Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Athena and Elizabeth here. (It’s anonymous!)
Dear Pay Dirt,
I am a 27-year-old woman. I was raised with the knowledge that my parents and grandparents were comfortable and that I enjoyed a certain level of privilege as a result. I attended private schools, graduated university without debt, and was given a sizable deposit on a starter apartment which I share with a roommate. However, I also worked from the assumption that I would have to make my way in the world and had student jobs etc. like the rest of my peers and applied to the same job market as everyone else when I graduated. My grandfather recently passed away and left me a small fortune. It is enough that I could invest it and never work again. I love my job so I don’t want to do this.
My fiancé thinks this is what we should do. He is in a band and is a talented musician but they haven’t taken off yet. Even before this, he only worked 20 hours a week to concentrate on his music. He now wants to quit his job. He also balks at giving a portion away to charity, even though this is a family tradition I would like to continue. I have also noticed some other changes like him wanting to eat at more high-end restaurants and taking an attitude to servers that he didn’t before. Given that we both did this kind of work when we were students, I find his lack of empathy awful. We are engaged and I love him but I have concerns that his values have changed since we came into this amount of money. I’m thinking of calling off the wedding but I love him. Help!
—Has Money Changed Him or Me?
Dear Has Money Changed Him or Me,
I think your fiancé is taking for granted that your windfall is your shared money and not money that you inherited. There are a few things you have to work out for yourself and also together with him. First, you have to decide whether you are comfortable with a role where you are essentially subsidizing his career, and if you are, decide how long you’re willing to do that. I live in a part of Brooklyn I refer to as “Dad Band Land” because there seems to be a disproportionate number of people in their 30s and 40s who are professional full-time musicians in bands that are well known. Even among those who’ve “made it,” it’s a tough way to make a living. And just on a numbers basis, most people who are talented musicians never make it that far at all. So you need to have a serious conversation with your fiancé about what happens if the band doesn’t take off and what his plans are for that possibility. If he gives you some clichéd “failure is not an option” response to that, consider it a red flag. He needs a plan for what happens if his music career takes a long time to work or does not work at all, and this plan should not be contingent upon your willingness to use your inheritance to fund his ambitions.
Second, you need to have some consensus before you get married about your values and how your spending reflects them. I’m already a bit concerned about your fiancé’s values if you’re noticing that he lacks empathy now that he has a financial cushion. That’s a warning sign. And the fact that he did nothing to earn the money he now believes he’s entitled to makes it even more glaring. His disdain for philanthropic spending may be about a lack of concern for others as well. If this is how money affects him now, what would happen if the band takes off and he becomes famous? Fame and money don’t corrupt everyone but it’s certainly rare that they make people more empathetic and less self-centered.
One way to work through some of this is to go see a financial planner together and get a realistic sense of what you should be saving and investing once you’re married. Your fiancé’s ambitions are not the only factor here, and it may take a professional to drive that point home to him. He has no right to demand that you quit a job you enjoy or tell you that you can’t give money that is yours to charities. Your first priority should be making sure your inheritance offers you the financial security your grandfather probably intended when he left you the money. If after some planning for that, you have money leftover, then you can consider whether you want to be your fiancé’s artistic benefactor.
Regardless, you need to be aligned with regard to how you think about saving and spending before you walk down the aisle, and examine whether any disconnect on that front is about how you view your futures differently. If you see yourselves going in totally different directions, you should probably reconsider whether you’re right for each other in the long term. A marriage needs love to work, but also compatibility.
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Dear Pay Dirt,
I moved across the country for my dream job. I love it but the high cost of living here is gouging me. My family can’t seem to understand that. They think that because I make triple what they averagely do, I just have thousands of dollars lying around. They can’t get it through their heads that I can’t “just” pay for my parents to get a new roof or help my brother get a car. Last time I visited, I took the eight of us out to a nice restaurant and my sister-in-law invited her family to join us and expected me to pay for all 18 of them. And they were throwing back drinks like sinners on the last Sunday before the Rapture. It was a big, ugly incident because I refused to pay and they had to get out their own wallets. My sister-in-law said I was cheap and that I embarrassed her. She also recently sent me the kids’ Christmas wishlists and it’s all expensive items like gaming systems and dirt bikes. I am so sick of this and I have no idea how to respond other than ducking out of the holidays all together.
