You are over 18. You should have your money in an account your mother can’t access. Drive yourself down to a bank and set one up. Er… or you can probably do the whole thing online, including moving funds.
Student loans are a bad idea in all but the severest pinch. But you probably heard that from us.
Did she “borrow” the money to pay a school bill, or for random house expenses, or random house expenses that couldn’t otherwise be covered because of a school bill? Obviously that would make a difference.
It also sounds like you went an extended time without receiving your own account statements or being able to check your activity online? That’s not right.
@Jay: Probably a smart idea to get an account she can’t access, but I’m not even sure I could. We both had to sign the withdrawal slip, so apparantly her level of control on the account is over mine. It started out as the college savings account, but there was virtually none of that left when my paychecks started getting put in there. The excuse was that it was to cover school bills, and we did admittedly spend a lot on books, but I’m sure she was just idly taking money to cover random things. I basically have no way to check on the account without asking her, I should see about doing it online since I’m sure you can.
@Grandpa: Thanks for that. I’m glad to see you’re reading, but try not to get offended if I say anything too off-color, after all it’s not like it runs in the family or anything . By the way, when I said grandparents, I meant the one’s who live in Bridgewater and are know gossips, not you. I hope you didn’t take it that way.
Start a new account to use going forward. Put any new money in it, and whatever you can get from what already exists.
It’s possible the two signer thing was from before you were 18 and technically no longer has to be done, but it could also be an absolute, which makes sense if it started as a college fund for them to save money to.
Your mother has always been superlative at juggling money (not sure if your father fully realizes just how good, any more than she seems to appreciate his ability and dedication to earning it for her to stretch), even if it means getting creative, but she may be increasingly likely to forget if or how much she borrowed from somewhere like your account in order to smooth cash flow elsewhere.
OTOH if it was supposed to be for school and it came out to pay for school, well, you’d have had to do it anyway if it were up to you to handle those bills yourself. Which it ultimately is, with any help from the parents being gravy. I hold with the “18 or high school graduation” demarcation, and if parents are willing and able to contribute to any degree toward college or keeping you in kibble and a roof during that period, that’s very nice of them.
In conjunction with that, by that cutoff it is the responsibility of your parents to teach you about managing money, the need to work and support yourself, and not hide or omit in any way just what that is going to take.
The irony is that most parents fail at least partially at that, but the ones who succeed best tend to be the same ones who are leaving trust funds the kids can tap to smooth things out. But I digress.
You do have a point, as long as it’s actually going to pay college expenses, but I somehow suspect this isn’t the case, though you’re right about her usually managing to shuffle things in the right places to make everything work. Of late, however, she’s gotten to be very sloppy about getting the bills paid, to the point where I think it’s only going to be a matter of time until there’s some serious trouble about it. Just recently she got another late fee for because of paying off the original one late (though I partly believe her that she might have done it on time, and she really should at least try calling customer service - personally I recommended that she burn the place to the ground, which was cause for Dad to yell at me). Even so, it’s scary the frequency with which bills turn up out of nowhere after they’re already due, and Dad doesn’t help by just shoving things in random places. I want some liquid OCD for him so he can learn how to fucking clean PROPERLY!
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You are over 18. You should have your money in an account your mother can’t access. Drive yourself down to a bank and set one up. Er… or you can probably do the whole thing online, including moving funds.
Student loans are a bad idea in all but the severest pinch. But you probably heard that from us.
Did she “borrow” the money to pay a school bill, or for random house expenses, or random house expenses that couldn’t otherwise be covered because of a school bill? Obviously that would make a difference.
It also sounds like you went an extended time without receiving your own account statements or being able to check your activity online? That’s not right.
not a word
love you
grandpa
@Jay: Probably a smart idea to get an account she can’t access, but I’m not even sure I could. We both had to sign the withdrawal slip, so apparantly her level of control on the account is over mine. It started out as the college savings account, but there was virtually none of that left when my paychecks started getting put in there. The excuse was that it was to cover school bills, and we did admittedly spend a lot on books, but I’m sure she was just idly taking money to cover random things. I basically have no way to check on the account without asking her, I should see about doing it online since I’m sure you can.
@Grandpa: Thanks for that. I’m glad to see you’re reading, but try not to get offended if I say anything too off-color, after all it’s not like it runs in the family or anything
. By the way, when I said grandparents, I meant the one’s who live in Bridgewater and are know gossips, not you. I hope you didn’t take it that way.
Start a new account to use going forward. Put any new money in it, and whatever you can get from what already exists.
It’s possible the two signer thing was from before you were 18 and technically no longer has to be done, but it could also be an absolute, which makes sense if it started as a college fund for them to save money to.
Your mother has always been superlative at juggling money (not sure if your father fully realizes just how good, any more than she seems to appreciate his ability and dedication to earning it for her to stretch), even if it means getting creative, but she may be increasingly likely to forget if or how much she borrowed from somewhere like your account in order to smooth cash flow elsewhere.
OTOH if it was supposed to be for school and it came out to pay for school, well, you’d have had to do it anyway if it were up to you to handle those bills yourself. Which it ultimately is, with any help from the parents being gravy. I hold with the “18 or high school graduation” demarcation, and if parents are willing and able to contribute to any degree toward college or keeping you in kibble and a roof during that period, that’s very nice of them.
In conjunction with that, by that cutoff it is the responsibility of your parents to teach you about managing money, the need to work and support yourself, and not hide or omit in any way just what that is going to take.
The irony is that most parents fail at least partially at that, but the ones who succeed best tend to be the same ones who are leaving trust funds the kids can tap to smooth things out. But I digress.
You do have a point, as long as it’s actually going to pay college expenses, but I somehow suspect this isn’t the case, though you’re right about her usually managing to shuffle things in the right places to make everything work. Of late, however, she’s gotten to be very sloppy about getting the bills paid, to the point where I think it’s only going to be a matter of time until there’s some serious trouble about it. Just recently she got another late fee for because of paying off the original one late (though I partly believe her that she might have done it on time, and she really should at least try calling customer service - personally I recommended that she burn the place to the ground, which was cause for Dad to yell at me). Even so, it’s scary the frequency with which bills turn up out of nowhere after they’re already due, and Dad doesn’t help by just shoving things in random places. I want some liquid OCD for him so he can learn how to fucking clean PROPERLY!