Origami
Active Member
For reasons too numerous to mention, our financial situation is the pits right now. My husband has a three-week unpaid break at the holidays, so we're dealing with missing pay also. I'm missing bill payments for the first time in years, and am not happy about it. husband and I have agreed we have to go on a no-holds-barred cutting-back plan to get things back in order.
We're already anticipating the backlash from difficult child the younger (now 18), as we've given him a small allowance for quite a while, especially when he was going to college full time. We need to discontinue the allowance, which he mainly spends on cigarettes anyway. He quit his job a few months ago and has since applied for a few things online but hasn't put much effort into the job search. He started the fall college term with five classes, dropped all but two, of which he passed one and got a D in the other. He's enrolling in more classes for the spring (starting next week).
I mention him needing a job every chance I get, and he agrees that he wants one, but says nobody's hiring. I tell him he's not trying hard enough, that I see young people with jobs every day. This morning he said he doesn't need a job since he's going to college, and I said I always had a job when I was going to college. He said "the economy's not what it used to be," (like he's an expert on the economy now). He also asks for money to take his girlfriend out for coffee, etc. or sometimes she pays. She somehow manages to go to high school and have a part-time job.
I guess I'm looking for some strength and fortitude to get through the inevitable whining, demanding, bargaining, etc. that I'm expecting from him when we break the bad news that the money tree is shut down. The other difficult child at our house and his family are contributing groceries and paying their own way for the most part (saving to move in a couple of months), so I'm not worried about them. I think husband and I still aren't very good at being bearers of bad tidings, but this time the numbers don't lie and we have to do something.
We're already anticipating the backlash from difficult child the younger (now 18), as we've given him a small allowance for quite a while, especially when he was going to college full time. We need to discontinue the allowance, which he mainly spends on cigarettes anyway. He quit his job a few months ago and has since applied for a few things online but hasn't put much effort into the job search. He started the fall college term with five classes, dropped all but two, of which he passed one and got a D in the other. He's enrolling in more classes for the spring (starting next week).
I mention him needing a job every chance I get, and he agrees that he wants one, but says nobody's hiring. I tell him he's not trying hard enough, that I see young people with jobs every day. This morning he said he doesn't need a job since he's going to college, and I said I always had a job when I was going to college. He said "the economy's not what it used to be," (like he's an expert on the economy now). He also asks for money to take his girlfriend out for coffee, etc. or sometimes she pays. She somehow manages to go to high school and have a part-time job.
I guess I'm looking for some strength and fortitude to get through the inevitable whining, demanding, bargaining, etc. that I'm expecting from him when we break the bad news that the money tree is shut down. The other difficult child at our house and his family are contributing groceries and paying their own way for the most part (saving to move in a couple of months), so I'm not worried about them. I think husband and I still aren't very good at being bearers of bad tidings, but this time the numbers don't lie and we have to do something.