How do I balance paying for my mother’s expenses as well as my own?
I am a 26 year old guy from Ohio. I am paying $767 for rent, about $100 for utilities, around $300 per person for food, and giving my mother $125 allowance and $250 for household expenses.
I have been paying for my mother’s (60 y/o) expenses since I was 22 and graduated with a bachelor’s in CS. I can afford it (currently making $130k a year as a senior SWE in low cost of living), but my living situation is about to change.
I am moving in with my long-term girlfriend in May, where we will be sharing expenses 50/50.
Due to my Mom not making any money (thyroid issue + rightfully separating from my father 4 years ago), I will be holding 2 apartments and paying for all of her expenses while trying to start a family of my own.
I’m conflicted because I can easily afford both, and she knows it, but I feel that it’s not right anymore. She basically made it her job to take care of my apartment and tend to my every need (laundry, food, literally any other chores) and strongly discouraged me from doing any of this myself. I love and like my mother, but I feel I am enabling her not to work. At the same time, I feel like 60 is too old to be working and she can’t possibly reach a decent retirement. I want to help, but I don’t want to do it all anymore, especially since the dynamic has changed.
She doesn’t drive and stays home all of the time and is reliant on me to take her anywhere, including the store. She could walk but chooses not to due to health scare. I have tried to buy her a smart phone multiple times but she refuses to learn how to use it (feels she can’t). I worry for her safety when I am not around, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep leading dual lives.
How can I balance this so that it is fair? Knowing that I can afford to continue to support her makes it harder for me to do what I think needs to be done, which is potentially a bit of a crackdown on making sure she is trying to work at least some.
tl;dr Moving soon. Keeping apartment for Mom who is in bad health but not bad enough to not work. What should I be paying for?
1 comment
Your mom needs to apply for any and all government aid and other social services you guys can find. There are generally services available, especially for something like food and housing. You should also look at getting her on a list for low income housing ASAP, that way her rent will become a set percentage of her income, instead of an ever increasing market rate. It might take a while to get in, but in the long term it will be necessary.
Also, if she can work then she should be. To at least pay some of the bills. Its one thing to help your mom out, it’s another to fully support her. If she works with her doctor and its determined that she cannot work, then she should be able to apply for some kind of disability pay. And if she cant/wont work, her “job” should be to take advantage of all free things that are available so that she is minimally reliant on you.
She is an adult and needs to be responsible for herself. Unfortunately you set yourself a precedent that you will pay for her, but this change in stage of life is an excellent time to set boundaries. Both in terms of financial support and in terms of doing things for her.
Once you have exhausted all of your options for assistance, sit down and do up a budget with her. If she cant or is unwilling to work, then she will have to understand that she will need to live a very frugal and modest lifestyle. My suggestion is that the budget should be built that she takes care of all of her day to day expenses herself. Either through services or working or whatnot. And you can help her with unexpected expenses.
The doing things for her boundary will also be one to set. Not sure what your mom is like. But it shouldn’t be a case of her daying jump and you saying how high. Maybe every thursday night you take her to do her running around and she comes to your place every or every other sunday dinner. And other than that she has to walk, take the bus, see if she can get a ride with friends, etc.
This comes as the spouse of someone in a similar position to you. Just add in a (very large) dash of mental health issues and a giant pile of entitlement to the money of others and some weaponized incompetence and gaslighting. So some of this is definitely projecting my own experience, so take from it what you will.