Frugal or Tacky? April 28, 2008

So, yes – my posting frequency has fallen off a bit in the past week. I blame it on the fact that my boss threw 2 fairly major projects in my lap early last week, and told me to have them both ready for a meeting on Friday afternoon. This managed to screw with both my free time at work and my ability to actually leave the office at a normal hour – I only made it to the gym with L. on Monday. Also, I ended up having to cancel on the Red Sox game BF and I had tickets for Thursday afternoon – he brought his friend instead, so at least they weren’t a total waste.

In any case – I’ve been musing over something that I had a disagreement with my mother over this weekend. See, I’ve got a fair amount of extended family, and, well – we don’t really get along at all. We suffer each other’s presence a few times a year at family holidays and parties, but it is increasingly unpleasant and ugly. After a rather horrific scene at a graduation party last May, both my sister and I have made the decision to largely opt-out of the family gatherings. There are a few cousins that we don’t have particularly ill feelings towards, but they don’t make up for the general level of vitriol and hatred that goes on at a family gathering.

That being said – one my my cousin’s is getting married next month. She’s actually doing the destination wedding thing, then having a reception back home a few weeks later for everyone else that couldn’t be there. Now, none of the extended family except my grandmother were even given the option of attending the destination, which has already caused a few hurt feelings. This weekend, I found out from my mother that they received the invitation to the reception – it was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. X, and family. Now – I am 30 years old, and my younger sister is 26 years old. My sister does live in my parents house, still, but I haven’t lived there for almost 6 years. I told my mother that I thought it was hopelessly rude and tacky to expect that to suffice as an actual invitation for me, particularly as I am in a serious relationship (and all relatives have met BF), and, in addition to not being invited myself, I’m not allowed to bring a date? Really? My mother thinks I shouldn’t add this to the stack of rude and nasty things my family has done, and just chalk it up to a money saving exercise. Sure, I guess – but I won’t be attending.

The fight April 4, 2008

Normally, Thursday is my favorite day of the week. Its the day that I go over to my parents house after work, have a good dinner and watch Survivor with Mom and Dad – yes, its sort of silly and repetitive, but its our little bonding moment. Then, I head out to the local bar we go to every Thursday night for karaoke – I love to sing, and so do most of my friends, including BF. So, needless to say, I was in a pretty good mood most of yesterday at work, thinking about the enjoyable evening to come. Until …I get the phone call from my Mom.

Now, 5 plus years ago, my Mom did me a huge favor and let me transfer the balance on one of my high interest credit cards to one of her credit cards. She then created a system where my checking account would transfer out a fixed amount of money every week into her checking account, and she would pay what she could on the bill. As time went by, I took advantage of this opportunity, and transferred more balances and did more things to try and dig myself out of my self-created hole. Finally, about 6 months ago, I had somewhere around $12,000 that I  owed that was on a credit card in her name. The current 0% was expiring, and I proposed that, in order to eventually make it easier for me to transfer the balance back to a card solely in my name, we open the next account as a joint account. This is what happened, though she still wanted to keep the current system of me paying her, and her paying the card.

I recently got notice that Bank of America jacked up the interest rate on one of my other cards to 29.99%, and was frantically looking for a way to get that lowered. I mentioned this to my mother, and, since the card that has the $12,000 on it has a $25,000 credit limit, she said it would be ok to transfer the Bank of America balance over to that  card. I mentioned that I had a few smaller balances that I wanted to transfer over as well, and that I wanted to take over the responsibility for paying the card myself, and she agreed. I made the transfers, and thought everything was fine, until last night.

I walk in the door, and she starts screaming at me that I lied to her, because when she asked me the total amount that I was transferring, I said that it was somewhere around $8,000. In reality, it was closer to $10,000, but I didn’t have the figures in front of me at the time. It wasn’t an attempt at deception at all, merely a mistake in speaking. I apologized, but she is still intensely angry with me, upset that I am somehow abusing her trust and her credit.

I am now trying to figure out the fastest way possible to free up some space on the cards that are only in my name, so I can transfer the balance back and have her out of my financial life. My mother likes to say that she is the family financial manager, but I think she makes it too easy to be lackadaisical about financial matters, both for me, and for my 26 year old sister.