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The one help you can offer if they are hopeless with money, get them somebody who can be objective and detached to explain simple budgeting to them, usually it is not easy, lots of denial due to sense of entitlement, but it will take pressure of you and sooner rather than later they will have to.
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Mysteryshopper Jun 2022
You are so correct. I used to teach budgeting to people and I'd always start with having them tell me their income and expenses. It was practically a daily occurrence to have someone list $2000 monthly income and $3300 in monthly expenses. And then they'd look at me like "what?" I'd explain they either need to cut expenses or increase income and any suggestion I gave them to do just that was rejected by them. The entitled response I'd frequently get from the person was "I thought YOU were supposed to help me." Most were the type where even if I handed out money (which my agency did not) they'd be in the same boat a year later but with $3300 income and $5000 expenses per month. Unreal.
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Personally, I'd do nothing, including making lists of places she can turn to for services. Once you help a little, you'll get sucked in more and more.

I'd simply say, "You didn't plan for your retirement? Neither did I."
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Please try not to spend ANY money on them. Your mom will expect more. Your money is YOUR money. Maybe she can spend some of her "few thousand dollars" into paying an elder care attorney to try to cash out the reverse mortgage, as someone else recommended.

But with an autistic son to raise by yourself and a job, you don't have the time nor the responsibility to be ferrying her all over town. She is gaslighting you that YOU cost her. She chose to go on vacations with you, and maybe the gymnastics and horse riding lessons were to look good and fit in with her social circles activities with their children. Narcissists make it ALL about themselves. She may throw tantrums about your being ungrateful and selfish, but that's also manipulation. A friend of mine had a very narcissistic husband, and after 17 years had developed a very low self-image. The only thing that made her leave him was his throwing their teenage daughter across a room.

And as for the defense attorney and the rent money, do you think she did that out of love for you or out of a desire to use that against you in the future, save face in front of her friends? Maybe she felt good about being the "hero" in that situation? I don't trust the motivations of narcissists.

Your brother and you can have a unified front. Don't let her come for just one of you.
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Texasscapegoat: Just because your mother has decided to live a 'cash poor' lifestyle, does not mean you have to back her and her husband up. Perhaps you would do yourself a favor by retaining an elder law attorney. She wasn't even savvy enough to turn a profit on the purchases and sales of those properties.
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Just a couple of different comments:

1) Next time your mother reminds you of your childhood, ask her if she would like a couple of horse riding or gymnastic sessions. Fair’s fair.

2) Don’t be angry with your step-sister. Tell her the situation and ask her if she will take responsibility to sort out her father and his wife. Of course she won't, but it’s just the same as you doing the same for your mother and her husband. Present a united front! Share the dramas! Telling your mother what she says might help to get the message across.
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