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With no hidden fees and a 100% purchase guarantee, you can feel confident when you book your premium LA tickets with Sweet Hop. Visit suitehop.com today. Happy Monday, Radicals. Let's kick off our week with a little discussion of money and in-laws. Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

My name is Joshua and I am your host. Today we tackle the subject of money and relatives. Is there a more thorny, challenging subject where so much good can come out but also so much bad? My friend writes into the show and he says, "Joshua, I'm curious to hear your thoughts about the interaction between money and family.

Obviously, this is a broad topic and can go in many different ways but here's a little bit about my situation. My wife's mother is a high-powered lawyer. We were planning to buy a house and she offered us a down payment gift of $100,000 to help with the occasion. I am very independent and consider it my duty as a husband to provide for my family.

This makes me ambivalent about accepting things like this from my mother-in-law. On the other hand, she is clear that this is part of my wife's inheritance and continuing a tradition. Her parents gave her a gift to help with her first house, etc. Now I could refuse the gift and do everything myself but I think this would cause friction in the family.

I've also heard it said that accepting money gracefully is the price you pay for marrying into wealth. My in-laws are very traditional non-mustachian types so they are sometimes baffled by our frugality. We only have one car, for example, but they are not domineering and this gift is not manipulative, just generous.

So if I accept, how can I accept with grace and still equip myself well as a man? That's just my situation but I think listeners would love a radical take on the topic of money and family. How do I handle spendy family members? What about parents who refuse to let us pay our way for dinners?

And what about family members who always seem to want to borrow money? All my best, Tim. Well, Tim, I'm going to answer your question, your specific question, and we'll leave some of the other topics perhaps for another opportunity. But the situation that you described is probably in many ways very ideal.

It doesn't sound like your particular situation is problematic but let's walk through it together and talk about the fundamental principles that I think need to be applied. The first thing to recognize is money can make relationships confusing. Anytime, especially anytime there's a dramatic disparity of wealth as in how much money you have versus somebody else who you're in some kind of relationship with, how much money they have, or even lifestyle as you sketched out.

We spend different amounts of money. We have different priorities with our spending. Any disparity can lead to challenges. One thing I've observed is rich people generally feel most comfortable hanging out with rich people. Poor people generally feel most comfortable hanging out with poor people. And I think it's due to the simple fact that we relate well to people who are like us.

And anytime there's a dramatic imbalance in lifestyle or status, we face challenges. I know for me, if I'm fairly frugal – and I am. I'm not as frugal as perhaps you are but I'm fairly frugal compared to many people. I don't find it fun to hang out with people who don't think at all about the value for their money.

It makes it difficult because then I'm always turning something down or I'm always the wet sheet, always trying to spoil the fun because I want to do something in a different way. And that just leads to difficult relationships. Now, that's just a microcosm. You take that and expand it out in many other ways and you'll see it expressed across society.

Well, this gets particularly tough when it's in family because in family, everything gets very, very amplified. So here are a few principles that I would apply to your situation. First and foremost, you didn't share in your particular email here what your wife's thoughts on the matter are. But that would be crucially important.

In a marriage relationship, it's very important that everything that you do, that you are entirely united with your wife, that you're entirely united and together in any of your actions. Because especially when we're talking about large sums of money and especially when we're talking about her parents, anything that you do that's out of step with your wife could have significant long-term consequences.

Now, obviously, as the husband, you bear the responsibility for leadership in these particular matters. However, leadership is not defined as forging ahead and saying, "This is the way that we're going to go." Rather, leadership involves having your family move together as a single unit. That's much more challenging than just forging ahead.

Now, since you didn't describe any conflict here, you described a really great scenario, I'm going to assume that you and she are on the same page in whatever steps that you take. But do not move out of step with your wife. If you do, it will sow the seeds to destroy your marriage.

Let's start with the positive, however, when it comes to money. I love the fact that your wife's mother is able to make this gift and wants to make this gift and even that she has a history, a family history, a family culture of this particular way of handling money.

Many times people only think about an inheritance at death. And frankly, this is not a particularly useful time to have money. It's my personal hope that when I'm older and my children are of marriageable age and they're at the age in which they're buying houses that I could do something similar and give my children a very significant gift to help them with the purchase of a home.

Because that's a time in their life when the money is much more useful. When people only think about giving money at death, I think they lose out on a lot of the benefits of giving money. First, the gift is not as valuable to their children. If we think about a very normal phase of life, let's say that parents grow and they have their children when they're in their mid-20s, 25 to 30 years old, and then a parent dies when they're, let's say, 80 years old.

Well, at that point in time, their children are probably about 50 years old and their grandchildren are probably about 25 years old. Well, you take most parents who have grown children as of in their own children in their 20s and 30s, and by then, most people have really fought through the most difficult years financially speaking.

