Unsure why I'm posting, guess I need a little rant!

Sammy_Dee

Backstory:-

My 17 yr old sister moved in with my husband and I 16 months ago. I am the oldest of 9 and my siblings range in age down to 7.
Mother and sister had a massive fallout. I've mentioned the details before so I wont go into it again.

Basically, for the 1st year we didn't claim anything for my sister (who was then just 16) as I wasn't sure we were entitled to anything, I subsequently found out that my mother was still claiming all the C.B and C.T.C and H.B for her ...

This stopped when my sister started college and as an estranged child she was awarded Income Support and currently gets circa £200 a month in 2 payments .. £100 a fortnight.

She is 17, doesn't have a job and this is the month she uses for bits and pieces.


Currently


My husband and I pay for her mobile phone which is £20 a month, obviously we pay all the household bills and utilities and buy the food for us all etc

When she first started getting the money it was agreed that she would pay £10 a week towards food and bills, this wasn't my husband and I being greedy; However we are like a lot of other people and feeling the pinch money wise.

So out of her £200, she gives us £40 and has £160 for herself. (Remember we pay her mobile so in fact she gives us £20 towards food etc)


Last night she had a right strop complaining that it wasn't fair, she had no money, etc etc
I pointed out that most teenagers don't have £200 a month to themselves and she replied with "most teenagers live with their parents."

She then complained that we never have food in the house, when I guess what she really meant was that we never have junk food in the house.
I do a monthly bulk shop and all the nice things get wolfed down in the first week. - There is always enough for sandwiches for college etc

I also saw that her mobile phone bill this month is £40, double what it is normally, as the billing system is via text, I don't get a hard copy so I pointed it out to her and she replied with "yeah I know" but she hadn't told me that she had gone over her limit ...

Top things off - her college report came back and its sketchy at best, seems like she's not applying herself, has been skivving quite a bit ...



I don't know why I'm posting, I guess I just need to vent, I'm not a mum, I never expected taking on a 16 yr old when I was 26 and a newlywed.
It's testing my limits at the moment and I think about how much nicer it would be without her here, I know that's awful because she is my sister and I love her, but she's really trying my patience.


thanks for reading!

Any advice as to how to deal with her would be appreciated.

mirrorimage0

sorry dont know what to repky but didntwant to read and run.

how about taking nothing of her and letting her pay her own mobile bill, and allocating her a cupboard and a shelf in the fridge so she can buy her own food for the month and see how much she moans then, she may realise just a lttle bit what you are doing for her

shelley_crow

Sit her down with all of your bills, she has to appreciate that nothing in this life comes for free. i suggest that you settle on an amount that would be fairer to you, maybe that she pays slightly more towards food and pays her own phone bill? She would be more careful with her allowances then.

Ultimately, she has the choice of living abiding by your rules and paying her way or she can go back to your mom. If she is shirking college then she has the choice of buckling down or finding a job, although don't let her quit college until she has a job.

As someone who really didn't get on with my mom, personally if I had had someone to move in with, I would have paid you whatever you asked and bl00dy well kept my head down. I suffered on until 18 until I had no choice but to leave. She doesn't know how lucky she is to have you.x

Tish_P

If she thinks living with you is so bad, I'd give her a diagram showing how the door works. £40 per week disposable income is more than a lot of people have.

edit: come to think of it, I was 25 before I had over £40/week left over after rent, food, phone and bills.

Sammy_Dee

Thanks mirrorimage - that is EXACTLY what I suggested last night, but she backed away from that idea pretty sharpish and replied with "don't be stupid."

She was late for college this morning and missed 2 lessons, really blaise about it "forgot to set alarm" was the excuse ...


I'm not happy

WestonDave

Be straight with her - tell her either to grow up, patch up her differences with your mother and go home, grow up and realise that you are not her mother so don't have to fund her - she needs to be a lot more realistic with her money, or carry on being a little git and find herself out on her ear for the second time.

Its understandable that as her sister you aren't viewing this as an entirely arms length deal whereby she has to meet all her costs including rent from her IS, but with £61k in debts you aren't in a position to let her take the proverbial either. So you need to have a conversation with her about her being mature enough to realise that she is potentially messing her life up by being lazy at college, has already screwed up her relationship with your mother, and is not going to be allowed to push you under financially as well.

