Dear Queenie,
My husband’s parents and brothers and sisters always seem to be broke, or at least short of money, and they always come to my husband for a “loan” that they never get around to paying back.
A few of them have jobs and can support themselves and still always seem to need more money, but the others depend on us and on government assistance and charity.
My husband has a good job and earns a good living and he says we are blessed to be able to help them out. I say they should try harder to help themselves. Maybe if he didn’t give them money when they ask for it, the ones without jobs would actually start looking for work.
As it is, we do not live as well as we could if my husband were not helping his family so much.
Queenie, am I being too stingy?—Fed-up wife
Dear Wife,
Generosity may be a good thing, but it can become a fault if carried to an extreme. Your husband is not doing his family members any favour by helping them out so much that they have no incentive to become financially independent of him.
Perhaps you and he together can set up a budget that includes a specific amount that he can use to help out his family and when that is used up he will just have to say “no” to any requests for any kind of financial assistance – including co-signing a loan or being in any way responsible for credit-card payments.
