How much to spend on MIL?

[FIPPIN]

My future MIL is a wonderful and generous woman who recently gave us a substantial monetary gift to get us onto the property ladder and contribute to our wedding. Thanks to her help we were able to buy a small three bed but as a result we also have a huge mortgage.

DP and I are not spenders. While we love doing fun things, we just always prioritise saving as we are not high income and want to have a child after our wedding (which has gone over budget by £5k!)

Future MIL is coming to visit us for 16 days arriving this week. While wealthy her husband has a similar mindset to us and they limit doing fun things. So whenever she's away from him she can easily get over excited and go crazy. She is not from the UK so everything here is too expensive. She is coming to help a bit with out new property. I believe she will expect that she comes and pays for her flight but we front most of the costs once she's here.

The things she has sent me that she wants to do are in the hundreds of pounds and if we do it all over a thousand.

Professional theatre show £75pp and there are 3 of us. 8 course tasting menu £95pp. Massages £65pp. Escape room £105 for the room. Axe throwing £35pp. Bottomless brunch £40pp. There are lots of restaurants too.

We just never do anything like this. We eat out once a month for £30-40 total and just buy a main each. She will order cocktails and desserts etc.

I feel sick thinking about the cost. But she has been so generous to us that i wonder if we should just suck it up? Communication around this in the past has been challenging as she will appear to understand then order lots of food while DP and i order a salad.

DP thinks we should just do what she wants as she never gets to have much fun. I think we should set a budget. I'm thinking £400. which is still eye watering. DP says we can only really do two things in the 16 days here with that budget.

We have £10k in savings but are not due to add anything to savings in the next 12 months while we pay off wedding and home etc. So anything we spend would be from this pot.

what sort of budget would you set for MIL visit in this instance, excluding all the supermarket food which we will be proving anyway?

This is what happens when relatives buy into your lives.

Money always comes with strings imo .

A substantial monetary gift?

She isn't poor and can pay her own holiday?

Discuss with her what you can spend and pay for you. If it's £400 - that's it. And be firm. Or you will have this going on for years.

Money always blunder things.

The problem when you take money off a relative is that it always comes with strings attached. Sorry op but you bought it on yourself you will forever be in her debt unless you repay her.

i believe FIL has told MIL to stop spending on these things. Its a different culture.

Thanks for the suggestions MIL. Unfortunately all of those things are waaaay outside our usual budget and we just can't afford it.

Looking forward to seeing you soon.

Love

Fippin

How sure are you that she will expect you to pay for everything? This might be worth clarifying first.

If DH is too weedy to tell her, don’t discuss it with him.

Respond to her saying you can only afford to do two things from her list, which two things would she like to choose.

This-you’d be mad spending your savings on this. I’d ring your husband’s dad if you’re really worried-he can speak to her too.

You’re not there to be a cash point for her frivolous holiday.

Tell her there will be no grandchildren if you had to spend all your savings on restaurants and shows.

What makes you think she expects this? Tell her no.

Your wedding has gone £5k over budget-how much are you spending??

I’d echo what others have said and tell her that doing all the activities is beyond your budget, but… I’d also stretch your budget further by limiting each activity to MIL plus either you or your DH.

there are slight cultural differences which are very sexist. FIL earns the money so he pays for MIL when hes there. DP is the son so he pays when FIL isn't there and he is. FIL still funds the daughters but not the sons. DP is very western in his way of thinking. But in his culture as the male he would be expected to pay.

Dear MIL, whilst all that sounds wonderful we are on a tight budget with the upcoming wedding, home renovation and moving costs. We would love to treat you to one or two of these things, what would you like to do most and we can schedule a day out each week around working in the house and local walks, coffee etc.
Really looking forward to seeing you, can’t wait to show you the house!
Love future DIL 😇

a substantial monetary gift to get us onto the property ladder and contribute to our wedding... as a result we also have a huge mortgage.

DP and I are not spenders....we love doing fun things,and want to have a child after our wedding (which has gone over budget by £5k!)*

Colour me skeptical this is very my diamond shoes are too tight type stuff...
oooh we are such virtuous savers

• How much are you actually spending on the fancy wedding...?

-How much specifically did she give you...?Because her "asks" are £500 - £1k which is prob a good deal if you go anything over 20k

We also love doing fun things (like the things your Mil suggested) and spend our money on that ...not a 5k dress and 4k on flowers for one day etc....

You dont have to say yes to the deluxe version of everything she wants but you need to say yes to some / most of it.
Strategically its a good idea to position ot as "lets save aome of these activities for next time because theres some stuff we'd like to show you" and these these are cheaper activities.

