difficult child's Money - Your Opinion Please!

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
difficult child is turning 18 in just a few months. She has a custodial savings account....which we have agreed to give her gradually more control over.

(Yes - I agreed....but I haven't actually done it yet. I still control every penny.)

Here is the thing: we've been trying to let difficult child be in charge of more and more of her own decisions. She calls the docs to make her appts. She is in charge of her cell phone bill. She is buying most of her own clothes....that sort of thing.

Now, she has decided that she wants to help a friend by loaning her $500. I am pretty sure that this loan will never be repaid...but difficult child is arguing that it is her money and she knows what she is doing, and yadda, yadda, yadda....


So what do you think? Would you let your nearly-18-year-old child give their friend a $500 loan?
 
She is almost 18 and you appear to be helping her become more responsible. Do you feel she would miss and need that money for clothes, phone etc. later. I'm just wondering if loaning the $500 to a friend, which we all realize is unlikely to be repaid, might just be a good life lesson.

If she doesn't do it now she'll probably end up making the same mistake later and at least now you know it won't be for more then a 500 mistake.
 
I'd let her do it too. I might advise her to get a written IOU signed by the friend but otherwise I'd stay out of it. It is her money and if it doesn't come back to her the only person that it's going to hurt is your daughter.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Nope. Sorry. We don't let our kids loan money to each other, friends, or anyone else. I don't think your difficult child would learn anything from the loss of the money. It is too large a sum to let kids loan each other. Twenty? maybe, even with our ban on loans. $500? No.

If you allow this, you will end up iwth a difficult child who whines at you about how YOU should have stopped her and since YOU said okay then she wll want YOU to pay her the money if (when) the friend doesn't. What does the friend need the money for, will it really go for drugs or some other issue, how old is the friend and what do the friend's parents have to say?

I would be LIVID if some kid gave one of mine that kind of money, esp with-o the parents saying something first.
 
B

Bunny

Guest
I don't think it's a god idea. Do she tell you what the friend needs $500 for? My first concern is that it's going to pay off a dealer of some kind, and I would want no part of that. My second concern is that if (when) the friend does not pay difficult child back the money she will make your life absolutely miserable because you "let" her give the friend the loan.
 

slsh

member since 1999
Nope - wouldn't happen. I would use this as a teaching opportunity, though you and I both know it will fall on deaf ears. You don't "loan" friends money because you risk losing twice - the money and the friendship. She may be almost 18 and may think she "knows" what she's doing, but.... under what circumstances would *you* loan a friend money? And what could difficult child use the $500 for - security deposit? Electric bill? Groceries for a couple months? Since you are still the custodian, you have the obligation to protect her. When she hits 18, it's her choice, and then you don't have to hear a word about it.

$500 is quite a chunk of change in my world - not sure I'd even "loan" husband the $$ :rofl:
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
$500 is a LOT of money. That's a water bill, power bill and garbage pickup for a month plus a couple cups of coffee.

A few months back, Onyxx loaned a friend $200. Yeah, don't you know, buh-bye friendship... AND money. She texted and called and pestered him for a couple of weeks. And a mutual friend. Who also decided her friendship wasn't worth the harassment. But... She didn't learn. She was allowed to do this only because we didn't know - she has her own account for the money she earns working. Her deal.

I'd tell her no - when she turns 18 she can.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
You all summed up my feelings pretty well...

One the one hand, an argument can be made that this is a "Life Lesson" that she can learn while she is still living at home....with the hope that the next time somebody wants to borrow money, difficult child will say NO!

on the other hand - $500 is a HUGE amount of cash...especially for a kid who works part-time at minimum wage. PLUS - no guarantee that difficult child will actually learn the Life Lesson and, as sveral of you pointed out, this may become "all Mom's fault" anyway.

The story we were given is that difficult child's friend is a responsible, hard-working, and really-nice person that difficult child has known for all of about two months. Friend needs the money to pay rent and other bills that she got behind on because Friend's room-mate is unemployed.

Why can't Friend borrow $500 from her parents?

Oh, because Friend dropped out of high school and her parents are really mad about it and don't speak to her.

Why can't Friend borrow $500 from another relative? maybe her Grandparents?

Oh, because her Grandparents won't speak to ehr either.

Why can't Friend pawn something?

Oh, because it is going to take Friend a lot longer than 90 days to repay the loan and she doesn't want to lose any of her stuff.



Yeah...this is a baaaad idea - but difficult child cannot see that. difficult child firmly believes that Friend will pay her back.
 

dstc_99

Well-Known Member
I'm on the hell no bandwagon.

In our house we don't loan money anymore. If I give you money it is a gift. If you chose to repay it that is fine if you dont I wasnt expecting it anyway so I don't get my feelings hurt. We learned the hard way.

Sounds like this "new" friend found her a piggy bank by the name of your difficult child.
 

aeroeng

Mom of Three
If you let her lend the friend money you (she) will never see the money again. Now if she has enough that she can do without the $500 it might be a good life lesson for her. But most of us don't have that much. I would not have a problem changing the parameters, you said that she could start taking more control over her own money. Yes, give her a little slack at a time, and more only when she proves she can manage it. This announcement is not proving she can manage it.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
FIVE HUNDRED? Can she lend it to me? Please?
Boy, I could sure use that much too.
In fact, if she lent it to me, she'd probably see it again.
I'd at least send her 10 a month... really.

My choke point is... FIVE HUNDRED.

Had she said FIFTY... sure, life lesson. Enough money to hurt when you lose it, but not tragic.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I was going to tell you about a new program called Bill My Parents. I will still tell you about it. Has nothing to do with lending money though. That is already a no. I have different ideas about where the money is going from other people but thats okay.

Bill My Parents is a debit card that parents can get for teens that parents can set perimeters on and watch what their teens are buying and where. You can shut the card down at any time and set limits on how much can be spent per day. Look it up online. I think its a wonderful idea. Its not hooked into your account, you can set up to a special account that you just put a certain amount of money in each month. Sort of like their allowance. You could attach it to that custodial account and then watch it every day and shut it down when you need to.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Interesting update:

difficult child continued to pester me to go to the bank to withdraw this money. Meanwhile, I decided that I agreed with most of you who said that $500 is way too large a sum for a "life lesson". So I sat her down and tried to put it to her another way. We talked about how long it takes her to earn $500...about six weeks. $500 = 6 weeks.

So I asked her if she was willing to work hard for six weeks and get nothing in return? Phrasing it that way seemed to put it in perspective for difficult child. She was NOT willing to work hard for nothing. I also pointed out to her that she really didn't know this "Friend" very well and had precious little information. I let her know that my answer to this "lending a friend money" situation was NO - and difficult child seemed to agree.

So guess what happened when difficult child informed Friend that she could not loan her $500?

difficult child discovered that Friend was married....and Friend and Husband "don't trust" pawn shops...so that's why they were looking to get cash from difficult child....it would be easier than dealing with a pawn shop.

Ugh! Suspicious much?
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
I swear it's been said before, but I'll repeat it... Our difficult children are magnets for difficult children...
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
Well... it DID end up being a lesson, right?
At least it wasn't an expensive one.

Good work on that "how long does it take to earn" exercise!
 
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