Yup. I am paying off the father in law. I withdrew the money from the bank today. Baseball boy's parents just came into town and we plan to give him the money tomorrow morning.
I'm not sure how much we owe him though. Since the mail forwarding got all mixed up some bills from our FL house have been lost in the mail system and I am probably getting all kinds of late charges added onto them, and other bills arrived in NC (to Baseball boys father) and he paid them for us because the bill was due in a day or two. So there was no time to forward the bill to us to pay. I dont even know the bill situation completely, FIL would just sometimes comment to me, "oh, I paid your electric bill today." and when I was presented a stack of mail from FIL yesterday, there were some bill stubs, but not all of our regular bills. So I sat down and tried to guestimate what FIL has paid over the summer for us.
I paid all of Junes bills personally, because the mail forwarding was working back in June, so I just included an extra $200 for July bills. No one is living in the house, everything has been unplugged and the air conditioning is set at 80 degrees. I think $200 should cover the month of July. Then I have no idea how August will work out, but it's only one more month of suffering through this weird mail situation.
I think FIL never thought he would "see" the money back that he loaned us. He paid some bills for us generously thinking he was helping us, but I hate owing people money and have harbored a torch to pay him back as soon as we could. The money has been sitting in the bank all summer. Finally! It's gone and off of my 2Do list!
Baseball boy and I have not figured out a way to give it to FIL in a way that he will accept it and not "leave it behind" for us. In the past we have tried to give him money for something and he either talks us into keeping it, or leaves the money untouched on our kitchen table.
I understand it comes from a good place, this wanting to let us keep the money, but that drives me crazy, and I try to avoid borrowing money from him at all costs in the future, knowing that it will be hard to pay it back. I want to just give him this money, and be back on a clear slate with him.
So, thats my thoughts for today.
Paying back the father in law!
July 24th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
July 25th, 2008 at 12:20 am 1216945251
July 25th, 2008 at 12:41 am 1216946465
This is something I've had to learn over the years. Sometimes people just want to do something for you because they care about you. Making the offer to pay back is good, insisting on it or getting upset about it, isn't so good.
Anyway, just my two cents.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:49 pm 1216990171
My wife wanted another child and we had to get a donor egg. The process is very expense. There are lawyer fees, genetic testing, and paying the woman. My FIL is very well to do and offered to loan me the money at 0% and pay him back when I could. It was very generous and 30k to him is probably not a lot of money. I sat down with him and basically thanked him and said no thank you.
So, you might want to have just a quick chat, no big deal. Something like it is very important for you as an adult to take responsibility for your actions and then acknowledge his kindness and generosity. In other words, you want his respect without disrecting him.
Good luck!!
July 26th, 2008 at 01:21 am 1217035264