I feel like I am ready to blow. My stress level today is so high I just want to pull the covers over my head and forget the world. But I am at work, so that won't work. My husband and I are having a hard time with his 22yod. Single mother, ex doesn't work, she gets paid and buys what she needs and then cries because she doesn't have diapers, etc for the baby, knowing that we will buy them. We love to help, but we do not have alot. We feel like we are working for nothing. I do not know how to handle it. She will not listen to us, she will listen to her mother to a point, who said she is going to talk to her but I don't know when. I don't want our 8 mo granddaughter to go without, but where do we draw the line? I feel guilty if we don't help but when we do I feel taken advantage of. Any suggestions?
Hi.. How are you today? Sounds like a "sticky" situation. Think that it is important for her to learn to budget every month first for her child because money is probably always an issue with children as additional to the essential guess there is a lot of unforseen things that increasingly comes up and grandparents should be able to be grandparents :) Maybe you can help her to divide the things she wants to buy as one divides time into things that is 1. urgent and important, 2. important but not urgent, 3. urgent but not important and 4th things that are not urgent nor important and than she can allocate her money to the category and save up some money one month to another for things for instance in the fourth category? At first maybe you can come to a understanding with which things you are willing to help out for now and for which she is responsible. On the other hand, washable diapers is an option for motivation to first buy diapers :) Hope all goes well and that the 4 of you has a good time together.
Thanks, I am going to try to talk to her today about a budget.
Hi. Hope things are already going better.