Should I bail my daughter out again?

seemskerfuddled

Of course you should help her - she's your daughter for goodness sake. Just keep explaining to her that she MUST take responsibility for her spending and eventually it will sink in. Good Luck!

Max2802

Yes you should, but you should aim to have this money paid back over a period of time. Establish your daughter's outgoings, including an agreed amount to repay your loan and compare these to her income. Look where savings can be made on outgoings. Get your daughter to go to Citizens Advice for money management advice.

If she refuses to adhere to the above, refuse to bail her out.

nearlyrich

I have helped my children over the years but I think the best thing I gave them was the experience of budgeting their own spending money and school dinner money bus fares etc from when they started secondary school. That was a great experiment and worst case scenario they would have to make a sandwich from home or walk home if they spent up. I would be very loath to bail out a 23 year old who didn't seem to have any idea about budgeting but as a mum I probably would with a clear repayment plan.

minicooper272

dillydilly wrote: »

ooh, rude, and harsh...
given only 30% of houses have a mortgage on them, that makes 70% owned outright, that's about 17m houses valued on average around £180k ? that's the real world, many people over 50 (and I'm guessing thats the age of people with a 23yr old daughter) are sitting on significant wealth, they need to stop buying their extravagant cars and holidays and pass it to the next generation. The 'I've worked hard all my life' defence doesn't wash, most of that wealth has come from house price appreciation

I would disagree with this. While my parents own their house outright, and while it has appreciated in value, they absolutely don't have luxury cars, and I don't remember the last time they had a holiday. My Dad considers the house to be an investment to look after us "kids" when they are no longer around, so they actually won't benefit from the rise in house prices at all. They can sell up and downsize, but at the end of the day, the property they would buy has also risen at the same rate of inflation, so it's not freeing up anything more than it would have done had prices not risen...

Fitzmichael

nearlyrich wrote: »

when they started secondary school.

Absolutely; that's when you have to start. I opened PO (passbook) accounts for mine at 13 and paid their pocket money in once a year. Of course, I paid all their normal living expenses and things that popped up haphazardly that they couldn't be expected to plan ahead for. Neither of them (5 children now) seems ever to have had any problem living within their means and getting a mortgage. After the younger one had been at uni a while, she said something about having to collect the utilities payments. Oh, the three housemates hadn't known anything about utilities etc, so my daughter said she would look after that, but would expect them to come up with cash on the x of each month for their share. She was amused how grateful and relieved they were to have this burden taken off them.
They had many other accounts of being amazed at what everyday things fellow students came up to uni in ignorance of (from middle-class homes) - a few to the extent that they went home, unable to cope. What are parents thinking of?

stitch

samanthaknd wrote: »

Hi there, don't mean to sound harsh but your daughter will never learn if you bail her out all the time. She is an adult now and needs to live within her means, Now if she needs a little help through rent etc. that's a different story, but if it's just a case of frivolous spending then you should take a step back.

I so agree with this. We bailed our daughter out so many times to the point it left us with virtually nothing for our retirement. Within a year of her last bail out she was back in debt. We could not help her this time, so she turned her back on us.

fourxxxx

How about using doubleu doubleu doubleu.get/out/of/debt/free.org[/url] (just take away the /'s)
Offers practical advice and could stop the bailiffs or cancel what you owe!

marich

Nobody has asked yet - what is she 'on' ?

She knows she only earns peanuts - she knows she has to be careful - so what quite is it that she is spending too much money on ? What is it she cannot manage ?

Smoke , drink , drugs , betting , car , clothes - WHAT ?

Whatever it is , the answer should be "No more" . You might think you have been the good parent - but you have your doubts . Whoever and whatever she is giving that money over to , it is you who have been paying .

It's not even worth asking - just say that you are not doing it any more .

How old is she now ?

jaylee3

My older sister has a daughter who went to uni (she has left now,) and she had the full whack of grant and loan and bursary. She constantly squandered everything she had for the whole of her 3 month term, in about 5 weeks, and she kept ringing my sister in tears, saying she had no food to eat, and couldn't make next month's rent payment...

So my sister and her husband were constantly forking out 100s of pounds a term to top up their daughter's finances. They couldn't afford to go on holiday - even for a few days - and they had a 20 year old car, they bought charity shop clothes, and they had a low income (THAT is why my niece had the FULL whack of dosh from uni!)

My niece (their daughter) had a PS4, a macbook, an ipad, an Iphone5, and clothes from NEXT and TOPSHOP that she bought out of her generous uni handouts! While my sister and her OH bought clothes from Charity Shops and Primark. They HAD to as they were busy forking out for said daughter!!!

So

When it got about halfway through the daughter's second year, my sister posted on facebook that they had just had a £700 car bill (partly true: it was £500!) and that they were broke.

And after that, they kept whining about money for a few weeks, then when their daughter moaned about money a few weeks later, my sister said 'I wish we could help, but we can barely afford the rent! Ask the bank for an overdraft extension maybe...?'

A few days later, their daughter got a job!

Upshot is that my sister put it across that she had no money anymore...

She even went to Paris for the weekend with her husband (only cost £199 each) but she didn't tell their daughter, as they wanted her to think they were flat busted broke!

At the end of the day, their daughter has already HAD her money/income in the form of her loan and grant and bursary. And she kept continuing to expect her parents to fund her when she ran out of money!

All she had ever lived on - right up to the age of 20 - was handouts, (government ones AND her parents handouts!) and she kept taking them!

It wasn't until my sister and her husband quit dishing handouts to her that she sorted herself out!

The same should apply to the OP. NO MORE CARRYING your daughter. It does NO-ONE any favours!

My sister said that if her daughter was genuinely destitute, she would sell a kidney to help her, but let's face it, her daughter was taking the p1ss!

Have to add though, that their daughter (now 23!) is now a hardworking and ambitious young lady with a very good job in media, and she has just recently bought her parents a holiday to ROME for their silver wedding anniversary! So - it looks like they did her a favour by making her stand on her own two feet!

[Deleted User]

It's taken some doing to get to bailiff stage. Perhaps DD doesn't want the help?


I've had help from my parents at time when most needed but not on an out of control level, hell, one of is also a guarantor to another family member! (not son or daughter might I add!)


Help if you can, perhaps responses may have been different if in a volatile relationship or something like that..
Direct if you can't, only takes £90 for a debt relief order which restricts credit and makes one think twice if you've not learnt (I've never racked up the same amount of debt lets say and that's even considering now possibly needing something of a support service..)


Have to say it wasn't until nearer 30 and with own wheels - I had the LBM to stop spending just what I wasn't earning