This Can Get Ugly Really Fast

[Music] brought to you by the every dooll app start budgeting for free today so we are foster parents and we were taking care of a baby pretty much from a newborn until about eight months um the mom did great she she got her kids back after she went through some struggles uh long story short um her case has been closed she has all her kids back and she is struggling again so with pretty much all aspects of life but uh financially she made some poor decisions with a car ended up breaking down and she had to junk it and uh she contacted us just for some help financially um we we haven't helped her with money before but obviously we love you know her son very much we want her to succeed um we know that giving her money is not a long-term solution to anything um so we're really just trying to think about the best way to approach her talk to her about you know what's going on how her finances are how she can get assistance build a budget um Etc and and she's a very very uh shy closed off type person so we don't want to scare her off but obviously still wanting to help her we're just looking for the best way to to maybe approach that well I mean all you can do that's reasonable is to coach her and the only way you can coach her is to the extent she'll accept the coaching right right and and I yeah I talked to her yesterday and she you know I I asked her if she would be opening to open to having a financial conversation my my wife and I are in you know good shape we're very stable and if uh she said she was open to having that conversation she said she doesn't really understand debts and just finances in general and on top of that I mean she has three kids now she's not working has a baby who's now a year and her other two kids are N9 and 10 and she just has absolutely no idea what to do um she can't get daycare for her for her baby because in order to get assistance through the state she has to have two paychecks uh before they'll provide daycare assistance so she is just going crazy and we feel like she's close to you know getting back to a point where she may make some poor decisions or drugs or something like that and and yeah um well obviously the financial situation is again the symptom of all the things that have gone on in her life okay and um so but but maybe you can coach some of the things in her life by using the financial door to go through um H having dealt with this a bunch of times over the years the warning I would give you is I I would tell you to be very very clear upfront uh because when you said Financial conversation you meant coaching she might have heard money you're going to have a conversation about how much money you're going to give me yes I'll be happy to have that conversation when you when she it's very clear to her that you're not going to give her money cuz you're not um that then uh because this is a a messed up toxic situation if you start that um um then then she may cut you loose so you need to be ready for that emotionally okay and so I think um you know what I would offer if I were in this situation with your wife present I would just say uh in in in person over a cup of coffee um look we love the little boy and that means that we would love to help you and our help to you would be that as a as your older brother and older sister here that are successful in a lot of areas of life that you're not yet we can show you a better path in a bunch of these areas and um help her get plugged into a good church they can help her with the daycare get started uh let someone do that but if she starts to see this baby as a ticket to get money out of you this is going to get really uh ugly fast right right right yeah and so she did move um two hours away from us when when the case was finally closed I guess that was about a month ago and we did at that time give her $200 to help moving expensive and get a truck to go down there um so I'm hoping that she doesn't think that that door is already open she does I'm to avoid she does you're but you're just the trick is can you can you make a trip down there sit down be very clear we love you we because we love this baby we want to coach you and help you but it's going to be we're going to show you how to get on your feet not we're going to give you money to get on your feet M and uh she may give you the middle finger um let me it's a better than a 50% probability yeah based on my experience but uh but if she she may have been just D it's sad but sometimes folk in these situation or use a baby as a method of manipulation well that's the thing I would probably caution um against with David just to be really careful cuz obviously they love this this little boy and so there's probably um a part in them that wants to try to control the situation because in their minds like we have the means like we understand money we understand how to take care of this kid and so I think that they have to really guard their hearts in this situation because like you said yeah it's so sad yeah but I think what she's got to have is she's got to have some mentors and some people in her life that's why I said plug her into a good church let's get her started walking on a character path it didn't let her get cuz obviously based on what you said she's been struggling with that and you're afraid she's going to fall back off of that and when she gets that character thing straightened out then you can show her the mechanics of the money piece but um but she's going to have to go to work and she's got to feed three kids and we're going to have to figure out a way to cause her to be able to do that with some community support and that Community will help her if she's heading in the right way and you can probably line that up um and if and I think you're a wonderful person for investing into this but uh but but just be very careful that you're not being um uh manipulated because that sometimes is the only skill someone has um and they're very skillful in some cases I'm not saying that's true about her 100% but it's just something I would personally be careful with if I was walking into this I'd want my eyes wide open create your free every dollar budget today the simplest way to budget for your life