As a started I would think its more than reasonable that she hands over at least half her IS for food and board, and takes over her own mobile contract out of the remaining amount. I know its not the old days but if you happen to read accounts of apprentices starting work and being found lodgings, the amount of free money they were left out of their wages was something like 5%! She's your sister but that cuts both ways - you are right to help her out, she is wrong to take you for a mug.

brians_daughter

I would ask her if she wanted to do it differently... she doesnt give you anything but pays her own phone and shopping bill... i give her 2 weeks until shes begging to go back to the old scheme.. or better still show her what extra its costing you... extra food, extra heating - i assume if shes skiving off college shes home on ths day when you 2 are at work so extra gas, elec. water (if on meter) costs?

She really doesnt realise what a good things hes on there! I have just seen your debts..and TBH you should be taking off her what she costs..end of

Or, we could swap..she can come live here with my hubby and i will live with you? lol... i will cook, clean and do all the laundry if my board was £20 pw

Sammy_Dee

Cheers Shelley,

She's well aware of all our bills as I'm very transparent with them in our house,

Hubby and I are overpaying circa £400 a month and snowballing our debts - she keeps making snide comments about that and suggesting we pay less and let her off the hook - but I'm not prepared to do that!

I want her to understand the value of money and not make the mistakes of our parents (both bankrupt due to their own indulging) (my debt is due to ex partner!)



Tish - it's exactly how I'm feeling at the moment! We live miles from my family though and she wouldn't have anywhere to go - so her education would suffer etc and I couldn't live with myself if she missed out because of this.



It's nice to see that I'm not the bad dragon she makes me feel like ... I'm not being warped in my view either, every now and then I do borrow £10 from her if I haven't got the cash on me but I ALWAYS pay it back.

Sammy_Dee

I'm feeling much better now!



Hubby and I have our own bills to pay and got our own debts to pay off - the biggest one is a loan I took out to buy my ex out of the property and I didn't want to remortgage (costs more in the long run) so that accounts for £40k of our debt, the rest is renovating my hubbys property that he rents out.


Our debts are manageable on our wages as we're lucky to be in steady good incomes (joint around £70k) But to me it isn't the point.




I would throw her back to my mum if it was a possibility, but mum has alcohol problems and is v abusive - long story but needless to say other agencies are aware and dealing with that .

Judith_W

I think you should remind her that most ppl in her situation would have rented a room in a house and be paying everything from her benefits without support from such a generous sister. Also - tell her that if she wants more spending money she should get a job like most college students! I was getting £30 from my parents at her age and that had to cover everything (apart from food and school books etc), so natually I got a weekend job to fund the rest.

PudseyDB

Sammy_Dee wrote: »

Backstory:-



This stopped when my sister started college and as an estranged child she was awarded Income Support and currently gets circa £200 a month in 2 payments .. £100 a fortnight.

She is 17, doesn't have a job and this is the month she uses for bits and pieces.


Currently


My husband and I pay for her mobile phone which is £20 a month, obviously we pay all the household bills and utilities and buy the food for us all etc

When she first started getting the money it was agreed that she would pay £10 a week towards food and bills, this wasn't my husband and I being greedy; However we are like a lot of other people and feeling the pinch money wise.

So out of her £200, she gives us £40 and has £160 for herself. (Remember we pay her mobile so in fact she gives us £20 towards food etc)


Last night she had a right strop complaining that it wasn't fair, she had no money, etc etc
I pointed out that most teenagers don't have £200 a month to themselves and she replied with "most teenagers live with their parents."

She then complained that we never have food in the house, when I guess what she really meant was that we never have junk food in the house.
I do a monthly bulk shop and all the nice things get wolfed down in the first week. - There is always enough for sandwiches for college etc

I also saw that her mobile phone bill this month is £40, double what it is normally, as the billing system is via text, I don't get a hard copy so I pointed it out to her and she replied with "yeah I know" but she hadn't told me that she had gone over her limit ...

Top things off - her college report came back and its sketchy at best, seems like she's not applying herself, has been skivving quite a bit ...

Any advice as to how to deal with her would be appreciated.

Your sister doesnt know when she's onto a good thing - considering you're paying her mobile for her, paying £5 a week just for food AND BILLS is nothing!!!!

And teenagers living with parents might get free food and wouldnt be expected to contribute towards bills, BUT would probably be expected to pay their own mobile fees (unless very generous parents!).

However, I think she's forgetting that an average 17 year old student living with parents wouldnt be getting £200 a month. If she wants more money, she needs to look for a part time job.