How has your wedding gone £5k over budget?!

spoiling your future MIL and having a good relationship with her would be a better use of money IMO (not all £5k obviously). You can also cut costs by just one of you doing some things with her - he could take her to the theatre and you could get a massage with her

So she doesn’t do loads of expensive fun things when she’s at home because her husband is careful with money, but she expects your husband to NOT be careful with his money so that she can do them in England?

You just need to explain that, like her husband, you are sensible with cash and you can’t afford it.

If she doesn’t understand that, then she’s really not a lovely woman, she is a very selfish one.

I do think it's a little bit hypocritical to describe yourself and DH as low spenders when you've gone over budget on your wedding by £5k! Couldn't you cut back on that at all?

That aside, I think it's ok to look for compromises here and do some but not all of MIL's list. I like the suggestion of a pp that you could save money by not all of you doing everything - one of you takes her to the theatre and the other to axe throwing? And just her for the massage.

I think as others have suggested DH takes his Mum to the theatre and you do massage with her. There are often good spa days on Woucher that are good value and would take all day. Look for restaurants with offers on certain days eg. My favourite Italian has an offer on all pasta dishes and pizzas on a Sunday as it is a slower day. Midweek days are sometimes cheaper as are lunch times as opposed to evenings. You can tell Mil you don't have enough money to do all the things she'd like to do as the wedding is costing a lot and your mortgage will be high. Tell Mil you will be saving so she can have a DGC.

we went over budget by estimating lots of costs around what our friend paid. Only to find she paid in 2021 where everything had a covid discount on it. So her photographer was £650 for the day, the ones we found were over £1k.

I planned to use my mums old dress but we found moths had gotten to it.

My friend worked at a cake shop and could get us 50% off but she was made redundant.

The venue went up in price quite significantly from when we first looked four years ago. Of the 8 venues we looked at it was still the third cheapest.

Due to new relationships we have had to invite 4 new people.

So its costing....? 20k? 30K? What?

I make over 100k but my financial priority was a 13m mat leave and a new kitchen... our wedding was under 10k in 2020. We did a town hall with a restaurant- that £££ included everything, photographer, my dress, his suit and wedding bands...our cake was £150 cake from lola's.

Bluntly you arent able to financially support yourselves / sound are unable to earn well. Given that, it would behoove you to ingraciate yourself with your mil to ensure the taps stays running... take her out to at least some of it.... enjoy it and consider it "an investment in your future".... Its going to be money better spent than on the wedding ....

I get where you’re coming from, but also if your PIL have given you lots of money I think it’s fair to splash the cash when your MIL comes over. I imagine that they gave you a lot more than £1k.
If it were me I would book 2 or 3 of the things she has suggested and then hunt carefully for other fun things that are cheaper. There are loads of deals like First Table, or free museums and art galleries. You can often get 241 deals with train travel, for example, or clubcard deals for entry to places. Buy a national trust membership and visit places of historic interest. Plan lots of things to do, so you are not endlessly turning down her suggestions, but instead fill the time with cheaper alternatives.

If you pay you get to choose the activities.

The wedding was meant to be £12k but has gone up to £17k. They have given us alot more than this. Enough to cover all the deposit and a chunk of the wedding. We spent all our savings on rennovations and the rest is ear marked to plug the gaps.

I think i'm worried about just how much it will cost. MIL is an all meals out kind of person. Breakfast lunch and dinner if possible and all the drinks and snacks inbetween. It will be easy to go through the whole budget in 2 days even if i subtly steer.

It sounds like your PIL have given you help
totalling tens of thousands. If you really didn’t have this money of course it would be unreasonable to then get into debt to splurge on her trip. It sounds like you do though and just want to prioritise saving instead of treating the person who has been so generous to you.

Perhaps limit all the little “non-special” meals out which will add up very quickly and spend on experiences she will remember such as the theatre and tasting menus. Could you let her have mother/son time for some of these to reduce costs? And then you and her go for a massage? Or you treat her to one and meet afterwards?

Weddings are expensive so I understand the worry but, speaking as someone who has never and never will receive any kind of financial help like that at any point, I would be inclined to be generous back. Think about how little you’d be able to save if you had needed to fund a wedding and house deposit yourself! It’s ok to dip into it a little as thanks to the situation you are now in.

i think its just come at a bad time where we have watched our savings go all the way down and down to £10k and thats the point where i refused to go lower even though the rennovations aren't finished and we have no sofa. While i will spend on MIL i need a strict budget and to not go over it

Really sad for you that the wedding dress you were planning to wear got eaten by moths, that must have been really gutting

@RatsCatsandPuppies tbh i was wearing it because it was free, so i wasn't emptionally gutted but now had to spend money i wasn't planning on. My mum wasn't too attached to it either