They fought through all of the expenses associated with children. They fought through the larger housing needed to provide shelter for your children, and many of the expenses are on the diminishing side, at least if they have their lifestyle reined in and are not enhancing the spendy side of life.

Obviously, a couple who is in their older years could spend huge amounts of money, but it's not as strictly necessary as it was when children are young. So if a family waits until they die at, say, 80 or 85 years old to pass along an inheritance to their child who is, say, 50 or 55 years old, I think the impact of that money is severely diminished.

A 50-year-old, especially a 50-year-old who's responsible with money, their life is unlikely to be massively impacted by receiving an inheritance from their children. I've rarely seen a stable client who is financially secure, stable, etc., whose lifestyle really changed because of receiving an inheritance. Now, they might do something fun, buy a new car.

They might do something useful, pay off the mortgage. They might purchase another property. But most of the time, the money just goes into the same overall savings and investment scheme that they're already pursuing. And so it's not particularly useful there. Now, you flip that around and you talk about the impact of a gift on a 25-year-old or a 30-year-old young couple who has young children and they're really working and they're trying to do that next thing.

That gift then is very impactful. And so I love that your mother-in-law is in the situation where she can do this and where she has this vision. And this is something that I want to do for my children. I really do. It's very, very challenging, the phase of life, especially if you and your wife are buying your first home.

This phase of life is very, very challenging. Very challenging. And as long as you are demonstrating prudence, you're not being profligate with your spending, you're not wasteful, and you have a plan, then this money can be a real blessing to you because it can really increase your results. So that's awesome.

Now, what's the danger? Well, you've identified the danger. The danger is if the money is used in some sort of manipulative way. And unfortunately, money is often used for the manipulation of other people. And it's wrong. We need to condemn it at every level. It would be wrong for your mother-in-law to seek to manipulate you and your wife using this gift.

It would be wrong for you to manipulate your parents or your parents-in-law using money. And again, this happens at every level of society. Coworkers seek to manipulate one another. Bosses seek to manipulate employees. Employees seek to manipulate bosses as regards money. Government politicians manipulate one another. Companies manipulate politicians with the use of their money.

Politicians manipulate companies with the use of their money. Different levels of government manipulate one another. This manipulation happens all over the place. But what's the difference between manipulation and simple negotiation? Because it would be wrong to assume that all financial transactions involve manipulation. They don't. You can have an open and aboveboard financial transaction with terms and conditions and agreed-upon services, products, etc.

And that's not manipulation. I think the core of the matter is open communication. Is there some kind of unstated or under-emphasized expectation? This is where we get to the subject of a gift. If a gift is truly a gift, then it comes as an open transfer of money with no strings attached, without expectation.

And that's what I would be looking for in your situation. I would love to receive a gift. I would hate to be embroiled in a manipulative financial relationship. And so what you need to do is clarify and assure that this is a gift. Now a gift can have a purpose.

Obviously, your mother-in-law wants to give you the money to help with the down payment. I think that's right. A gift can be for the purpose, and that's the gift giver's prerogative. If they want to help with a specific scenario, a specific situation, that would be great. But I think the key is just simply open, clear communication about your freedom with the gift.

Here's how I would do it. In the open, healthy relationship that it sounds like you have with your wife's parents, I would express to them a deep level of gratitude even for the generosity of thought that they would even be willing to make the gift. That's really remarkable, and you should honor them for that approach.

They should be honored for, first and foremost, for even having the character and the foresight to save and accumulate money that could be used, to give away where it's excess and it's surplus. That's remarkable. You should also honor them just for that generous spirit of them wanting to help their children, especially now, especially in something that's going to be really useful.

So I think it's proper and right for you to honor them and to – directly to them and express that honor and that gratitude and that appreciation. But I think you should also express your concern. That your concern is we would love to accept this gift, but we want to make sure that we're doing it with clear and open communication.

So for the sake of clarity, we want to be sure this is a gift and we intend to use it for the purchase of a home. But just for clarity, we want to tell you and make sure that there are no strings attached to the gift. And then I would lay out whatever scenarios I would be concerned about.

For example, I would tell my parents-in-law, "I know that you find some of our decisions a little bit puzzling. We don't quite pursue the same path as other people. We want you to know that we're doing these things intentionally and we're very happy. We're united in the things that we're doing.

We're fully together and united in our decision-making. We're probably going to buy a smaller, simpler house than perhaps you might want to live in. But this is something that we want to do. We want to make sure that you're okay with our buying any house that we want to buy." I would also lay out a scenario such as, "It may be possible that in the coming years we may choose to sell our house.

There may be a change in the market. Maybe we may want to profit from the sale of the house and move. Or we might even move back to renting if we found a different situation." So I just want to make sure that in that scenario, you're not investing the money and expecting it to be returned if we change.

