Abby Connolly
Helping out a family member when they’re having financial problems is a really noble thing, but it can also come with a lot of emotional baggage.
One woman recently had to tell her mother-in-law that she and her husband would not be helping her with mortgage payments on her second house, and now she’s wondering if she’s being too harsh.
She and her husband are in their 30s. Around five years ago, they decided to move away from their home state and begin their lives together. After working hard for about a year, they were able to purchase their first home.
They haven’t had kids yet, so they can focus on their finances. They want to stay on track with their mortgage payment and continue to pay off some student loans. It’s really important to them to stay financially savvy, so they’ve been careful not to spend money on anything that’s not completely necessary.
For instance, she’s been driving the same old car that struggles to run for years to avoid purchasing a new one.
She and her husband recently found out that her mother-in-law would like to buy a second home in their new state. However, it would only be like a vacation home, as she’d only stay there whenever she visited them, typically around 4-5 times a year.
She found this odd, as her mother-in-law could easily get to them by a six-hour car ride or a one-hour flight.
During her last visit with them, her mother-in-law asked her husband if they could help her with the mortgage payments on her new house. After crunching the numbers, she realized that she couldn’t afford it all on her own.
“I told him I would not be agreeing to any of this until we take a good hard look at our finances,” she explained.
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