{"id":640907,"date":"2026-05-13T16:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/640907\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T16:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:32:10","slug":"my-sister-often-has-financial-emergencies-i-just-learned-something-that-makes-me-question-all-the-help-ive-given-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/640907\/","title":{"rendered":"My sister often has financial emergencies. I just learned something that makes me question all the help I’ve given her."},"content":{"rendered":"

Pay Dirt is Slate\u2019s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here<\/a>. (It\u2019s anonymous!)<\/p>\n

Dear Pay Dirt,<\/p>\n

My youngest sister, who I\u2019m pretty close with, has had a lot of financial troubles the last five or so years, including huge unexpected house repairs (HVAC, mold, flooding, etc.), medical bills from accidents, dental emergencies, and more.\u00a0Her marital situation is not financially stable, but she is self-employed in a very essential field (where self-employment is the standard), though there have been issues there with paying self-employment taxes. She is essentially a single mom (her marriage is not to her kids\u2019 dad) and she is often troubled that she can\u2019t always provide for things for her kids (electronics, cars, presents, parties).<\/p>\n

She used to go to my dad for financial help (he has since passed away), and now she often comes to me. She sometimes asks me outright for money, though she usually just reaches out to vent about the stress of everything (though I\u2019ve not always been sure that the venting isn\u2019t an indirect way to ask for money). We\u2019ve had some problems with that, but I did put up some boundaries.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I Was Happy to Give My Best Friend a Plus-One to My Wedding. But I Might Have to Draw the Line at This Latest Addition to Their Family.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve given her and her kids a lot of money and goods and help, which I\u2019m glad I can do, and there are no strings attached.\u00a0I don\u2019t expect repayment or even thanks. But I did recently find out she has a Roth IRA she\u2019s been funding for almost two decades.\u00a0I asked her about it and she said she protects it because, in her words, she \u201chas no one\u201d and \u201cis alone.\u201d I\u2019m having a hard time with this. I cashed out my own (pretty pathetic) retirement to buy her kid a major ticket, much-needed item. I haven\u2019t started saving for education for my own kids.\u00a0But I have a spouse in a very stable, high-paying job.\u00a0Should I expect my sister to bail herself out of catastrophic financial trouble with her retirement money?\u00a0My rational self and empathy says that it\u2019s complicated, but I\u2019m also just kind of pissed, too.<\/p>\n

\u2014Who Should Foot the Bills?<\/p>\n

Dear Who Should Foot the Bills,<\/p>\n

Your sister isn\u2019t wrong to keep her retirement account funded\u2014that Roth IRA might feel like a safety net\u2014but you should be prioritizing yours, too.<\/p>\n

Time matters when it comes to saving for the future, and once you pull money out of your retirement accounts, you can\u2019t get back the years it would have had to grow. In other words, think twice before sacrificing your own future (or your kids\u2019 future) to solve someone else\u2019s financial emergencies. As the saying goes, you have to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve already set some boundaries, so stay firm with them. Your sister\u2019s financial choices are her own to make, but so are yours. You can still offer support in ways that don\u2019t involve draining your retirement accounts.<\/p>\n

\u2014Kristin<\/p>\n

\n Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don\u2018t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication.\n <\/p>\n

More Money Advice From Slate<\/p>\n

My husband and I both have full-time jobs. He has an \u201cimportant\u201d job and tends to work 60-plus-hour weeks and travel at least twice a month. My 9-to-5 job is often interrupted or truncated by family needs\u2014think doing school drop-off while my husband is traveling, responding to school nurse phone calls, bringing kids to doctor appointments, planning social calendars, and coordinating\/delivering kids to all of their activities. I also, like most women, do the majority of the housework. I\u2019m making dinner while eating my lunch, folding laundry during meetings, and grabbing activity slots while working. My work is getting a raw deal, as I\u2019m skimping on hours that I have to document. (My husband says that I shouldn\u2019t be so uptight about working my stated hours.) Traveling for my job is a whole other thing, which usually involves asking my out-of-town parents to come and watch the kids. I think all of this is bad for the family.\u00a0But my husband won\u2019t let me quit my job.<\/a><\/p>\n

Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pay Dirt is Slate\u2019s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[3005,28,147,530,1170,6843],"class_list":["post-640907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-advice","tag-business","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-real-estate","tag-slate-plus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}