I don't post here often, but I've been mainly a lurker for the past few years. We love Disney and just got backv from our last trip three weeks ago! But now I'm in a situation and I really need some outsiders' opinions, and well, this was the first place I thought about finding those. So, here goes...
My sister is a young, single mom with two kids by two different guys. Her oldest is turning 2 this weekend, her youngest is 7 months. She has her hands full for sure. She works at Taco Bell about 20 hours a week and of course gets free daycare from the state as well as $500 a month in food stamps and energy assistance. The only bills that really leaves her with is rent, gas, and her cell phone bill. Of course, she never has any money to pay these bills. Month after month she borrows money from our mom to pay her rent, put gas in her car, buy cigarettes, etc. Our mom is in no position to loan or give her money, as she just filed bankruptcy a little more than a year ago, and is currently living with a broken stove and no refrigerator, but she tries to help her out as much as she can. Our mom was a single mom, too, so I think she sympathizes with her.
Anyway, my sister is unable to pay her rent this month (last month, due July 1) and received a 5-day eviction notice from her landlord. Our mom tried talking the landlord into waiting four additional days for the rent, but no dice. Mom does not have the money to give sister for rent as she does not get paid until next Friday so she asked me for the money. Everybody that knows me and my DH knows that our policy is that we do not lend money unless we can afford for it to be a gift. We are young (28) and are not in a perfect financial situation ourselves. I have a huge student loan (that will be paid off in 5 years, whoohoo!), car payment, rent, and a small amount of credit card debt. We have money in savings, but are certainly not in the position to be able to loan $500 or even $100 without worrying about it. But, this is not what sister sees. She sees us living in a decent house, driving nice cars, and going on vacation so thinks that we have lots of money laying around. We both work full-time at modest jobs (I'm a teacher, he works in the pressroom at our local newspaper) and will probably never be "rich". Our DD(4) is well-taken care of but not "spoiled" by any means.
Anyway, long story short (haha not really...this is getting too long!), mom is mad because I won't loan money to sister or let her move in with us for two months until she gets her financial aid check from school this fall. She says she is going to take out a title loan on her car to give her the money for rent; I don't know what to say about that. I am apparently a horrible person for not loaning her money and said that now she knows my "true colors" and she hopes that I never need anything from her in the future. She also informed me that she will be giving everything to sister when she dies, which I know is just a huge guilt trip. Obviously there's a lot of history here, as well, but I won't get into that.
So....outsiders' opinions....am I a horrible person? We do help her out in many ways, just not monetarily. At least once a month I buy each of her kids an outfit from Target, I just gave her deodorant and pads from my stockpile, just bought the older one a potty chair. We do what we can. My head tells me we did the right thing, but oh my heart still feels guilty.
My sister is a young, single mom with two kids by two different guys. Her oldest is turning 2 this weekend, her youngest is 7 months. She has her hands full for sure. She works at Taco Bell about 20 hours a week and of course gets free daycare from the state as well as $500 a month in food stamps and energy assistance. The only bills that really leaves her with is rent, gas, and her cell phone bill. Of course, she never has any money to pay these bills. Month after month she borrows money from our mom to pay her rent, put gas in her car, buy cigarettes, etc. Our mom is in no position to loan or give her money, as she just filed bankruptcy a little more than a year ago, and is currently living with a broken stove and no refrigerator, but she tries to help her out as much as she can. Our mom was a single mom, too, so I think she sympathizes with her.
Anyway, my sister is unable to pay her rent this month (last month, due July 1) and received a 5-day eviction notice from her landlord. Our mom tried talking the landlord into waiting four additional days for the rent, but no dice. Mom does not have the money to give sister for rent as she does not get paid until next Friday so she asked me for the money. Everybody that knows me and my DH knows that our policy is that we do not lend money unless we can afford for it to be a gift. We are young (28) and are not in a perfect financial situation ourselves. I have a huge student loan (that will be paid off in 5 years, whoohoo!), car payment, rent, and a small amount of credit card debt. We have money in savings, but are certainly not in the position to be able to loan $500 or even $100 without worrying about it. But, this is not what sister sees. She sees us living in a decent house, driving nice cars, and going on vacation so thinks that we have lots of money laying around. We both work full-time at modest jobs (I'm a teacher, he works in the pressroom at our local newspaper) and will probably never be "rich". Our DD(4) is well-taken care of but not "spoiled" by any means.
Anyway, long story short (haha not really...this is getting too long!), mom is mad because I won't loan money to sister or let her move in with us for two months until she gets her financial aid check from school this fall. She says she is going to take out a title loan on her car to give her the money for rent; I don't know what to say about that. I am apparently a horrible person for not loaning her money and said that now she knows my "true colors" and she hopes that I never need anything from her in the future. She also informed me that she will be giving everything to sister when she dies, which I know is just a huge guilt trip. Obviously there's a lot of history here, as well, but I won't get into that.
So....outsiders' opinions....am I a horrible person? We do help her out in many ways, just not monetarily. At least once a month I buy each of her kids an outfit from Target, I just gave her deodorant and pads from my stockpile, just bought the older one a potty chair. We do what we can. My head tells me we did the right thing, but oh my heart still feels guilty.
I also have a difficult family when it comes to money, but this situation is quite tought to deal with. My question to you about doing the right thing is when will the cycle stop? If you gave her the money this month, she'd probably be right back in this situation again very soon. I'm not sure what I'd do, but Suze Orman agrees with your lending principle. Only give it if you don't need it back. That said, I'm worried about the future of your mom and sister, as I'm sure you are as well. If I were able to help, I probably would, but for how long? I don't know.
) to ask myself, how can I help this person long term. If you gave your sister the 500 bucks would she be in the very same predicament in another month. 
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