There was an interesting Question and Answer on Slate the other day about helping family members who perhaps aren’t as financially stable. The asker is doing well, financially speaking, but some of her siblings are not, and some really struggle. She wanted to know how she should best help them out – according to their needs or everyone getting an equal amount.
First off, the key here is that the asker wants to help her family, she doesn’t feel obligated. It’s an iffy situation as to whether or not there’s any sort of obligation to help family in dire financial straits. I think it really depends on the situation, but here, she feels no obligation.
I like the answer. If you want to give money to family but aren’t sure how best to distribute, freedom from want of necessities should be the priority. Make sure people have food and shelter. After that, it’s up to you.
Family and money are very hard. My parents have always been all about fairness. When I was moving to D.C., my brother was in the process of buying a house, and my parents were helping him out with loans (which he has already paid back) and a small gift. I thought this was great, and so nice of them, and never worried about the fact that he was getting something I wasn’t. When my move was complete, my parents handed me a check equal to what they had given him, because that made it fair, and they knew that I had some big expenses with the move. It was incredibly nice of them, but definitely unnecessary. They just didn’t want to create any animosity (plus I think they liked that they could help me out a bit too).
Loaning money to family is always questionable, just because of the difficulties it can cause, so if possible, it’s always best if those loans are treated as gifts, or at least thought of as gifts (and then you can be happily surprised when your family member pays you back). And gifts can cause animosity between those receiving gifts and those not receiving gifts. But I would like to think that when a family member is struggling to buy food and another family member very kindly gifts them some money for groceries, that a third family member wouldn’t sulk because they didn’t get anything. But you just never know.
I feel comment-happy today – usually I lurk, but I’ve got something to say about Everything! HA…my mom (widowed) is extremely fair to the point of pain sometimes. 2 years ago, my uninsured younger brother had an emergency appendectomy – putting him into $15K of medical debt. Mom had the money, paid the bills and sent us other three of siblings checks for $15K, $45K that we felt no entitlement to have and didn’t need. None of us cashed the checks and gave them back to her in a Christmas card – seriously, because one of your kids went through a trauma that could have wrecked his finances, doesn’t mean my 63 year old mom should short her retirement/savings by such a big chunk! Baby bro (who was 22 at the time of the surgery) feels a little guilty about the money and keeps trying to pay mom back, but he didn’t realize (until we told him!) 1) sis and I both had similarly costing weddings 2) other brother lived with mom well into his late 20’s saving 10,000’s on rent (like average rent at $500 X 7 years = 42K?!) 3) what goes around comes around and 4) feeling ‘guilty’ is just a sign that he’s becoming a fiscally responsible adult who wants to handle his obligations! oh, and 5) he lives closest to said mom and will be handling her day-to-day if anything should happen.
I agree with the article – if you want to help family without appearing unfair, pay for food for their table and keep their lights on – but above that you do sometimes have to play politics and hope your family is apprciative/understanding of your choices.
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