This weekend we had an impromptu visit from my mom to have dinner with us. She was in town and was stopping by to give our kids some valentine’s day goodies, no big deal. It was nice to have her over to catch up and visit as we have three kids and always seem to be busy with other activities, work, and sheer exhaustion. I love my parents, I really do, but they drive me nuts. My mom is forever the pessimist, whatever can go wrong will go wrong, someone is always out to get you, etc…

Let me preface stating that I was extremely financially responsible until my last year in college where I naively thought that I was about to graduate and I would earn a great income as I had a college education. During that senior year I went credit crazy, enjoyed new clothes, a spring break trip and random dining out indulges. This continued after graduation even when that great job came as well as the mentality of paying just the minimum payments. Generally this is how I arrived at where I am today.

Like many other companies and employees in the work force her company has begun to lay off employees. She has seen around 75 people let go from the company she works for and everyone is on edge there. From what she has told me from the office gossip is that they are not done. The company has asked for voluntary early retirement and voluntary layoffs, so what does she do? She goes out and buys a laptop and then pays the computer service technicians at a large big box retailer to service it for her. Now, I have come to expect or assume that she is in financial dire straits. I consistently hear about how she borrows from her 401k to pay her bills, does random deals to borrow from Paul to pay Peter, and she is juggling which bills to pay that month. What do I say to her about this decision? From my understanding the parents willingness for advice from their children is generally not welcomed and I have experienced this before with her. I have expressed to her our plan for our plasectomy and to get out of debt, stop spending, and work more for a short amount of time. It’s not forever and it is needed, but nothing helps. It is extremely frustrating to watch the bad financial decisions made time and time again knowing as a single mother how hard it was. I wish for her to be setup well and not to struggle. Ugh…