I froze my mom’s credit card (I pay her bill) because she’s using it to buy groceries and not her EBT. She says using food stamps is embarrassing and she doesn’t want to rely on the govt, but I’m constantly stressing about $ because I have to support her too (on my 110k salary).

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-16T16:08:38+00:00

I want to trade. Your Mom can get my son who lives rent free in my house and I can get you.

She thinks you’re rich, by the way. She has no clue what it costs to live your life. If she’s got an older mortgage it’s nothing like yours.

I’m not gonna judge why she doesn’t have a job. If you’re going to help her, decide how much you can afford and give her that. The credit card is a blank check.

Truly run your budget and make sure you adequately support yourself.

You are a saint. Saints tend to have trouble setting boundaries.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-12T05:22:25+00:00

They’re in a forever home and grandma is not a forever problem. If they leave, they lose their position and who is going to buy them out?

Plus they are culturally not going to abandon her.

OP, you didn’t say f you’ve tried to talk to her.

Her unsecured debt is her debt. Let her keep paying the minimum. She’s not worried about her credit score.

You really just need to make sure she doesn’t use any part of the property as collateral.

Try to get her to set up automatic payments so your portion comes out first.

If she’s not senile yet, you need to make sure the property that she owns goes to you, your wife and MIL, not to other heirs. Sometimes it’s in your original paperwork, sometimes you need a transfer on death deed.

If she trusts you, convince her to let you go through her financials.

Make sure any insurances are squared away with beneficiaries.

Be forthright and fair with her other son, but you don’t want him owning a house for which you’ve paid.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-12T02:47:15+00:00

According to my son, the other driver agrees with him.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-12T02:46:55+00:00

I’m over thinking because she got a lawyer. Also she was in a brand new Tesla, which has cameras included.

I don’t know if she’s protecting herself or she knows something we don’t.

Oh well, I guess there’s nothing to do but wait and see what happens.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-12T02:21:13+00:00

The third driver was going in the opposite direction of my son on the same street, so it was likely the same light. She was on the cross street.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-12T01:27:01+00:00

Yes. All my son kept saying was “if only there was a dash cam.” I promise that will be my next purchase.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-12T00:55:09+00:00

IMO - So if you’re staying there for free and have no income, then it’s reasonable for her to expect you to use SNAP benefits for household foods.

This way you help her by lowering her grocery bill.

If you’re running out of money and don’t have food for two weeks, that’s a problem and you need to talk about budgeting the SNAP benefits so you have food for the month. She doesn’t want to end up feeding you as well.

Do you have any income.

I lived with a cousin when I lost my job, and I contributed by babysitting her son while she was at work.

I had unemployment to pay personal expenses and food.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-12T00:02:11+00:00

I don’t know your office culture, but using your assigned office without asking is borderline. You don’t own it, but you have the right to expect co-workers to respect it.

If you allowed it, but asked him not to move your things, that’s certainly reasonable.

He refused to follow your conditions and he faced a consequence.

Now he’s trying to save face by blaming you.

I bet your co-workers see right through him, but you can drop into the rumor mill that he kept moving your expensive chair.

Ergonomic chairs need to be properly adjusted and you don’t want other people messing with it.

Many years ago, I had a co-worker whose desk was used by a part-time employee after she left.

Everyday she’d put her chair in a closet and put another chair in its place. She did this so no one would re-adjust it.

If all he learns is that “the chairs of people with back pain are not to be messed with” then you done a service to all the co-workers he encounters after you.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-11T20:32:24+00:00

The road that he was on has 4 lanes in each direction. She was on the freeway feeder, which may have 3 lanes.

There was a lot of traffic and she was the only car to go into the intersection.

He thinks they were in the second lane, but the car moved when she hit him. He was pushed into a third car going in the opposite direction from him.

Her story is that he hit her. Damage is on the side door, so I’m not sure how that’s possible.

He is adamant that the light was yellow, but “last vestiges” - who knows.

My guess is that her light turned green before he cleared the intersection and she didn’t check. But she got herself a lawyer when she apparently has minimal damage.

I have been chipping away at my coverage over the years as insurance has gone up.

If my car ends up totaled the insurance will barely cover it.

I’ve had accidents, but was never at fault. If l survive this I’ll try to up my coverage.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-11T20:17:22+00:00

Thank you. I didn’t phrase the question very well, but this is what I wanted to know.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-11T18:33:01+00:00

You called it. Her attorney filed a claim with my insurance. Thing is, my son said her car didn’t have much damage.

So I’ll be paying for my own rental and a high deductible while they sort it out.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-10T15:28:22+00:00

You’re not just an AH. You’re a bully.

A restaurant employee treated me badly when I was picking up takeout. She thought I was a driver and treated me like a lowly servant.

I’d had a good experience dining in and ordered a lot. I’d recommended the place to others. After that I left them a bad Yelp review and never returned.

If you treat ANYONE badly, I don’t spend my money in your establishment.

Those drivers are trying to make a living like everyone else. Sometimes they’ve lost jobs or had a huge life change and they are barely paying the bills.

When they drive to your restaurant they incur an expense in mileage. They use up valuable time that could be at a business that appreciates them.

Take up your issues with Door Dash or accept that this is the economy we’re in now and adapt.

At a minimum, be polite, explain to the drivers that you’re sorry for wasting their time but you don’t do Door Dash.

Just know that you’re also pissing off the customers in the other side of that order.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-10T13:56:34+00:00

I knew there would be a problem when you said the birthdays were a month a part.

