I Accidentally Found Out a Secret About My Brother’s Financial Life. I Want to Offer My Help, But There’s a Catch.

Pay Dirt Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images Plus. Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It’s anonymous!) Dear Pay Dirt, ​​My parents died recently and I was the executor of their estate. I only have one sibling, a younger brother. I disbursed our inheritance earlier this year, and we each came away with about $300,000. Recently, when I was checking our estate case docket with a public search of our county clerk’s website, I learned that my brother is being sued to collect on a credit card debt! The amount is a tiny percentage of his inheritance. It is hard to understand why he would allow this to happen—he and my sister-in-law appear to live a reasonable lifestyle, there is no evidence they have blown through that much money already. I don’t know how to approach the situation with him or if I even should. I have been guilty in the past of being a bossy or overbearing big sister, but through our parents’ illnesses and the administration of their estates, I have worked hard to repair that dynamic. I am proud of how far our relationship has come. On one hand, he is a grown man with a wife and child, and unless there are dramatically worse problems lurking in the background that I am unaware of, he should be able to pay this bill easily. On the other hand, he had to take over our dad’s business when dad got sick, which he was not prepared to do, and is now navigating those responsibilities while being a new dad himself. I have great respect for everything he has handled. If he has gotten himself into a jam I want him to know I am willing to help. I can easily pay the bill for him if necessary, though it’s not something I would be willing to do on a recurring basis. But I don’t know how to raise this with him without risking falling back into our old dynamic. And I am almost scared to learn of deeper problems lurking under the surface. I wish I had never been on the clerk’s website in the first place. —Reformed Big Sister Dear Reformed Big Sister, I get why you’d be alarmed at the lawsuit, but it doesn’t necessarily mean your brother is going through a financial catastrophe. People miss payments for all kinds of reasons, and considering everything he’s juggling at the moment, it’s possible something slipped through the cracks, got out of hand, and he’s dealing with it. Especially if you have a history of coming on too strong about this kind of thing in the past, I would err on the side of leaving it alone and letting him figure it out. That doesn’t mean you have to totally ignore it, and if you do want to bring it up, you should be honest with him about what you found. But then approach the conversation with a sense of curiosity rather than judgment. Something simple like, “I was checking up on the estate and I noticed this case —it’s not my business and I’m sure you have it under control, I just want you to know I’m here if you need help with it.” Then, leave it there. If he wants to tell you anything, he will. Approach the conversation lightly, offer your support, but then trust that he’ll tell you anything he wants you to know. If he does indeed need help, it will be easier for him to ask for it when he doesn’t feel judged. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don’t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Pay Dirt, My partner and I bought a house two years ago. Our income currently is approximately $6,000 per month combined. The interest rate on the house is about 5.75 percent. When we bought the house, our plan was to have roommates live in the downstairs bedrooms and to live in the upstairs bedroom and office space with our 2-year-old. (A small office seemed plenty big for a 2-year-old at the time). Now we are expecting our second child. Our total mortgage is $3,200/month, and our two roommates pay $700 each. Our current plan now that when the kids get older, they will move to the downstairs bedrooms and we won’t have roommates anymore. We aren’t sure how to afford this, and I’m looking for advice on the best plan to make sure in five years (when our kids are 5 and 10), we can afford the whole mortgage on our own. Relevantly, my partner and I both work half-time. (I’m a nurse and my partner is in the process of starting an LLC for bookkeeping). That feels critical for our well being and family time. However we both have the option of working more hours sometimes, and would be willing to do that on occasion to help put away more savings. Should we be setting aside some money each month in a “future mortgage payment” account? Try and pay a lump sum into the mortgage and refinance to lower the monthly payment? (But interest rates haven’t gone down so it seems unlikely we could actually lower our monthly payment). I know our incomes will naturally go up over the next five years, but so will inflation and house taxes. So I can’t really picture if our income will actually rise more than just meeting the extra costs of those things. Plus a second kid will cost a lot. But there’s no way for two kids to share the tiny office room long term. What’s our best option for making sure we can afford the extra $1,400 in mortgage each month? What should our goals be at the end of year one, year two, etc. to be in a place in five years where we can comfortable pay the whole amount? —Wish $1,400 Grew on Trees Dear Wish, The good news is, you have time. You don’t need to make an immediate decision about this, and in the meantime, you can adjust your spending for what your future mortgage will cost. In other words, “practice” paying a higher mortgage by increasing your savings a little at a time. For example, start setting aside $200 more each month in that “future mortgage payment” account you suggested, as if you were paying a higher mortgage. Get your budget used to this higher amount and take inventory of what you might need to do to afford it. That might mean cutting back on certain expenses or it might mean looking for more work. Either way, the point is to get comfortable with paying more over time. Gradually increase the amount you “pay” into your account—maybe by 20 percent every six months, just to throw out a number (so, in six months, you’d increase your savings rate to $240). But do whatever feels realistic. This “pretend our mortgage is higher” plan does a couple of things. First, it lets you test whether your current budget can take the hit. If it can’t, you can figure that out now, while you have time to decide where that extra money might come from. If you find that you’re really struggling, you might decide to start updating your resume for full-time work when the kids are a little older. Or you might decide to hold off on the house situation for another year or two. But this experiment also helps you build savings that you can use later as a financial cushion, emergency fund, or simply to buy yourself time to look for more work. And by the time you hit the five‑year mark, you’ll have a much clearer picture of what you can reasonably afford. —Kristin More Money Advice From Slate My husband and I have been extremely close to another couple for 15 years. They’ve always had more money than us, a spacious house, and lots of savings. We pay for my disabled mother’s care and we can’t afford a house, so we travel a lot. There’s never been competition, our lives are different (they don’t like to travel, and we don’t want kids). My husband got a promotion/raise. It isn’t life-changing, but we’ve upgraded my mom’s care, saved/traveled a little more; our same life, but less stretched. Our friends had a baby six months ago, something they’d been saving up for, but as expected they’ve had to cut costs. Suddenly, they are weird about our travel. Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Family Personal Finance