How to help my niece

TriggerHappy

Hi Mrs pbradley

You sound like a lovely lady, but you need to be a bit hard on her - like the saying goes, give your niece a fish and she'll eat for a day but give her some guidance in how to manage her finances then she can go buy her own fish

I think in your shoes I'd be thinking the same... I'd be worried that she has not learned her lesson and might find herself in the same spot but at the same time you want to help because you love her.

As well as directing her over here to post an SOA, you might want to sit and go through her debts in case there is anything really pressing which could result in a default, CCJ, etc. If you don't want her to suffer (too much) then you might want to help with those while tutting loudly...

Good luck! (to you both)

Oh, and while you probably don't want to tell your sister you might want to be a bit wary about what you're keeping from here as she might not appreciate it and money has a habit of causing rifts among families - I'll take my nose out of your business now lol x

middleclassbutpoor

Don't encourage her to convert unsecured debt into secured debt.

Best you could do would be to get her get all her debt paperwork together and help her make sense of it and do a budget. If she is still in denial that she has a problem and thinks it's OK for family members to keep bailing her out then she will never learn and bring everyone down and if your sister finds out, you could be also having other family issues that you didn't expect.

zippygeorgeandben

You do come across as a lovely lady but she really will not learn ANY lessons at all if you bail her out.
She has made contact with you because there is no other way out from her point if view and she wants your money.
There is a way out, it's to be clean with her husband and sort it out together. She's a grown up and needs to start to act like one.

JayRitchie

Mrs_pbradley936 wrote: »

The problem I think is that it is too easy to run up debts these days. They should decline your card if you have not requested a huge amount not let it run and so increase your debt.

Why do that? Some 'kind' relative will pay out much of the time.

Mrs_pbradley936 wrote: »

I will try to steer her over to this site. Meanwhile my suggestion was that she try to restructure their mortgage. They have lived there for about 3 years and must have a fair bit of equity. Is that feasible?

It may be feasible but its terrible advice most of the time and is also endangering her husbands financial position.

Seriously - find out exactly how much she owes and help her plan to pay it off herself. She clearly has history and you may not know the full story. Gambling? Drugs? Neither is rare.

As said above you might offer to pay the last £1000 of debt - never pay at the start to help anyone out. Why:

- they need to sort themselves out
- it becomes a habit
- if they really are in over their heads and look at bankruptcy your payment is completely wasted but might have really helped them out when through the worst of it.

DCFC79

Can't disagree with the advice posted.

Dont become an enabler, either help her to sort out the finamces or point her our direction.

Mojisola

Mrs_pbradley936 wrote: »

My niece has been in touch (she is 28 and newly married) saying that she is over her head in debt. She has a good job but obviously spends too much.

My niece does not want my sister to know (I think because she has been in this situation before and her parents have sorted her out but warned her against doing it again).

They want to start a family but she wants to be debt free first. I don't know if her husband knows how much debt she is in.

I am not spoiling her, she just will not have as much when I die!

I disagree - you are enabling her to continue her destructive ways instead of getting her to face up to her issues and deal with them.

Add to that the potential damage you are doing to your relationship with your sister when she finds out that you have enabled her daughter's overspending.

And if her husband doesn't know about her debts, how damaged will their relationship be when he does learn about them?

POPPYOSCAR

Sorry I know you think you are helping her but in reality you are not.

My parents always bailed out one of my siblings and they never learned.

When they were not around anymore the debts got even bigger so much so that they ended up with an IVA.

D_M_E

The best thing you can do is stop bailing her out and don't give her anything more.

She has not had her "lightbulb moment" of realisation yet and she never will if people keep bailing her out.

What will the answer be when she comes calling a year or two down the line when she has racked up another pile of debt?

Kitten868

Do you know what's worse than being in debt? Being in debt with a baby on statutory maternity pay. Having to go back to work earlier than you want to as you need money.
I am not telling you off - you're being lovely but helping her to learn how to budget and pay it off herself will help her hugely with her next goal. Offering to pay the last sum would be a great motivator xxx

January2015

Mrs_pbradley936 wrote: »

Meanwhile my suggestion was that she try to restructure their mortgage. They have lived there for about 3 years and must have a fair bit of equity. Is that feasible?

Please, please, please do not propose to move unsecured debt to secured debt. That is definitely not the answer.

You are lovely to help you niece, but I honestly believe if you do this she will be back, cap in hand, in the future with the same problem. She needs to learn to manage to live within her available income. You are better off working with her to teach her to manage her money and not giving her the easy option of you settling some or all of her debts.

It is lovely you want to help and it may be that she is just having some of her inheritance from you now instead of later, but as I said above (and others have said), she is not learning anything this way. You really do need to be strong and as the saying goes, be cruel to be kind.