Anonymous wrote:We have to support both set of our parents (my parents and my IL). We gave them twice as much as OP amount per month. Not to mention that two of my kids are in colleges. Retirement? Never. Will work until drop dead.

That is not viable for a lot of people - we will be let go at some age.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really sympathetic to you, it would suck to scrimp and save to only send money ot people who aren't careful with money.

Perhaps you can suggest to your husband that you pay smething specific for your inlaws - specific bills or something that is fixed.

ANd listen, my husband and I keep separate accounts. But I really hate your idea of separating your money, especially if you have been budgeting all together. It sounds like you're saying, I don't want MY money to go my husband's parents. And that just sounds petty. I think it would create resentment in him, and drive a larger wedge between you.

I do think if you are able to carefully budget together, then point out to him that his family is NOT budgeting, that perhaps he will see the light. Or perhaps not. But I think you need to get to an understanding of why your husband feels this obligation (and it's not a bad thing! you want to be married to a generous person!), and how you can meet this obligation without harming your own family.

PP here, I would not want my money to go to another family unless I had budgeting control for that family. I don't think that's petty, I think that's reasonable.

Yes it is petty. When you married, that became your extended family, not another family. There's something really wrong if you marry someone but still consider his/her family to be another family. If that's the case, you probably shouldn't have married.

Anonymous wrote:I am really sympathetic to you, it would suck to scrimp and save to only send money ot people who aren't careful with money.

Perhaps you can suggest to your husband that you pay smething specific for your inlaws - specific bills or something that is fixed.

ANd listen, my husband and I keep separate accounts. But I really hate your idea of separating your money, especially if you have been budgeting all together. It sounds like you're saying, I don't want MY money to go my husband's parents. And that just sounds petty. I think it would create resentment in him, and drive a larger wedge between you.

I do think if you are able to carefully budget together, then point out to him that his family is NOT budgeting, that perhaps he will see the light. Or perhaps not. But I think you need to get to an understanding of why your husband feels this obligation (and it's not a bad thing! you want to be married to a generous person!), and how you can meet this obligation without harming your own family.

PP here, I would not want my money to go to another family unless I had budgeting control for that family. I don't think that's petty, I think that's reasonable.

I would never scrimp on things for my kids in order to subsidize my parents or in-laws. If I work hard (and I do), my kids are going to be the ones to benefit.

I say this as someone whose in-laws live in a developing country and wouldn't dream of taking money from us if it meant our kids suffered (luckily, we can and do send what we can afford, which is much less than $300/month, though).

I am really sympathetic to you, it would suck to scrimp and save to only send money ot people who aren't careful with money.

Perhaps you can suggest to your husband that you pay smething specific for your inlaws - specific bills or something that is fixed.

ANd listen, my husband and I keep separate accounts. But I really hate your idea of separating your money, especially if you have been budgeting all together. It sounds like you're saying, I don't want MY money to go my husband's parents. And that just sounds petty. I think it would create resentment in him, and drive a larger wedge between you.

I do think if you are able to carefully budget together, then point out to him that his family is NOT budgeting, that perhaps he will see the light. Or perhaps not. But I think you need to get to an understanding of why your husband feels this obligation (and it's not a bad thing! you want to be married to a generous person!), and how you can meet this obligation without harming your own family.

In your situation, I would very much begrudge the money. If your budget is that tight, you should be saving for emergencies, not helping extended family who could further economize. Emergencies might include an emergency assist to the ILs, but not a monthly check that is theirs to use as they please. I agree with the PP that you and DH need to really sit down with your budget and talk about how your savings is dwindling rather than growing. That's not a good place to be.

OP here - I'm actually relieved to hear that others make big sacrifices to send money to their in-laws and family. We have a very tight budget, so I find it pretty frustrating when we are forgoing all indulgences (that sounds awful, it's not like we need it - at this exact moment, an indulgence would be getting a $10 pizza once a month).

DH always argues that they need the money to eat and that I want to take food out of their mouths , but when I go grocery shopping with them it feels like it's a free for all - they get whatever they want, whereas I scrounge to get the cheapest prices on everything so that we won't spill into our savings. Then, when we do have something come up (i.e. dentist bill) or go overbudget it's directly from our savings because we don't have any wiggle room.

Once our kids are out of daycare things will definitely not be as tight - am I wrong to be frustrated by this? I love my in-laws, don't get me wrong - and I want to help them and help them age comfortably, but I really want to make sure my family is on solid ground in case of an emergency too. I love the responses and perspectives above, thanks for letting me know that there are a lot more of us out there

Anonymous wrote:Believe me, I understand. Before the kids were born, we had much more disposable income and $300/month was easy for us. So we sent money to my MIL. After the kids (twins) were born, suddenly we now have $3000 of daycare expenses a month, clothing, food, etc for four instead of two and suddenly our fairly large disposable income is pretty meager. We kept it up for close to 2 years and finally our sister in law came to visit, saw how close we were keeping things and finally got it through to us that we really shouldn't be subsidizing MIL. While she is living on retirement income, she was doing pretty well. She flies around regularly, to a church convention this month, a knitting weekend next month, to visit her sister, etc. She flies to different cities at least every other month and in the last three years has been out of the country twice. While we're buying our kids second hand clothing and baby gear to keep within our means. So we finally opted to discontinue subsidizing my MIL. It was a hard decision for me as a husband and father to admit that I couldn't afford to pay for everything when I had always had plenty of disposable income to afford everything, but the kids have doubled our monthly expenses.

