Brought to you by the EveryDollar app, start budgeting for free today. Back in 2017, my mom passed away when I was 19 and left me an inheritance that included a portion of my father's 401k that she received in the divorce two years prior to her passing. Of that amount, my father asked me or requested a $40,000 loan two years ago to assist in his completion of his retirement home with his now wife. And the terms of said loan, orbit, ambiguous.
And I suppose over time, it's something that hasn't really been discussed. And I'm just looking for a little bit of guidance on how to pose a conversation and frame it in a way that doesn't seem greedy or pushing. I am conscious of the fact that at one time it was his money. So that is something that I guess.
When it came to you, Matthew, it was not his money. It was your mom's. You got to get that out of your head. How did he ask you for the loan?
He kind of had to do it himself style attitude. So instead of going to be traditional route of I suppose construction financing. No, no, no, how did he, by the way, he doesn't have a do it yourself because he had to call his son to borrow money. So he likes to do it when he's in control.
That's two different things. How did he ask you for the money? Did he text you? Did he call you?
Did he sit down with you and say, hey, man, how did that work out? Yeah, he called me and just basically had a joking attitude of I need a loan from the bank of my son. And we, at the time, I was still a little bit younger. So we didn't count those.
You were 19. Yeah. And so now you're 27. I'm 25 now.
I'm 25, okay. Yeah, I'd call him right back and say, hey, dad, he brought up $40,000 for me. What's the payment plan going to look like? Just like that.
What's your hesitancy? I suppose it just goes back to us. You know, I guess there's some details surrounding the separation between him and my mom and you know, just the impact I had on him both, you know, emotionally, essentially. That's not your problem.
Yeah, that's his problem. Yeah. Yeah. Why'd they get divorced?
A long series of alcoholism on the outside. Okay. On your mom's side? Yes.
Okay. No, I'm sorry. You lost your mom at 19 and your dad came in and was completely inappropriate, did something a dad should never do with a 19 year old and put you in a quandary here, put you in a position where you're having to analyze it. If you did something wrong, honey, you didn't do anything wrong.
Your dad is completely a turd. He's completely out of line. This was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong. Okay.
You know, you go to your son right after his mother dies and with all the conflicting emotions of this money came from him from the divorce anyway, and put you in that position was wrong. Okay. You need to hear that. That was manipulative and it was wrong.
And then he's got the audacity to not pay it back nor bring it up. And now he's put you in another pinch where you're analyzing, am I doing something wrong? Am I greedy? You said, well, crap, no, you might be a greedy person in this story, but you're not yet.
Dude, do you hear that? Yeah. This is coming from two dads brother. You don't borrow $40,000 from your grieving son to build a retirement home.
You just don't do that. And then especially if you do that, you don't leave him hanging, wondering how or how to ask, like what's the fact that he hasn't brought this up for fears? I would call him and jokingly respond, Hey, the bank of son is calling said, no, it's calling the note. Noted you dad.
Are you building something? Are you doing something cool? What do you need the money for? He needs his money back.
I'm not in a particular situation where I need the money. I don't need to blame it on anything. I don't want my money back. I was just seeing if he was building a house or something, I have an excuse, but you don't need one.
Yeah. That's my point is, yeah. You shouldn't you shouldn't I just I'm with John. You don't have to be smart.
I like I'm feeling pretty smart. I like towards him, but you don't have to be. You don't have to be. You can just be respectful and say dad.
We never talked about this and we should have probably put something down on paper. We were both kind of dumb to do that, but I do need this money and I need to know what your plan is. I need it really pretty quick. So what's your plan to get that 40 back to me?
Yeah. Hey, Matt, what's the chance he tells you? Well, son, actually money was my money. Is that going to happen?
I don't see that happening. I see it's kind of I suppose being dodged or pushed down the road of like, you know, we still have a lot of outlays we need for the home and. It's only been. It's only been shorter.
It's higher at the current moment. Yeah. I just I was like, you know, I'm sorry about all that, but it's only 40,000 bucks and you know, I've got I've got some stuff I need to do and I need to get this squared around because I'm feeling really uncomfortable about it. Yeah.
And you know, again, don't raise your voice. You don't have to be a jerk. You're not a jerk. You're kind person.
It was me. I wouldn't be kind because I'm a jerk. But I mean, this kind of pisses me off. But yeah, you're just I cannot conceive I can either do Daniel Ramsey's mother passing away, even if I was divorced from her and me immediately going to my teenage son while he's grieving his mother's loss and saying, Oh, by the way, it's something that money that she took for me in the divorce.
Under the auspices of I like to do it myself. Yeah, I don't know stupid. I don't deal with my gone deal with my 19 year old grieving son. That's what I'd rather deal with.
Yeah. Yeah. Dave, I you know what I hear in this kid's voice that breaks my heart? Yeah.
Anything to make a dad happy. Well, I think he knows that his dad got him and yeah, there's that there's that sense when your dad's not who you thought he was. Yeah. That all of us go through it just but in this case it breaks your heart and it's worse.
Yeah. Got Lee. Sorry, brother. Hey, girls, don't mess up your own kids.
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