Dangerous precedent to give larger $ gift?

In My Humble Opinion
1

First the background. My wife and I view finances very differently and she comes from a family where when people have got money, they spend it, and when they don’t they are hurting big time…i.e. no saving for a rainy day. By comparison to her sisters (and my brothers-in-law) we are doing a lot better financially, and we always save for the proverbial ‘rainy day’.

Another important fact is that when giving gifts, our limit for a ‘major occasion gift’ (i.e. wedding, bar mitzvah, graduation, etc.) has always been right around $100.

Now my wife’s sister is having twins after going through two rounds of in vitro fertilization that cost them ~$24,000, and they are pretty broke as a result. They are planning to register for baby gifts and last night when my wife asked me what I wanted to spend, I thought I was being generous by volunteering $200 (since it is two kids). She got very quiet and said she wanted to give $500…then added that she was throwing in $300 of her own (discretionary money) if all ‘we’ were giving was $200 from our ‘community money’, which I found a bit insulting.

I spoke with her about this and suggested that sets a dangerous precedent, because in my opinion, when the family finds out we spent this much (and they will find out no matter how well we try to conceal it), we will be expected to ALWAYS spend this much going forward. So every bar mitzvah, wedding, bris, birthday, etc. suddenly becomes a burden because of the pressure to spend more. She sees this as being a one-time event and doesn’t think this will happen in the future.

Now the question is, am I just being paranoid and distrustful or am I right about this feeling?

I realize you’d have to know our families to really be able to answer this, but I’m curious how others of you have dealt with inherent disagreements about the spending of ‘community’ monies like this.

Part of me wants to help her sister out because they’re really great people, but part of me feels like they knew exactly the kind of debt they were getting themselves into when they did this in vitro thing, so they should bare the consequences of those actions and not expect others to bail them out.

Your advice and opinions are greatly appreciated…

2

It seems that your wife has come up with a fair solution. After all, if the $300 is out of her “discretionary” funds, then she can spend it how she wants. Her sister is very important to her and there is nothing wrong with that. That she is not burdening you with the full $500 shows that she respects your limits on what YOU spend.

I wouldn’t worry about setting a precedent. Families help out when there is a need. Especially an overwhelming need like this. Your s-i-l has been through a very painful rollercoaster. That the first round of IVF wasn’t successful is very painful, both emotionally and physically. She is very lucky to become pregnant during the second round.

You really need to talk to your wife about this. Would you feel differently if your s-i-l had a limited income? That they didn’t deserve to have children because they needed help setting up the nursery? Your wife is trying to help her sister the best way she knows.

Just my thoughts…

DeVena
3 years of failed fertility treatments

3

Well $100 limit per person (sis-in law, + Husband {assuming}, + 2 kids)=$400 straight up even without breaking your rules. If they spent 24000 that was hard for them to afford to be able to have kids, why consider how much you pay for a present? It cannot cause a dangerous precident unless you have several siblings and sibling-in-laws also going through IVF treatment or other expensive means to have children.
That would buy a nice gift for each child plus lots of stuff that the new family will actually need. But if $500 is a financial burden to you and your family, I susspect that lots of baby sitting offers would be an equally valid gift.

4

I, a wife and sister, would be reluctant to spend that much ($500.00) on one of my family members. I love all my siblings (well, pretty much), but for any of us, that is a lot of money. None of my siblings would expect a gift that large. I’m not sure I could accept a gift that large.

Is she thinking of one large gift, several smaller ones, a cash gift, a party, or what?

I guess I could see $500.00 over the course of a pregnancy for a close sibling or friend, but not one gift. Perhaps I’ve just been too poor for too long.

5

UPDATE: I’ve decided to agree to the larger $500 from the ‘community money’ and take a chance on the fact this is a one time event and an ‘exception’. It was something they had to act on, even if it didn’t make financial sense, because of their age and the timing in their lives.

The reason it bothers me is because the argument of “They would do the same for us if the situation was reversed” is used on me.

That’s true in the sense they would “want” to help. But in practice, if they had $500 of disposable income, it would be burning a hole through their pockets. They’d go out and blow the money on themselves because unfortunately, that’s the way the family is. Then if some disaster came up, the answer would be “Gee, we’d love to help (and they truly would) but, we don’t have any money” And while I can’t expect to change that, I also can’t help but feel a little resentful of the fact that people look at my ‘disposable income’ and want to dispose of it for me, when I chose to save and invest it instead of treating every day like it is my last on Earth.