You're not trying to buy a specific house. You're giving us a free unencumbered gift of money, and we're planning to use that at this point in time for a down payment on a house. But we're not going to – but you're not expecting anything else. We're still free and able to use the money as we see fit.

Is that okay? Now, people are often scared to have these conversations. But what I have found is this. Good relationships can handle clear communication. And they actually handle it very easily. Good relationships can handle difficult things. A good marriage can handle any conversation on any topic. A good relationship with a friend is the kind of relationship that you can talk about just about anything.

Even things that are touchy such as one another's behavior or things that you think your friend is doing wrong or needs to change. A good close relationship can handle these crucial conversations. A bad relationship can't. And unfortunately, it's almost like the people who can most handle the conversations don't actually need them.

But the people who most need to have the conversations can't actually have them. A toxic relationship with parents-in-law would be one that didn't open itself up to simple and easy communication like this. And so if you had a hard time clarifying those things, establishing those things, if you had a hard time doing that, I would see that as a red flag.

In my observation of business partnerships and various aspects of business counseling and financial counseling I've been involved in over the years, I've never seen a good working relationship that can't handle straightforward communication. And I think it's important in a proper two-way conversation that each side be able to express their fears or their concerns up front.

One of the aspects of a manipulative financial relationship is a lack of equality between two people. And I'm not talking about a lack of equality in terms of financial standing. You can have a non-manipulative financial relationship between two people who are in very different financial circumstances. But a lack of equality and ability to express or ask questions or express concerns, that's a major red flag.

So the way to test it is by communicating clearly. If it were me, I'd do this in a probably pretty informal way, but I would make a list of my concerns. I would make sure that I asked my wife to make a list of her concerns. And if it were me, I would write these things down.

A $100,000 gift is nothing to sneeze at. It's a significant amount of money. And the higher the amount of money, I think the more important that there is in clarity. And in any kind of clear aspect of communication, the more crucial the communication, oftentimes the more valuable it is that it be written down.

Now, it's not a contract. But I would write these things down and say, you know, we wanted to take you out to dinner or go out to dinner with you. We wanted to share with you that we're really grateful for the gift. But we have a couple of concerns.

If we use the money for this purpose, will you be OK with this? We want to make sure this is a free and clear gift that's going to be unencumbered by your expectations. Now, I think what you'll find is they'll say, yes, we just want to give this to her as part of our daughter's inheritance.

We want to give it to you now while it's useful. And this is free and unencumbered. You can use this for a home and go from there. I think you'll find that. But the process of communication will smoke that out. Now, what if you don't find this? What if you don't find that the money is a free and clear gift?

I would tread very, very carefully here. I'm thinking now of a situation of financial and marriage counseling that I was on the periphery of recently. And this particular situation involved a husband whose father had helped the husband prior to marriage to purchase a house because the husband didn't quite have the money and had a problem with their credit.

And so his father had helped him to purchase a house before marriage. Then the husband had married and the wife's parents wanted to make certain financial contributions for the fixing up of the house to approach and to fix up, just to do some renovations and repairs. The problem is the relationship between the wife and the husband's parents, her parents-in-law, and the husband and his parents-in-law, these relationships are not very smooth.

And there is a lot of manipulation happening and there are problems on every hand. This marriage is very young, very young, not yet a year. And yet, if this particular young couple doesn't take drastic and dramatic action to separate themselves from their parents, I see no way that it can continue.

I don't see any way for it to end in anything except divorce. The advice that I would give to this particular couple is the only way for them to save their marriage is to walk away from all of the equity in the house, to walk away from everything that's local, get in the car and drive about 10 states away and start fresh.

Because although they've pronounced their marriage vows, they haven't actually left their parents. And when a man and a woman marry, they must leave their parents and be joined solely one to another. Now, some relationships between parents or children is easy and this can happen simply. There's no reason why most couples need to move 10 states away from their family.

You can have a great relationship with your wife or if your wife with your husband. You can live in the same town as all of the family members. And as long as the parents are not manipulative and as long as the parents respect the sovereignty of the new husband-wife unit and as long as the parents are not involved in trying to manipulate or change or influence that couple, especially with the husband's parents with him, the wife's parents with her.

As long as there's no manipulation, as long as there's no involvement, as long as the parents recognize that their authority is gone, you can have a great healthy relationship and there can even be money involved. But if you see even a single sign of any manipulation, you better pay careful attention.

And if you see any signs of that, I would – I mean personally, I wouldn't buy the saying that accepting money gracefully is the price you pay for marrying into wealth. Because if it were me, if my wife's parents were very wealthy and yet if they were involved in trying to give money and manipulate money, this happens in all kinds of subtle ways.

