Sorry for the long silence.  Things have been very busy.  My coworkers have joked that I've turned into a mom, and that's not too far from the truth.  Trying to squeeze several years worth of parenting into a month or two is a big job.  But it helps that Theresa is eager to learn.

The situation has had me thinking a lot about giving lately.  I was lucky to grow up in a generous home atmosphere.  When someone was hungry, we fed them.  One of my friends needed a place to sleep for a while, our couch was always available.  It wasn't something you really thought about, you just did it.  And over all that's a good thing.  Most financial books these days, whether Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey, have a portion of their books dedicated to giving.  And there's a reason for that.  I reviewed a book not too long ago called Why Good Things Happen to Good People that talked about the health benefits of giving charted through scientific studies, and it just makes for a more pleasant society when people help each other.

There were a lot of things I liked about Why Good Things Happen to Good People, but two things in particular stuck out.  The first is that money is only one form of giving.  As a Christian, I tithe, but in my current financial situation, if I gave too much more than that to charity, it would become a financial hardship...to the point that I would be in need of charity myself (thus defeating the purpose).  I had to set a limit for myself in helping Theresa.  It would be easy to just dip into my emergency fund and cover some of her debts myself, but in doing so I would make myself financially vulnerable and set back a lot of my own lifeplans.  And it's important for her to learn to reach out for help from other sources than me, because it's not good for either of us to get her dependent on me.

What I can do for her is provide a place to sleep, teach her about money management and healthy eating habits, help her become independent, and listen to her/provide emotional support.  Never underestimate the power of listening.

The second point in Why Good Things Happen to Good People that really stuck out to me is that giving to others is not healthy when you do it to the point of hurting yourself.

Unfortunately this is what had happened in Theresa's family.  Two of her family members and one non-family member were leaching off her grandparents.  This put her grandparents into financial hardships, and they in turn leached off Theresa because she would let them.  No one in the house was really happy from the arrangement.  Even the people who were leaching are miserable in their own way.  The sad thing is her grandparents don't recognize how much they're harming the entire family by letting the situation continue.  They have the power to stand up for themselves and teach the leachers to be responsible...but they don't.  By not standing up for themselves and establishing boundries, they allow the cycle of dependency to continue.

A lot of people with serious spending problems think of themselves as generous.  They buy things with the intention of giving them to other people.  Which seems very nice on the surface, but when you do it to the point where your finances are a mess, you end up creating a hardship for those close to you as well as yourself.

Anyway, giving is great, but don't give beyond your financial means.  If your budget is tight, but you want all the health/social/spiritual/psychological benefits of giving, consider volunteering.  Give time, give energy, give love, give sympathy, give a listening ear, give a hug, share some good advice you learned, but only give money when you can honestly afford it yourself.

Theresa is an overly generous person.  I don't want to squash her generosity, but we have been working on tempering it.  Her grandmother had taken most of her money, but what she did manage to keep, instead of saving, she turned around and spent on gifts for her friends.  Now, she's reached a point where we've had to break down and ask for benevolence money from my church...and ouch, that's hard on the ego.  Theresa is young and didn't really know any better, so I'm not scolding her on that point.  But if she had been a little more tempered in her generosity, she might not have to be asking for money now.  The ironic part is that the friends she bought the gifts for would have much rather seen her save the money for herself too.

And please don't think I'm picking on Theresa.  I've seen this happen to so many people, that I know it's a widespread issue.  Just hoping someone else can learn from her situation.