—Not Richie Rich
Dear Not Richie Rich,
I think you have to be blunt with your family and tell them you are not in any position to pay for these things. I live in New York City and my family lives in rural Alabama, where the cost of living is far lower, so I sympathize with your situation. It helps, however, that my family has a concrete sense of what that means because they see what it costs to rent an apartment here and when they visit on occasion, see how much my family pays for everyday basics. Transparency about costs probably won’t solve the problem, but it might mitigate it a bit.
In any case, you are not responsible for any of the things your family is trying to make you pay for. It sounds like they’re taking advantage of what they perceive as your good fortune instead of your hard-earned money, much of which goes right back out the door for housing. In the case of your sister-in-law, I think you should have a talk with your sibling about your situation and they should explain to your sister-in-law that while you plan to give their kids Christmas gifts, you are not Santa Claus and you have a budget just like everyone else.
You also need to set some boundaries with the rest of the family and say no when they ask. Tell them point blank that they seem to believe that you have more disposable income than you actually do, but also that you’re tired of being pressured to pay for things you can’t afford. Stress that you’re happy to try to help in ways that don’t involve spending money. If having a relationship with them is somehow contingent upon you picking up the check, that’s not much of a relationship—and if they’re angry that you won’t do it, I don’t think there’s much you can do to fix their inflated sense of entitlement. If you can, just wait it out until they get the point and stop asking you for money. The alternative is to keep spending at your own expense (literally and figuratively). It sounds as if your sister-in-law, in particular, wouldn’t be satisfied even if you did buy all of the dirt bikes and 18-person dinners.
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Dear Pay Dirt,
I am a stay-at-home mom of a 3-year-old and a baby. My sister-in-law and sister have 8-year-old daughters, “Emma and Emily,” and both work weekends. They depend on me for child care but I don’t get paid. In fact, no amount of money could keep me going. Emma and Emily are oil and water and fight like cats and dogs. I can’t turn my back for a minute without them having at each other. I ended up having to separate them to other rooms in the house and it makes it impossible for me to get chores or errands done. Their mothers are worse. They each claim the other girl is the problem and that I need to do something. The something is that I will only watch one girl at the time. They can figure out which weekend that is. So now my family and my in-laws are up in arms about it. My husband is in the military so there is little he can do since he’s on the other side of the world. I moved home expecting family support, not a family feud. Help!
—End of Rope
Dear End of Rope,
This week’s Pay Dirt theme appears to be family members (or soon-to-be family members) who believe they’re owed things they are not. In this case, your sister and sister-in-law have a lot of nerve. It’s not your job to take care of their kids and I don’t know how you do it on top of a 3-year-old and a baby while your husband is deployed.
You need to call a family meeting and inform your sister-in-law and sister that they need to figure out a permanent solution for weekend childcare that is not you. Emily and Emma are lovely children (I generally counsel people not to lie, but this is an acceptable one) but you are exhausted and this is not sustainable. Then you need to give them a deadline to have this problem solved for themselves, after which you are not going to be available to watch your nieces. Then—and this is the hard part—you have to enforce it. If you give them a deadline that’s six weeks out, remind them weekly that you’re not going to be available after that point. The weekend of the deadline, make plans to be out of the house and tell them about it, so they know you’re serious. Then leave the house so that if they show up thinking they’re going to bully you into it, they’re met with a locked door and no one home. Warn the relevant third parties that you’re going to do this. If they complain, you can tell them that you are exhausted and this is not your problem to solve. You did not sign up to parent four children by yourself, even just weekends. I doubt your sister and sister-in-law would appreciate it if you suddenly decided they were responsible for taking care of your 3-year-old and baby when they’re home, and I think it’s also fair to bring up the lack of reciprocation if they protest.
So here I’m going to give you the same advice I gave the letter writer above: Expect that your sister and sister-and-law are not going to like this decision, and in fact, may be angry about it. Let them get mad, and go about your business. Wait it out. Without you available to babysit, they will find a solution to the problem. They won’t have a choice. While they’re busy stewing, you can get your errands and chores done, and maybe even take a well-earned nap.
—Elizabeth
Classic Prudie
When I first met my husband, he made it clear that he never wanted children. I know it was wrong of me, but I wore him down: Seven years ago he became a very reluctant father, and we had another child three years later. It’s obvious now that we made a terrible mistake.