We're talking here the big ways of $100,000 gift. But there are so many subtle ways that this could happen. Parents can chip in a little bit of extra money because they don't think that you have quite the lifestyle that you'd like to have or they don't think that – especially if it's your wife.

They don't think that she's having quite the luxuries that she should have or they don't think that their children involved – the children quite have everything that they need or everything that they want. Now, if there's manipulation happening, you've got to cut that off 100%. And in some circumstances with some parents, you need to get to the other side of the country.

Now, the vast majority of situations shouldn't require that. And parents are in a situation where they can be a tremendous blessing. Grandparents are in a situation where they can be a tremendous blessing. Oftentimes, a grandparent who has the financial resources, as long as those resources are passing through the authority of the parents, grandparent can be a tremendous blessing.

Grandparent can help with a few extra things. Grandparent can help with extra money for music lessons or whatever the needs are for the children. A few extra luxuries can be very nice. But it must happen through the authority of the parents. The grandparents do not have authority. And if money starts to get involved, you've got to make amply sure that they recognize they do not have authority in your family and they cannot buy it.

They cannot manipulate you with money. So to wrap up as we focus on your ultimate question, how can I accept with grace and still equip myself well as a man? I think it starts with seeing your responsibility and having a healthy sense of respect for yourself and for your wife.

There are a lot of men who have been destroyed by their wife's parents who are very wealthy, constantly funneling money into the relationship because they look and feel like their wife is dissatisfied with what they can provide. Got to be careful of that. If that's the case, then you got to make sure that you do the work necessary to improve your earning ability, to save more money, whatever it is that you need to do.

But I've observed in some men who are in the situation where they marry a wealthy woman and all of a sudden because they can measure the money, their own sense of self-respect goes out the door. Wife didn't marry you for your money. She married you for you. So you've got to have a strong and healthy sense of self-respect.

And then you must be very clear about the boundary lines around your family. You are responsible for your family and you must brook no interference from anybody who wants to get in and destroy the cohesiveness of your family. You can't allow interference from anybody, friends, neighbors, brothers, sisters, nephews, parents, your wife's college roommate, your college roommate, nobody.

Now with a good, strong, clear attitude, then you can approach things confidently and you can accept gifts with total grace. There's no need whatsoever to be intimidated by money. One of your questions, what about parents who refuse to let us pay our way for dinners? I think you accept gracefully.

Recognize that your parents and your wife's parents want to do things that are nice and that are helpful. And as long as it's not with the intention of manipulation, be one who accepts gifts gracefully. There can be a very ugly expression of pride from someone who refuses to accept a gift.

And that can often come out of somebody who's insecure. As long as you're clear and as long as you're secure and as long as you're confident, and as long as you and your wife are moving together fully as one, completely united, in the things that you're doing, in your family goals, in the structure and the standards that are right for your family, you can accept those gifts and they pose no danger whatsoever.

In the scenario that you described over, Tim, I think it's going to be great. I think it's going to be a real blessing. Sounds like your parents-in-law are wonderful people and they're going to be a great blessing to your wife and to you and will be very, very helpful to you.

And hopefully you and your wife can take that legacy that they have built and pass that along to your children. Because I really do think that we who are building wealth are much better served in distributing it to people during a phase of their life when they can really use it, and even when we're alive to see it, when we're alive to enjoy it.

One of the skills that you can develop, Tim, and that I need to develop, that I'm working on as well, all of us, is to give gifts ourselves without manipulation. To be the kind of person who's a good giver. Good givers are often those who can receive well and can receive freely.

Don't be proud about saying, "I never receive money." Just make sure that the money is not coming in violation of something that's more important. Good, clear communication will expose those things. Good, clear written communication will expose those things. In this scenario that I described of this young couple, one of the major faults was problems of communication, and even problem of written communication.

So now, years after the original deals were done, there's not an ability to clarify what was actually decided because there was no written communication. Good relationships are always going to be enhanced by good, clear communication. Those are my thoughts. If you, as a listener, have additional thoughts that you'd like to share, welcome you to come by the show page, RadicalPersonalFinance.com.

Feel free to comment on today's show. Let us know. Let me know where you think I'm right. Let me know where you think I'm wrong. Give Tim any advice that you have for his situation as well. Tim, thank you for calling in, and I appreciate it. If you'd like to write to me, you can always use the contact form on the website at RadicalPersonalFinance.com.

You can write in with your comment or question. I don't do a ton of questions like that, but I always intend to do more, so I'm happy to receive your questions and your comments, and I'll be back with you soon. If you'd like to support the show, go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.

RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron, and feel free to support the show there directly. Thank you for listening. This show is part of the Radical Life Media network of podcasts and resources. Find out more at RadicalLifeMedia.com. Hey, Cricket customers. Max with Ads is included with your Cricket $60 unlimited plan at no additional cost.

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