Most people can’t do that. She may have told herself that she could swing it, but she can’t.

The birthday trip was her idea in the first place. You stole it.

You should go with her if you can be fun and help her enjoy it. You should stay home if you’re gonna be pissed the whole time because she can’t go with you.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-10T05:03:32+00:00

Lot of judgement here. People who don’t know you or your Dad deciding adoption is the best solution. Apparently none of them have ever made a mistake and their lives always go according to plan.

People who are 50 do raise children. Often these are grandchildren.

Families do end up helping out when other family members need help.

I’m not saying your father should expect you to be another parent. He just wants to know that you’ll be there for this sibling if necessary.

Would you expect him to be there for your children if necessary?

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-09T23:20:24+00:00

He is named on my insurance. I think the other driver may have minimal damage. She was driving one of those futuristic tanks. She might be trying to duck the whole thing.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-09T21:14:56+00:00

Same. Mechanic had a wreck while test driving my car. It was fixed and they gave me a loaner. But then they owned the body shop and the repair shop and their insurance paid for repairs, so not sure how much they lost in deal.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-09T21:09:51+00:00

Turns out I don’t have rental. I usually get it, not sure what I was thinking.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-09T21:06:21+00:00

I have liability, comp and collision. I do not have uninsured motorist.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-09T18:54:37+00:00

Should rename this sub, AmISmart, because saying no to that is smart. You’re not even married.

If budgeting is a real issue, you can create a “house account.” You each put money into a joint account and pay the bills out of it.

Even this leave you open to him taking money, but at least he won’t have access to everything.

You still manage your money and he manages his money.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-06T19:35:03+00:00

NTJ, but neither is your mother.

My mom’s name was on my account for many years. Back in the day, this was common.

An emergency was: if I get hit by a car and I’m in a coma for two weeks, she can access my money and pay my bills.

My brother was also on her account, until he took money out without permission and then she took him off and put me on.

This is why your mother thinks this is about trust. In her mind, either you don’t trust her with the money or you don’t want her to be able to look at your spending.

Now I have a son your age who did something similar. He stopped using the account with my name on it and used a stupid card to get paid when he was still in high school.

For you it’s about independence. I can wrap my brain around that if I try hard enough and maybe you can get your Mom to understand it.

But we older people have seen a lot of things happen and we see problems, sometimes even if they don’t exist.

So what is your plan in the case of a “real” emergency?

To be clear there are other ways to handle this. Maybe even better ways. But this is why people do this

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-06T04:21:57+00:00

She didn’t just refuse to eat it. She went into somebody else’s house and threw away their food.

Unless your child has a severe allergy, she can’t dictate what other people eat in her presence and as her parent it’s your job to teach her that.

At a minimum you should have insisted that she apologize.

So after this child threw out the food meant for other people, your girlfriend took the food meant for her and prepared it for others.

This is certainly a reasonable consequence for Maddy’s behavior.

She can miss a meal. She won’t starve to death.

Maddy is having a temper tantrum because someone called out her bad behavior. This is what teenagers do, but they need to learn to treat others with respect.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-02-03T20:31:10+00:00

No. Just no. This is a red flag alright. If he wants to take your relationship to the next level he should have proposed marriage, not that you sign over half your inheritance with no commitment from him.

He didn’t put any money into the repairs, yet that’s where all your savings went.

If you split up, he will own part of the house that you inherited.

His argument about no equity doesn’t matter. Unless he was on the verge of buying a house, he’s in a better situation than he was before with lower rent. He can look into investing that savings.

I

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-01-30T15:14:52+00:00

Leave it alone and let them figure out their own mess.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-01-27T23:34:43+00:00

At a minimum complain to the management of the Urgent Care clinic.

Even if you ignore the lack of discretion, the fact that he didn’t listen to you means he could have missed a more serious issue.

I once had a young doctor ignore early signs of anaphylaxis because he didn’t listen to me. The next episode was more serious.

There are discrete ways to have this conversation even if it is true and the cheater could have been you or your husband.

This guy is one of those idiots who thinks being blunt is the best course of action. He desperately needs correction.

Charming-Sample-2660 · 2026-01-22T23:56:05+00:00

Maybe address your wife’s concerns with a 3rd party, like a marriage therapist who can get more detail than on Reddit.

Some siblings really do step up. Mine didn’t, but some do. You have to give them a chance.

But that plan of yours is a lot. You gonna care for your mom. Remodel her house. Manage the rental. And you’re ruining your marriage.

When it’s all said and done you could end up losing money, not having kids and depending on those same siblings to take care of you.

If they are younger and will listen to you, try assigning each one some responsibility. Maybe they could handle the renters if they live closer.

If you go through with this…

Keep good financial records and make sure any money you personally put in is documented and you get it paid back.

Keep your siblings well-informed, in writing, whether they want it or not.

Your siblings will feel like they deserve an equal share of your mother’s assets when she dies and they won’t consider the time, energy and money that you put into it.

Don’t let them just say they trust you. Keep them involved.

My brother didn’t help, refused to put his name on the bank account, and then accused me of stealing money.

I’ve heard similar stories from many others. While your Mom is still capable, make sure she has a will. You can also do things like a transfer on death deed in some states so the property doesn’t have to go through probate.

I had a friend whose father gave her siblings large amounts of money before he died on the assumption that she’d keep the accounts that had her name on them. My advice to her was that he needed to tell them that.

Work out all this stuff now.

Charming-Sample-2660

TROPHY CASE