Personal Finance Advice

Does someone else pay all your bills for you despite the fact that you are an adult and should handle your own finances? This doesn’t refer to a spouse who handles the financial aspect of the marriage - although both partners within a marriage should be fully aware of the couple’s finances - but instead refers to fully functioning adults who still allow parents to pay the way or instead to people who find a friend or love interest to pay the tab on everything.

It’s one thing to accept financial help from someone when you absolutely need it, such as during a financial emergency like a job loss or a divorce.  It’s another thing completely to rely on someone to pay your bills because you mismanage your own money so badly that you never seem to have enough.  There are several problems with this scenario:

1.  You have to be financially self-sufficient.  If you can’t afford to pay your bills then you should figure out a way to lower your expenses while increasing your income.  Getting help from someone else should be a temporary fix as opposed to a way of life.  After all, you’re an adult, aren’t you?

2.  You never know when the money will stop.  You can only milk someone for money for so long before the handouts will stop.  It doesn’t matter if the person giving you money is a parent or a friend or whoever; there will probably come a time when the person either wants something in return or decides to stop enabling you to be financially immature.

3.  You have to get a hold of your finances someday.  You are never going to be financially independent if you don’t know how to live without financial assistance from someone else.  If you get money from someone else to pay for the niceties in life then start going without the niceties until you can figure out how to pay for them yourself.

4.  It’s harder to appreciate things you didn’t really earn.  If someone else buys you a car, you’re probably less likely to care for it as you would if you had earned the money yourself to buy the car.  If someone gives you the money for a down payment on a house, owning the house will be much less of a triumph because you didn’t really make it happen yourself.  Really, don’t you want to earn your own way?

It’s time become an adult and start paying your own way.  Don’t fall into the trap of relying on other people because you never know when that support will stop.