Family Matters
ilovehome3694
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
New...looking for advice about family and money
My father, mother, grandmother and sister live a 16 hour drive away from my family. I am married with two children. My mom and dad are divorced and both remarried.
Every summer I bring my family home to visit. My family doesn't have room for us to stay with them so we rent a house for a week.
My grandmother turned 90 years old this past February. I sent her a very nice gift basket which included good quality scotch because that is what my Grammy truly enjoys.
My father has planned a birthday celebration for her this summer. My two sisters will be there plus my family, and my father has invited friends of my Grammy. I just received an email from my dad's wife asking for me to help pay for food for the party.
We are trying to stick to a budget since my son is going to be starting college soon and we are saving as much as we can. I feel like we are already spending quite a bit of money to come home and see my family. I already gave my Grammy a nice gift that she loved. The party wasn't my idea and I am so introverted I would never offer to plan a party anyway. It takes me at least a day to recover from being at a party.
I would love some objective advice here. Could someone give me their point of view on this situation? I was surprised to be asked to help pay for the party. I would feel just fine offering to pay $100 since that would cover my family and a little extra, but I suspect they are expecting more than that. She said she would show me the receipts for the food trays she would be picking up and I could choose what to pay for.
J
Re: New...looking for advice about family and money
It reminds me of a friend of mine who wanted to do something really nice for his parent's anniversary (50th maybe?). Wanted to send them on this big trip to Hawaii. Had the idea to research it, book it, and then see if his siblings wanted to chip in and send them as a group gift (he didn't actually book it first).
I think they both mean well (my friend and your family), but I think if you're trying to plan something like that, you contact everybody involved first and see what they think of the idea and what they're willing/able to contribute. To go out and arrange for things and then expect people to contribute in my opinion is just rude.
I would come up with what I feel I could afford, whether it be $50/$100/ or... whatever, and I'd just reply with "We can't wait to celebrate Grammy's birthday. Between the expense of the trip itself and other financial obligations that we have right now, I can offer to chip in X towards the party. I wish we could offer more but that's not feasible at this time.".
Before she goes and orders food and other things, I would have the conversation with her so she doesn't say, "Well, it's already booked and we're on the hook for $X."
I agree that this is really rude. You don't plan a party and then ask people to chip in. You ask people if they want to help first. Then, you talk money contributions.
There's 2 issues here, which you mentioned. #1 The initial $100. #2. The probable expectation for you to contribute more than the $100.
With #1, I echo a PP who said you maybe do the $100 and then make it a firm $100. "This is what we can afford with the travel, college, etc.." If she gets upset, then offer IDEAS about making it a potluck style. Or, offer ideas about changing the party theme to like a picnic or BBQ theme, which are usually less expensive food types to serve.
#2 problem gets fixed by being firm on #1.
I totally agree with the other PPs. I think it is nice if you can contribute something toward the party, but if $100 is what you can afford, then $100 is what you can afford. If she doesn't like it, than she needs to plan a party SHE can afford. Nobody, not even family, is allowed to tell someone how to spend their money...especially on an event they took it upon themselves to plan.
Don't let her make you feel guilty about that. As you pointed out, it is already a huge expense for your family to go at all. I guarantee you, everyone in your family...especially grammy...will just be happy you all could come.
As an aside, I was once invited to a friend's birthday party hosted by another mutual friend. I had just been laid off...which mutual friend knew. I show up to the party and, shortly after, the mutual friend pulls me aside and tells me all the party guests are paying $8 each to help pay for the food and asks me to contribute $8 (probably $12 in todays money). I scrounged up the $8, which was about all the money I happened to have in my wallet, but I was shocked at the rudeness and still side-eye it hard even all these years later. No, $8 isn't a lot of money, but it was sure more than I wanted to spend for "dinner" at a time when I was scraping every dime I could. Quite frankly, I wouldn't have gone if I knew I had to pay $8 and I've never understood why she didn't mention guests would be contributing, during the initial invite anyway. Probably because it sounds so rude, lol.
I still to this day wish I'd had the gumption to tell her I didn't have enough money due to having just lost my job, but wouldn't eat anything (and then left early).