay home by the time they were 22, so should every young person-not saying your mum said this, but it is true a lot of people don't realise how much harder things are now. That said, it doesn't give him the right to take advantage. If you can afford it, it is nice to help at times, but he sounds rude in expecting it all-he does have a partner to share bills with, which not everyone does.

You have one wage coming in and can cope.

DD has one wage coming in and can cope.

He has two wages coming in and can't cope.

Instead of handing money over offer to help them with budgeting and prioritising.

I would lend it but on condition it’s repaid on a set schedule. I’d also be saying they they need to be saving monthly for just said emergency

Tell him you'll consider helping him once you've given your daughter the same as you've given him over the years.

Do it one last time but set up a payment plan so he pays you back! He can’t just take take take and then make you feel bad

you need to wean him off it now

right now you are his default financial safety net, if he needs money he will just go to you and it is sorted

it can only end if you want it to end

It will be good for both of you if you cut this financial tie

no big explanations, no guilt, no talk about concert tickets, just : I have not got the money this month son.

And take yourself to a nice concert

you have to set him (and you) free

it’s time

My inlaws did this, it ended up with one child being in constant debt and needing bailouts and the other who felt sidelined because nothing was ever equal.

I think you also need to even things up with your daughter as much as you can. She's being punished for being responsible.

We will give our kids interest free loans between paydays/ Uni grants coming in, but they have to eventually pay us back. We also try and be fair to the 3 of them in terms of who gets what if we are gifting them anything. It is hard though.

I agree. OP, read back what @Springtimeinsunshine has posted. Can you see how ridiculous it is you financially supporting your 29-year-old son?

You should be focusing on having a good quality of life and (possibly) overpaying your mortgage so you’re in a good place when you retire.

You realise that’s a very financially abusive way he has with you. You want to talk to him before giving him the money so he decides that means you are treating him like a stranger…he is basically guilting you into giving him money.

Stop doing it! He is a grown up and he needs to take responsibility. If he needs money for his car he gets a loan with structured repayments. If he can’t make the repayments he goes on a plan to help him. You cannot just keep paying for him.

I get why you’d want to help, I wouldn’t see my son on the streets if it were me, but is it really as bad as that? It can’t be if he can book a trip just a few weeks or months earlier. He needs to learn financial responsibility.

No, she needs to cut the son off.

The balancing out of the money doesn’t need to be an extra stress for the OP right now, she is on a single income. That can come down the line with help for a wedding or a deposit on a home etc

He’s using guilt to extract money from you, he doesn’t care if giving him money means you struggle yourself. The weekend away and concert tickets will be just the tip off the iceberg on treating themselves with your money. You need to say that if he were a stranger you wouldn’t have gave him £2700 and you can’t give what you don’t have. I’d tell him that he and gf need to get a second job or cut down and live within their means.

Then she needs to talk about that. Silence will damage both relationships.

You giving him money is stunting him, it’s doing more harm than good and he isn’t learning how to manage on him and gf wages. He sounds a very entitled spoilt man who is only after your money with no concern towards you. He doesn’t have money problems he just says that for you to open your purse and pay to keep a relationship with him.

A couple with no children and both working FT shouldn’t really be short on money, they’re just not managing it properly - and there’s no reason to when he knows he can just come running to mummy.

I know people like that - they think they deserve what they can’t afford as if a lifestyle is a given and live in a state of perpetual debt.

You should listen to your mother and let him sort out his own finances.

He needs to be more financially resilient and build up an emergency fund instead of going to concerts and weekends away.

It is not your responsibility to finance his lifestyle.

Say no but if you feel guilty because if the lack of notice then Maybe give this last amount and say it’s a loan that need to be paid back as you need it for retirement. And there won’t be any more until it’s repaid. Make sure they stick to repayments. Don’t lend anything else until this has been paid back. No more free handouts and only one loan at a time if they are desperate.

I empathise. I have one that manages very well and one DC that seems not to be able to budget, and for whom there are financial crises.

I used to give the money to the latter but I began to realise that I was not helping, I was enabling. I now LEND, on terms, rather than give. Boundaries are important for the lender I think, as I know I began to feel that all I was good for was to touch up for cash. And that isn’t a good feeling. And the DC need to learn to budget too. And to respect what we do do for them not complain when we reasonably set a limit!

Well isn't he the manipulative one with his guilt tripping!

I'd never give him another penny as I could not support someone so financially irresponsible.

He should have had a £1K emergency fund, that would fund his urgent car repairs, and not touch it for anything else.

He's taking the piss with his concerts and weekends away and is giving you grief now as he has always assumed he can go to mumma to pay for his wants and needs.

If I were you, I'd listen to your mum and never give him another penny. I'd also ask him to start paying the £2700 back in monthly instalments.

He needs reminding that he's an almost 30yr old man, he should be embarrassed to be hitting his mother up for money regularly.

I'm actually embarrassed for him.

I agree. I was terrible at managing money at that age and although I was in debt, the only way I got out of it and learnt, was on my own. Had a parent helped all the time I would have carried on I’m sure.

Even if they're both on minimum wage, at 35 hours a week their gross salary between them is over £46k, over £3k a month take-home.

I suspect that's a significant amount over your income op, and yet they still can't save for emergencies like a car breakdown. Instead you're subbing them an additional £200+ a month, but your daughter is managing her (meagre, term time only) TA salary and not asking for a sub?

Nah. The concerts and weekends away need to stop until they've got some sort of rainy day fund established.

“he wasn’t going to spend his whole life sitting in the flat because he couldn’t afford to do anything.”

So he will have to work out how he can afford things, then - at the moment, he’s funding his fun times and leaving you to pick up the essentials.

“When I said I couldn’t just give him £600 without talking about how he was going to manage things going forward, he said he couldn’t believe I was treating him like a stranger.”

Did you point out that you don’t go round lending/giving strangers money running into thousands? Your DS has got used to asking and having you divvying up without asking too many questions, and he doesn’t like being called out on his profligacy.

As for the £600 - you could give him the £600 and make clear that this is absolutely the last time: he’ll have to sort himself out in the future

Or you could tell him he needs to learn to budget and that you simply don’t have the cash to keep bailing him out.

Or you could say yes, you’ll help him to get his car fixed but he’ll have to set up a direct debit to pay the money back.

Whether or not you help him out depends on how pressing is his need, and how far you are prepared to continue to subsidise him - but he needs to know that you are not a magic money tree and that at the age of 29 and living independently with his GF, he should be able to manage his own finances without recourse to his DM, and that you are not going to pay for his essentials and go without yourself so that he can afford luxuries.

I would offer to help sit down with them both and have a look at their budget to see if there’s something obviously awry. Also if they are both in relatively low incomes they may be entitled to some universal credit - they could use a calculator on Turn2Us to see if they qualify. But most of all I’d be turning down the next request for money on the grounds that things are a bit tight for you.