I am an early 20s college grad living in the Midwest. My mom has never been the best at handling her finances (I’m fairly certain she’s been in significant, worsening debt to every type of lending agency under the sun for as long as I’ve been alive). I discovered she had around ~$10,000 in debt/collections right before I began college four years ago. About two years ago, my grandfather/her father passed away and she inherited a decent amount of money and investments from him, but I was never really told how much. But it was enough for her to 1) pay for a new SUV in cash, 2) eat out/have food delivered nearly every night, and 3) move into/pay the deposit on a more expensive apartment than the one she had lived in previously. I don’t think she put any of it towards paying off her debt. To her credit, she is very generous and helped me out when I was having issues with my school funding and stipend disbursement, which of course I’m extremely grateful for.
Her spending habits have pretty much remained the same for the past two years, up until February/March of this year. She came to me asking if I could borrow $2000 from a small fund my grandparents have invested intended for each of their grandchildren’s education, or in my case if I decide to go on and get a masters; apparently she had taken out multiple payday loans and title loans on her car. I obviously didn’t feel comfortable with this, as I’d have to lie about the reason I was withdrawing the money from the account to my grandparents, so I told her that was something I couldn’t do. Instead, I gave her as much as I could out of my own savings (literally all of it since I didn’t have a full-time job as a student, about $1000) so she could pay her rent and eat. I also had her ask HR to start depositing her paycheck onto a special debit card, since the payday lenders automatically take essentially her entire paycheck from the account her paycheck used to be deposited in.
About every week since then, she has been requesting money for food/gas/etc. Small amounts around $20-$40. This doesn’t sound like much, but I’m in the process of securing a full-time job now that I have a degree and have had barely enough hours at my current student job to pay my own bills. I’m behind on basically everything at this point, my credit score has dropped, and I’ve been stressed beyond belief. I want to help her in a way that might actually fix her situation long-term. From what I understand, her options are:
A) Credit consolidation service - a few months ago I researched local credit counseling services and found a highly rated organization that was close to where she lives. She went to an appointment there but was told she’s about $450 short in monthly income to afford their services. I expect to be employed full time in the next month or so, so I could probably fill in the gap and help her afford this. I absolutely want to help her, but 450+ per month from me would still be a pretty significant chunk of my expected paycheck (I didn’t get a very technical degree, unfortunately).
B) Bankruptcy - she really doesn’t have any assets, so aside from the upfront cost (around $2000, from what I’ve read) I feel like this might be her best option. Again, she has a ton of outstanding debt and a crappy credit score to begin with, so I don’t think the consequences of filing would worsen her situation any.
Unfortunately she seems to think that having her paycheck deposited on a card her lenders can’t touch and having me fill in the gaps is a solution, even though I try to explain that it’s not. Not because I’m selfish - I love my mom and truly want to help - but eventually, her car will be repossessed and neither of us could afford to replace it. I have a feeling this will continue to be a problem for the rest of her life, and I don’t want our relationship to be based solely on my ability to support her (this is how her and my grandfather’s relationship was when he was alive, and it was toxic).
Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks for reading.
Submitted June 10, 2019 at 06:00PM by feste_mm http://bit.ly/2WxClgx
