My mom helps me financially

While my mother will not be reading this article, let me state a little bit about our background. I was raised by a single parent mother who has always put my sister and I ahead of her. It doesn’t matter what it is but she always seems to put our needs above hers. And while I appreciated it growing up, now that I am making a full time living, she doesn’t necessarily need to continue doing so. But like a lot of parents, it has been difficult for her to go a different route.

The reason I bring up this story and am writing this article is in regards to a recent radio show that I listened to. In the problems part of the show, they talked about how a mom always sends her son a $75 check for birthdays. The problem is that the son is in his thirties, making really good money, and the mom is not well off. She is older and shouldn’t be giving the money to her son.

And after hearing the show for thirty seconds, there was no doubt that my first thoughts were on my mom. For whatever reason, she continues to shower us with lots of gift cards at Christmas and money for our birthdays. She actually sent my wife $100 for her birthday, which was definitely not needed.

I have told my mother time and time again that all I want is a card but she continues to send money. I am not sure if she feels guilty that she didn’t have a lot of money when we were younger but this is something that she definitely does not want to do. If you are in a similar situation, and I am sure a lot of you are, the radio talked about two great things that you could do with the money.

The first, which would be the more fun road, is to take the money and use it to do something with your mother. They talked about how a daughter used the money that her mom gave her plus some of her own cash to have a day that she spent just with her mom. The biggest thing obviously about this day is that the two of you are spending time together and having fun. It doesn’t even have to involve money, but if your mother still gives you money, it is an outlet that allows you to not feel guilty about continuing to get the money every year.

The second idea was a fantastic thought and something that my wife and I already mentioned to each other. Instead of taking the cash or check that your mother gives during the holidays, they have opened an IRA for her. As the guy on the radio said, while it will not make her a millionaire when she retires, every little bit counts.

The reason why this made me seriously think is the worst part of this story. My mom does everything for her kids and gives us too much stuff, even in our late twenties. But she has put very little aside in retirement. With her 65th birthday getting closer and closer (She does have over a decade though), I know that her retirement is something that she worries about. She may feel that she is alone during that time but needs to realize that my sister and I will be there for her.

So what I may do from now on is start an IRA that just takes the money that she gives us for holidays. Instead of using the cash, put it aside and add it to her IRA. Rather than spend the gift card, sell it on ebay and use the money to fund that account.

I can’t say that I have looked into the schematics of the entire situation (In terms of setting it up, where to put it, what fund to put it in, etc.) but the person on the radio says that they have been doing it for 23 years. I am unsure how exactly that works overall, but think about happy your mother would be if you had an account that had thousands of dollars in it and it was just from her gifts? Could you give her a better present?

This is something that I will seriously be looking into the future. Hopefully if something good comes out of the situation, I will write about it in the future. For those that have something similar going on, think about what you can do to help your parent down the road. The more thinking you do now, the better the situation will be a decade from now.