What you need to do is lay out a monthly family budget, allocate the money for each month and then let him propose what to cut out of the monthly budget in order to send more money to his parents. Both of you have to be on-board with what gets cut (he can't just unilaterally say that you're going to cut out date night to fund more money to his parents, but he can give up his cell phone plan, or his golf club membership or whatever that is only his to control). I can tell you that the guy mentality here is often to just spend the money because you "know" that you can afford it, but until you look at the numbers in black and white and see just how much everything costs itemized and added together, it doesn't sink in that you can't always afford everything and to change the equation, you have to take money from pot A to give to pot B.

You did the right thing. Biology flows downhill: Our resources SHOULD go to the next generation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/opinion/02brooks.html

One of the keys to healthy aging is what George Vaillant of Harvard calls “generativity” — providing for future generations. Seniors who perform service for the young have more positive lives and better marriages than those who don’t. As Vaillant writes in his book “Aging Well,” “Biology flows downhill.” We are naturally inclined to serve those who come after and thrive when performing that role.

You have the right to know their budget (and approve of it) and see their tax returns - every year. If they accept money from others, they are going to lose some privacy, and most of all, they should lose some power in decision-making on how their/your money is spent. They will age. They will need more money. You will need more and more control. You better fix this dynamic.

Believe me, I understand. Before the kids were born, we had much more disposable income and $300/month was easy for us. So we sent money to my MIL. After the kids (twins) were born, suddenly we now have $3000 of daycare expenses a month, clothing, food, etc for four instead of two and suddenly our fairly large disposable income is pretty meager. We kept it up for close to 2 years and finally our sister in law came to visit, saw how close we were keeping things and finally got it through to us that we really shouldn't be subsidizing MIL. While she is living on retirement income, she was doing pretty well. She flies around regularly, to a church convention this month, a knitting weekend next month, to visit her sister, etc. She flies to different cities at least every other month and in the last three years has been out of the country twice. While we're buying our kids second hand clothing and baby gear to keep within our means. So we finally opted to discontinue subsidizing my MIL. It was a hard decision for me as a husband and father to admit that I couldn't afford to pay for everything when I had always had plenty of disposable income to afford everything, but the kids have doubled our monthly expenses.

What you need to do is lay out a monthly family budget, allocate the money for each month and then let him propose what to cut out of the monthly budget in order to send more money to his parents. Both of you have to be on-board with what gets cut (he can't just unilaterally say that you're going to cut out date night to fund more money to his parents, but he can give up his cell phone plan, or his golf club membership or whatever that is only his to control). I can tell you that the guy mentality here is often to just spend the money because you "know" that you can afford it, but until you look at the numbers in black and white and see just how much everything costs itemized and added together, it doesn't sink in that you can't always afford everything and to change the equation, you have to take money from pot A to give to pot B.

How my husband treats his mom is an example I can look at for how he does and will treat me.

Assuming we had the money, and the recipient wasn't using it to buy drugs or something harmful (I don't expect my husband to expect my mom to be financially impeccable and I don't expect his mom to be financially impeccable. But I do expect them to be _responsible_ when they're receiving financial assistance from us.) I'm fine with it.

If I had concerns, I'd sit down with my husband and our budget, and we'd talk it through. I'd let go of "but but I WANT that money" while I listened to his reasons. I might negotiate. E.g. "Your mom is financially secure with the amount we're giving her currently, but I hear that you want her to be able to splurge, and that you feel she's living a bit too tightly. I'm uncomfortable increasing the payment more than $50/mos. What if we did that, but also set aside $100/mos and gave her a birthday bonus every year?" There might be other ways to meet everyone's needs with some creative thinking.

We have to support both set of our parents (my parents and my IL). We gave them twice as much as OP amount per month. Not to mention that two of my kids are in colleges. Retirement? Never. Will work until drop dead.

Anonymous wrote:DH and I both work, he makes more money than I do - just our choice of fields and that is not going to change.

We always send money to my in-laws and I am ok with it to a certain extent - they made some poor investments at times and now it's just too late in life to make that money up again for retirement. I know they would help us with anything that they would ever be able too. They have some steady income and we send at least $300/month and DH is constantly harassing me to make it more. I understand his want to help out mom & dad...but when is enough, just enough? I want us to have separate accounts and handle different bills based on our income so that he can choose how much he wants to send based on what he's got left - he hates that idea. Thoughts?

Has he explained why he hates that idea? It seems rational and fair to me.

Do you know what your ILs' finances look like (generally) and how much money they truly need from you?

We're in a similar situation, giving money to husband's parents. The gauge I use is what do they need the money for? Husband and I are very careful about our expenses, and try to spend as little as we can on ourselves. Why am I sacrificing a date night to watch a movie at home so that his mother can go to the casino? There have been times when I've had to bring this up to him. We do pay their utility bills directly and pay for almost all repairs on their house. I'd be willing to give them more if they truly needed it. But often it's just because they are short money at the end of the month. I also think they run out of money often because they send it to husband's sister who is very irresponsible with her money.

How much does your husband want to increase it to?
I do recommend to try as much as you can to work this out before you go the road of separate accounts. Working through some of this stuff has often brought my husband and I closer - after we drudge through the ickiness of the conflict.

DH and I both work, he makes more money than I do - just our choice of fields and that is not going to change.

We always send money to my in-laws and I am ok with it to a certain extent - they made some poor investments at times and now it's just too late in life to make that money up again for retirement. I know they would help us with anything that they would ever be able too. They have some steady income and we send at least $300/month and DH is constantly harassing me to make it more. I understand his want to help out mom & dad...but when is enough, just enough? I want us to have separate accounts and handle different bills based on our income so that he can choose how much he wants to send based on what he's got left - he hates that idea. Thoughts?