Help. How to handle this situation from my daughter?

[braumeister]

On birthdays the person having the birthday would bring in a cake and Prosecco and treat the office at the morning break. In other words, the birthday girl had to feed everyone else.

My DW w*rked at a company here where that was the common practice. The birthday person brought in a load of donuts, cookies, cake, whatever, and the whole office enjoyed them.

It made so much sense, and when she changed to a different employer she introduced the custom there. Everyone seems to like it better than having to remember whose birthday is when.

 

[JBTX]

My teenaged daughter recently had a birthday. As a "treat", she was told to take her friends out to a movie, lunch and to get them "return gifts" afterward. I dropped her off at a local mall. Four hours later, I got a text alert from my bank for a total of $450. Lunch & movie for two friends and herself was around $100. The remaining $350 were "RETURN GIFTS", at $175 each. The girls all entered a high end clothing and make-up store and went on a shopping spree on my dime.

When I called her in utter panic, she says they wanted to pick their own return gifts and ran into the high end stores, picking up everything they wanted. My daughter did not think it was "bad", until I sat her down and gave her a stern lecture about how there's this thing called a "budget" and that $350 for return gifts was NOT being on a "budget". She says that she'll pay me back once she gets a job (she's hunting for a part-time job now). My point is not "pay back", but setting firm boundaries with other people - including family & friends - where money is concerned.

I really have NO idea how to handle this. She's been an authorized user on my card for 4 years now and I've never had this issue before. She's always been a responsible kid, only using the card to occasionally buy lunch and text books for her courses. She's also ALWAYS checked in with me with prices so this is really startling, on top of the fact that she was not assertive enough to speak up and SAY NO, insisting the "return gifts" not be more than what they each gave her --$25 or max $30.

How do I handle this? She's very quiet, not very social and has no other friends. I'm worried if I let this go now, these girls will start taking advantage of her every time they "hang out", especially now that they know that she has a credit card. I understand I can "revoke" her as an authorized user from my card but then she will not learn boundaries, budgeting on spending on friends etc.

Please help.

Late to the party here but we have now young adult daughter with mental health and spending compulsivity issues. Once she turned to adult she rang up such large debts she will eventually have to file for bankruptcy. We finally decided we can’t control what she does and are not responsible.

That’s not the situation your are in but no doubt peer pressure can definitely play a part especially if friends don’t have as easy access to funds.

Two tools that can better regulate spending if it becomes an issue:

- Greenlight card - a debit card with extensive spending controls. It costs $5 a month but I use it for both kids.
- AMEX blue cash (and maybe other AMEX cards) - have the ability to add a user and to have a monthly spending limit, as low as $100 I think. It’s the only card I know of that has that feature.

 

[Morricol61]

Return gifts? Never heard of that. You have a birthday and people buy you gifts, not the other way around. Aren't return gifts the gift you buy for them on their birthday?


Not a custom I am familiar with at least.