Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It’s anonymous!)
Dear Pay Dirt,
I am 34 and my sister is 32. In the past year, both of us ended up moving back in with our mom, me because I went through a breakup (we lived together) and my sister because the friend she’d been living with left town and she didn’t have the cash to get a new place. My mom isn’t charging us rent, but we both contribute to household expenses and take turns getting groceries and cooking. I don’t know where my sister gets her money for this.
I have a full-time job and make an OK salary for our area. I’m using my mom’s generous hospitality to build up enough cash to eventually rent my own apartment. My sister, however, doesn’t have a job and isn’t looking for one. She says she’s working all day on her computer, but is cagey about what it is—maybe a book, but certainly not one she’s sold (she’s cagey about everything).
Every now and then she will do cat sitting for a family in our neighborhood, but that’s like $100 each time. I’m worried that my sister is racking up credit card debt while living here, and that mom and I are enabling her. She also has student debt from a masters degree she almost completed but quit, but she has always refused to talk about that. She’s certainly not making any payments. My mom trusts my sister to take care of herself and says I should, too. Don’t you think my sister should tell us about her financial situation, since she’s living in my mom’s house?
—Concerned Sister
Dear Concerned Sister,
I’m going to say something you probably don’t want to hear: Butt out.
I know that feels wrong. You’re both living under your mom’s roof, you’re watching your sister float through the days with no visible income, and your responsible-older-sibling alarm bells are screaming. I get it.
On the other hand, your mom—the homeowner, the person whose hospitality you’re both enjoying—isn’t worried. She’s not charging either of you rent. Your sister is contributing to household expenses and taking her turn with groceries and cooking. Whatever mysterious thing she’s doing on that computer, she’s pulling her weight in the house. Your mom has told you directly to back off. Listen to her.
It may be uncomfortable to face this, but you and your sister are actually in the same situation. You’re both adults who moved back home because life didn’t go as planned. The fact that you have a full-time job and a savings goal doesn’t make you the household financial auditor. Your sister doesn’t owe you a spreadsheet of her debts (if she has any) just because you share some DNA and a mailing address.
Could she be racking up credit card debt? Sure. Could she also have savings you don’t know about, freelance income she hasn’t mentioned, or a partner helping her out? Also possible. She’s 32. If her student loan payments are in default, that’s between her and her loan servicer—and the consequences of those decisions will find her without your help.
If you’re genuinely concerned about your mom being taken advantage of financially, that’s a conversation to have with her, privately. But your mom already answered that question: She trusts your sister. And she wants you to, also, probably to save your sibling relationship.
The person you actually need to focus on is you—building that savings, finding that apartment, and getting back on your own two feet. So, focus on your present and future financial stability and let the other chips fall where they may.
—Ilyce
Classic Prudie
My grandma is in her early 80s and lives alone in a huge, dilapidated house that she grew up in. The home is not safe. It has very steep stairs, rickety railings—she has fallen and broken bones a few times in the past few years—there is mold, and she cannot keep it clean. Yet she refuses to move elsewhere. The family responds by traveling great distances, several times a week, to help her—these are people with jobs, special-needs kids, spouses who are terminally ill. In short, they are getting run down and exhausted, and it is a huge burden on multiple families. I also worry that she will more seriously injure herself or even die because of this house and her refusal to move.