How should I handle oweing my parents?
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| Wed, 12-10-2008 - 8:43am |
I owe each of my parents $10,000 dollars. They are divorced. Both of my parents were previously in a position to lend me money but no longer are. I feel a lot of guilt knowing how badly they could use the money I owe them, but I have no way of starting to pay them back until my debt is payed off which should be in another year or less. My mom is 52 and she has 16,000 dollars in the bank and she recently bought a home and a car. Her goal is to pay both of those off before she retires. She has no retirement. My mothers problem is that she is afraid of investing. She makes a good amount of money as a nurse but she squirells her money away in a savings account and refuses to look at the stock market.
My father has maybe a small retirement fund, but I'm not sure about that. He works for himself and everything....EVERYTHING goes for the business in the hopes of someday striking it rich, I guess. He's run into some really hard times recently as he's in the construction business. I feel most guilty about oweing him money because he is struggling to pay his rent right now. He is 55 and had a stroke at 47 so i also worry about his health and how much longer he'll be able to work under the stress of not having any money. He is not good at saving at all.
My mother says that she doesn't want the money back. She just wants to see us on our feet again and out of debt. I have told my dad that I can start paying him back in a year. I am very serious about paying them both off though, no matter what my mom says.

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Pay back your Mom and pay back your Dad.
I see your point about having to pay taxes on it. I didn't think about that. Good point...but when I say my parents have nothing, I mean nothing! My mom is better than my dad and that's part of the reason she divorced him. She wanted something to call her own in her old age. But she has
Abbie,
As you have stated you are determined to pay them back here is my suggestion:
Once you are debt free and back on your feet, why not start a little fund for "the parents" like an emergency fund. Put money in it when you can, then, at the end of the year split the total down the middle and give each parent half. Some years it will be more, some years it will be less but hey you are trying! Include a line in your budget if you want to make a minimum and do your best. You could make them little ticker power Christmas cards say how much less you owe them.Then, in the next year you start over.
Only you know your family dynamics and what your parents expect back from you. But I would just pay them back and they can decide what to do with it. They may be irresponsible, but that is their problem. And if you end up taking care of them in their old age, you can view it as payback for the love and affection they gave you when they raised you. $10,000 won't make much difference to that one way or the other.
My parents "loaned" us money for periods of time when we were struggling, and I know they always considered it a loss - if we repaid it, great, and if we couldn't, they didn't expect us to anyway. When they sold their house several years ago, they even made a gift to each of their five children of a really substantial sum, and at one point my dad said he regretted not being able to give us enough to make a down payment on a house! Of course I told him it certainly wasn't his responsibility to compensate for my poor choices, like having children when I couldn't afford them and living in one of the most expensive areas of the country. We are truly blessed in what we have, and we were even when we were in serious debt.
Kelly
Abbie,
I would put paying off parents as the #1 priority, especially when it sounds like they are not in a situation where they can afford to eat the loss.
I'd say "separating financially from parents" as meaning different things to different people. Not everyone views complete independence as a great virtue.
Example: Most of my Italian-American girlfriends had parents who expected to pay for their college education, their wedding, and the down payment for their first home. Naturally they don't need to borrow from their parents, when they are comfortably living in a home they didn't have to save up for! In return, they expect that they will pay it forward and do the same for their children. Are they "separated financially" from their parents? I don't know, but I suspect it's not that important to them. That's *their* family dynamic, and it worked nicely for them. They were homeowners without debt in their early 20s, and they have great relationships with their parents.
My parents were much, much more concerned that their children and grandchildren have stable living arrangements than that they be paid back, since they never gave us what they couldn't afford. They looked at loaning and giving money to their adult kids as something close to a joy: they couldn't give us a comfortable childhood or expensive college education, so they were deeply satisfied to be able to help my sister and me buy our first houses. There are no strings attached, either. That's *my* family dynamic.
I just think it's important to remember that parent/child relationships are quite different from family to family. Incidentally, I interpreted Abbie's post as being "HOW and WHEN to pay back" not "SHOULD I pay back" - she was quite clear that she intends to.
Kelly
Carolyn, Abbie said in her first post: "I am very serious about paying them both off though, no matter what my mom says."
There are different ways to approach this, but she specifically said she wants to pay them back. I'm assuming, since your advice is always so good, that you must have just misunderstood.
Kelly
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