Parents paying for stuff while married

[fiddles]

I was looking on another board and saw a poster say that her inlaws pay for her & h's cell phone as well as car insurance. Eyes went up and the disapproving look came over my face. I feel if you're married and have $870/mo for fun money, you should be paying your own bills!

What do you think?

[kwpnjumper55]

Ok, I'm going to out myself. My parents occasionally help me with a credit card bill that accumulated while getting my BA. But we have pretty much NO spending money, an things are better now that I'm working a lot more.

But I am ashamed

[niq]

I think it depends on where they are in life. If one or the other is still in school that makes a little sense. But in this case this gets major side-eyes.

I feel like the parents should not pay bills and instead give four figure cash gifts at Xmas and birthdays, or set up educational trusts for their grandchildren (I forget what the law is on that if there aren't any grandchildren yet).

ETA: Also while I'm not in that situation yet, things w/ mom mean that W & I are shouldering almost all of the cost of taking care of her while sister L and her H are still in school. Dad is helping indirectly and has promised to make sure that if L can't eventually pay us back for her half, then he'll even things out even though we strictly speaking don't "need" it. So, it's hard to tell, there can be situations where I can see parents wanting to help out with stuff.

[picksthemusic]

I'm on the list of in-laws paying for our cell phones. It's a family plan, they offered (we didn't ask - we could pay for it ourselves), and it's like... that's $80something a month we're saving. We pay for our own car insurance, though.

ETA: FIL is loaded and this isn't a financial hardship for them. Mexican culture is similar to Asian in that they are children for life, etc. They do help us out a lot with baby stuff too, and again, it's all offered. We just happen to take them up on those offers.

[sarack]

nope. no one pays for us. we pay for everything ourselves.

[fiddles]

kw I think that's a little different. Occasionally helping is way different then every month paying a bill.

I guess for me I would find it very odd to have my parents pay for a bill. If I couldn't afford to pay for it, I'd cut back other places.

[InBetweenDays]

Eh, I wouldn't automatically give the side-eye without knowing more about each party's financial situation.

Lots of people try to "gift" to their children to get rid of money from their estate. The IRS says you can gift someone $13K per year tax free. So if someone wants to pay for their child's cell phone & car insurance each month rather than cutting a $13K check I don't see the big deal.

Now, if the parents were hurting financially and didn't have the means to be paying this additional amount that's another story.

[Deleted]

Oct 23, 2012 13:14:06 GMT -5 kwpnjumper55 said:

Ok, I'm going to out myself. My parents occasionally help me with a credit card bill that accumulated while getting my BA. But we have pretty much NO spending money, an things are better now that I'm working a lot more.

But I am ashamed

Totally different than the original situation.

I'm on my parents executive costco membership, but they get my 2% rebate, so it kind of evens out in the end?

[jennlin]

TBH, up until about 6 months ago, my parents paid for my car insurance, and his parents his. but that's because our cars are technically their cars. h started to feel bad about it, and we did the research, and it is actually cheaper as an overall whole for us to start paying for it ourselves...so we do.

in chinese culture, we're their kids until we die, regardless of how old we are or if we are married or not...and they will always take care of us financially, and pour money at us.

we do pay for IL's cellphone, though, and before SIL moved overseas, we paid for hers too. i know, not much compared to the insurance..

[jennlin]

Oct 23, 2012 13:35:01 GMT -5 @uwhuskygirl said:

I'm on my parents executive costco membership, but they get my 2% rebate, so it kind of evens out in the end?

we pay for this for my IL's.

[georgeharrison]

Oct 23, 2012 13:21:08 GMT -5 picksthemusic said:

I'm on the list of in-laws paying for our cell phones. It's a family plan, they offered (we didn't ask - we could pay for it ourselves), and it's like... that's $80something a month we're saving. We pay for our own car insurance, though.

I can imagine this happens a lot, and I don't think there is anything wrong with it.

We pay all our bills on our own, but my parents do like to help with some stuff. They will sometimes give us money for gas or if something unexpected comes up, they like to send us $$. It makes them feel good.

[niq]

Oct 23, 2012 13:35:53 GMT -5 jennlin said:

we do pay for IL's cellphone, though, and before SIL moved overseas, we paid for hers too. i know, not much compared to the insurance..

Wait ... why are you & H paying for your IL's stuff? Are they in school? Being neerdowells?

[jennlin]

oh oh. my parents just paid for bjl's passport bc they didn't take debit card, and only take checks (my parents were with us). i plan on paying them back, but haven't gotten to it yet.

[jennlin]

Oct 23, 2012 13:39:56 GMT -5 niq said:

Oct 23, 2012 13:35:53 GMT -5 jennlin said:

we do pay for IL's cellphone, though, and before SIL moved overseas, we paid for hers too. i know, not much compared to the insurance..

Wait ... why are you & H paying for your IL's stuff? Are they in school? Being neerdowells?

i don't know what a neerdowell is........

we pay for their cellphone because if we didn't they wouldn't get one. they don't think it's necessary, and they hardly answer it. but we don't have a landline, and MIL comes over to our house to watch bjl, then drives her to their house. we want MIL to have a cellphone when she is with bjl.

we pay for the costco card bc FIL used to pay for it, and had h and him on the account...but h applied for the costco american express, and FIL doesn't have that. we got auto-charged the costco membership fee and just never mentioned it. about 3 years later, FIL told us he's been getting costco membership for free for 3 years, and we told him that we've just been paying for it. FIL tried to give us money..but we're not going to bother with "small" amounts of money like that between family.

IL's also watch bjl for free (and my mom watches her once a week for free). IL's buy her lots of stuff. new toys, blankets, at least once a week.

[Deleted]

I should know more info before judging, but $870 fun money a month while your parents pay for phones and car insurance makes me totally side-eye.

KWPN - totally different
We do a bit of money swapping with H's parents where we pay for some things and they pay for other. For instance, MIL pays for H's life insurance, but she took out the policy years ago (and I think is still the beneficiary, not me). We sort of pay for MIL's cell phone since FIL doesn't want one and she and H had a family plan before we got married. Saves her bucketloads.

[kwpnjumper55]

I think part of it may depend on culture.

In my family, if someone needs help, you help. There is no underlying agreement for repayment, only that you help others when you can.

In DH's family, repayment is insisted upon, regardless on how close the family is.

[tacocat]

They don't pay for anything specific bit are always there if we need help. I will probably have to borrow from them with all of of our unexpected stuff going on.

[niq]

Oct 23, 2012 13:47:43 GMT -5 jennlin said:

Oct 23, 2012 13:39:56 GMT -5 niq said:

Wait ... why are you & H paying for your IL's stuff? Are they in school? Being neerdowells?

i don't know what a neerdowell is........

we pay for their cellphone because if we didn't they wouldn't get one. they don't think it's necessary, and they hardly answer it. but we don't have a landline, and MIL comes over to our house to watch bjl, then drives her to their house. we want MIL to have a cellphone when she is with bjl.

we pay for the costco card bc FIL used to pay for it, and had h and him on the account...but h applied for the costco american express, and FIL doesn't have that. we got auto-charged the costco membership fee and just never mentioned it. about 3 years later, FIL told us he's been getting costco membership for free for 3 years, and we told him that we've just been paying for it. FIL tried to give us money..but we're not going to bother with "small" amounts of money like that between family.

IL's also watch bjl for free (and my mom watches her once a week for free). IL's buy her lots of stuff. new toys, blankets, at least once a week.

I meant "ne'er-do-well" aka slacker. But you're talking about MIL/FIL, not BIL/SIL. I guess if the IL's otherwise wouldn't have a cell phone it makes sense.