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Daughter in debt again after help

tigerstar

so around February my daughter came to me as she was in £4000 worth of debt, so she had a borrow from a family member which she has been paying back and now we manage her money for her and drip feed it to her weekly.

It has now come to our attention that she has again been using her credit card and is abusing the situation at home.
what would other parents do in this situation before I go mental?

She has it really easy at home, goes out at weekend and has holidays which she does save for, but to be using a credit card again I’m furious

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MyHappy256

Cancel the credit card, only allow a debit card with a basic bank account, so no overdraft either

Otteline

How old is she? Does she live at home? Does she work full time? I feel for you, it's very embarassing to have to borrow money from a family member when that money has been blown on holidays and nights out.

Definitely cut up the credit cards. Unfortunately there's not much you can do if she refuses to take responsibility for herself. Depending on her age you could sit her down and get her to complete a statement of affairs (google statement of affairs lemonfool and you can download a template). If she can see in a simplistic way where her money is going it might make her think twice

Please do not bail her out again. Just breathe and remember she can change if she puts a bit of effort it but don't enable her.

birdwatcher

My advice to you is carry on drip feeding her cash as you are doing but cut the credit card up. And hold on to her debit card, watch she doesn't take out an overdraft too

.Many many years ago my son got into serious financial difficulties, store cards, credit cards etc. I didn't know anything about it. Till the letters started arriving. I'd, never seen anything like it before in my life! ( I'm of the generation where if you couldn't pay cash for it you saved up or didn't have it. That's how I was brought up). Anyway. We got all these letters together plus the statements. And crunched some numbers. He was still at college and was struggling just to make the interest payments. It was awful, really awful. I ended up ' buying ' all these horrible debts off him. cleared the lot. (Was still working then so that part wasn't a problem). But I made it crystal clear it was the first and last time I'd do it. I'm not saying it wasn't his own fault, it was, but looking back, the bank and Argos etc should never have given an 19 year old all those cards. How on earth did they think he'd be able to repay them?

Keep a close eye on your daughter's finances tigerstar please. I'd hate to see anyone in the situation we were 20 odd years ago

tigerstar

@Otteline thank you

She works 30 plus hours a month but she is really high maintenance and paying back £200 already to the last bail out.

I just don’t know how to help this time it’s only £1000 but I remember when I was younger and I got in a bit of debt I couldn’t sleep!!!
I want to help but don’t know where to start without blowing my top

Albus_Alumni

That sounds like a very tricky situation @tigerstar Debt can easily pile up if not dealt with quickly. It sounds to me like she thinks it doesn't matter if she uses the card, as someone will bail her out each time. So the only route really is to show them this can't keep happening. How you do this, I'm not entirely sure as it can vary from person to person. Personally, I'd be terrified of that much on my credit card, that's a lot to pay back each month in interest alone!

Otteline

@tigerstar – did you mean 30 hours a month or is that a week? If it’s a month she needs to get a second job pronto.

Remember it is not your duty to bail her out. In some ways it doesn’t help them at all but it’s hard as a parent and we end up taking on the stress ourselves.

Many years ago I fell into the trap of ‘store cards’ not even thinking about how I would pay the money back. The cards were probably ‘mis-sold’ at the time. I did eventually manage to drag myself out of the debt by a continuation of borrowing small loans from the bank and paying off the credit cards with the loans. My parents could not have afforded to bail me out and I would have been too scared to ask them. I managed to sort myself out (I had no choice).

How old is she? Wait until you feel a bit calmer before talking to her. Have a look at the link to Lemonfool SOA.

You really have my sympathy as the kids today don’t know how lucky they are to live at home for peanuts. Wait until you are calm before you talk to her, is there anyone you get to support you to do that. Kids can be so manipulative and she might be more inclined to listen with a third party there. I am assuming she is still young (I hope that is the case).

Good luck, remember it’s not the end of the world and nobody died. That’s what I say to myself when I want to blow my top about things. (Even though it sometimes feels like the end of the world!).

Remember it’s not your fault, I’m sure you’ve been a great parent. Kids can really disappoint us sometimes but keep the faith.

66Mustang

I don't want to criticise anyone for trying to help or advise, but this is really one of those situations where it's soo tempting to want to share your opinion but no one can really comment or advise without knowing everything… which no one does, as it would take about 25 books to write your whole backstory. It's very much like trying to offer marriage advice, I guess.

I've had a similar situation as above and all the above may or may have not worked, but there were so many other variables at play … if said family member was allowed to "fail" it would have educated them, I'm sure. But it would also have had repercussions that would have caused a ripple effect resulting in serious harm to innocent family members… was this exploited by the person at the centre of it all? Definitely, but what can you do about it?