Money Moral Dilemma: Should I stop lending money to my daughter?

gben

Prepare a budget or forecast of income and expenditure for a full year, to cover not just regular monthly bills put into direct debit, but also "one offs", regular but infrequent.  The budget needs to be monitored to keep expenditure on track, so do this with an expenditure diary recording every single item and penny spent.  Use excel spreadsheets for an income and expenditure balance sheet.  Never borrow (apart from mortgage debt to buy an asset, a home to live in, an investment which nearly always goes up in value).  Otherwise, always pay from personal savings.  If there are little/no savings when you make the decision to purchase a chattel, then save up beforehand over 3-6 months.  Never overspend net income, incurring a liability of capital and interest owed to the lender.  Never even spend all your income, which means living from paycheque to paycheque.  To live within your means is only partly right.  Aim to live below your means, that is, aim to underspend your income.  The unspent part of net income = a profit = a surplus = personal savings.  Save at least 5-10% of net income.  Destroy all unsecured debt with savings over 1 - 2 years.  Build up an emergency fund to pay for unexpected bills, that is, less frequent than annual, given that the budget should cover a full year.  Do all the calculations on excel spreadsheets, in the layout of an income and expenditure balance sheet.  Merit?  Money management thorough and so extremely reliable.  Cons?  Time consuming and tedious.  Or is that true?  The first budget takes many hours to prepare.  But using the initial spreadsheet as a template, future budget and diary can be replicated for layout, and so future years only take a few hours per year to prepare, in November/December.  Do all this every day for the rest of your life.  Me, I love lots of number crunching, mental arithmetic and use of spreadsheets.  People need the right mental attitude to managing money.  Then you can advise your adult son/daughter!

CashewGran

Tough one. Has she had any training with how to budget etc? 
CAP (Christians Against Poverty) offers money coaching.

enthusiasticsaver

You are not teaching her to manage money, an essential life skill. You are also building up resentment for the other three who can live within their income. Encourage her to budget, to make the most of her skills and point out you do not have an unlimited source of money and it is not fair on her siblings. Then take a step back.

 If we have spare money we gift it to our DDs but it is not usually to cover debt but to help with car, home improvements, holiday or childcare. They also both get the same. they have both been taught to budget and save though. 

Falconer13

My friends youngest son was like your daughter. It went on for years and years. The son is now in prison for killing some one with dangerous driving. He never grew up and his father bailed him out all the time. Meanwhile his girlfriend his living in a flat that my friend bought for them and does not pay rent. The moral make your child grow up.