I Own Several Vacation Properties. But There Are Two Guests I’ll Never Let Stay, No Matter What It Does to My Marriage.

Pay Dirt Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by yavorskiy/iStock/Getty Image Plus. Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so we’re diving into the Pay Dirt archives to share classic letters with our readers. Submit your own questions about money here. (It’s anonymous!) Dear Pay Dirt, My late husband left me several properties, and the passive income from those properties has allowed me to retire early. We never had children. My current partner has three and only has a decent relationship with his son. His daughters are wrapped around his ex’s finger and think living off their father’s money is their right and due. None of them work and none of them have stable relationships with the many men they find to father their children (his ex has seven in total). I have watched my partner bend over backwards trying to help his daughters and grandchildren. He has paid for education classes that were never completed, bought cars that were wrecked, and even bought property and put a pair of trailers on it so they would have a roof over their heads. They promptly made them uninhabitable. I usually stay out of it and let my partner handle it. The problem is that his son let it slip that he and his family vacationed on one of my properties for free and now his sisters are howling for their turn. My partner has been pressuring me to just give them a chance. That it would be a gesture of generosity and goodwill. I told him flatly I have seen how his daughters live and I would rather turn live pigs loose in the house than let them step a foot inside. I understand he has a lot of guilt over letting his daughters live permanently with his ex while they were teens but they are in their late 20s now. The time for them to take responsibility for their own choices has long since passed. He still brings up the topic and I am tired of it. He should have retired two years ago but continues work because his daughters have drained him dry. How do I get through to him? —No Vacation Dear No Vacation, Ultimately, it’s your property and therefore your decision. Every marriage handles finances and assets a little differently, but you’ve drawn a clear line. This is your house, and you don’t want his daughters staying in it. Whether or not anyone agrees with it is beside the point—it’s your decision to make. That said, you have some choice words to say about your stepdaughters, and that probably rubs your husband the wrong way. Could you find a way to be a bit more empathetic toward them? You see two grown women with messy lives. But when your husband and his ex look at their daughters, they probably see two little girls struggling to make sense of a painful life experience. Being empathetic doesn’t mean you have to give in to their demands, but being a little more kind—not comparing them to live pigs, for example—might make this situation easier for everyone, including you. You say the time has passed for your husband’s daughters to take responsibility for their actions, but I’m not sure that’s true. It’s never too late for that kind of thing, and a conversation between your husband and his daughters might be in order. As it stands, it sounds like your husband is trying to fix family rifts with money. Not only is this draining his funds, but it’s probably only serving as a bandage. Maybe a serious conversation about the past, in which your husband opens up about some of his regrets, would help everyone heal. This is your husband’s choice, but you can nudge him in the right direction. Instead of throwing money at the problem, maybe it’s time for him to face it. Either way, if your decision about the house is final and you don’t want your husband to bring it up anymore, you need to tell him the matter is not up for debate. But it will be a lot easier for him to accept this boundary if he feels like you can accept his children. —Kristin Wong From: My Partner’s Dysfunctional Daughters Caught Wind Of How Many Properties I Own. Oh No. (September 11th, 2024). 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, After spending a large chunk of my professional career in a classroom teaching, I decided last year to get out. Around the time I would have had to tell my principal that I was not returning the next school year, we all got news that the school was shutting down due to under-enrollment. That has left me in the very fortunate spot of being able to collect unemployment insurance while I start looking into a new career. Thanks to a partner who is still gainfully employed, a rent-stabilized apartment in a high-cost-of-living city, and paranoia from the last recession, I have about $50,000 in savings, $20,000 in checking, $30,000 in stocks being managed by a family investment advisor, and zero debt. I know I am fortunate to be in the spot I am now. My question is about my credit card points. I have nearly $10,000 in unused points on my Bank of America Travel Card. I am rather Calvinist about spending my accrued points in that I don’t like spending them, but I like earning them. However, I understand there is no virtue in having points without using them. I know they will not compound or grow without spending real money. So in my unemployed predicament, should I be using my points to cover what unemployment won’t? Or should I upgrade my partner’s and my flights to my brother’s international wedding to business class? Or should I keep them to offset the cost of our dream vacation to Antarctica in 2026? —Blowing Up My Protestant Work Ethic Dear Blowing Up My Protestant Work Ethic, Good for you for trying something new. As for your credit card points, you are correct that there is no reason to hoard $10,000 worth of travel now that you have the time and savings to travel. I’m not saying you should use it to live lavishly (keep your regular seats at that international wedding) but why not use it to make that Antarctica trip a reality? Depending on how much you’ll need for travel, you could also look into whether you can utilize your credit card rewards in other ways. Maybe your card offers cash back or gift cards to stores you already frequent. I always check my credit card company’s cash-back offers before making my purchases to see if there’s a deal I can use. The bottom line: There is no point in acquiring another $10,000 in travel rewards if you don’t travel often and won’t use them. —Athena Valentine From: My Sister And I Have Finally Gotten Close. Her Wedding Invite Threatens To Ruin Everything. (September 5th, 2024). Dear Pay Dirt, My wife (38 F) and I (42 M) married three years ago, just welcomed our first child in March, and are set to receive a decent chunk of money, roughly $500,000, from the sale of my family business in about a month. We obviously have a lot of planning to do but I’m kind of at a loss for where to start. We’re looking to pay off debts, possibly upgrade from my tiny bachelor pad, set aside money for college, and invest the remainder. We are also looking to set up wills and officialize guardianship for our son in case something happens to us. Is there a single entity we should look into to at least guide us in sorting all this out? I’m very thankful to have this opportunity for my family but I’m scared to death of messing it up. —Life Comes at You Fast Dear Life, You’re on the right track. Pay off debts, save, enjoy a little, and invest. But there are some key times in life when it makes sense to hire a financial professional, and major transitions and receiving a big windfall are two big ones. They can take a granular look at your finances, talk to you about your preferences, goals, and spending, and then give you a detailed plan about what to do with the money. They can also point you in the right direction when it comes to estate planning. They might suggest DIY resources or tools, like WillMaker, and they can most certainly recommend some estate planning attorneys to do the work for you. But finding a financial planner should be your next step. So where do you start? Ideally, you would pick a Certified Financial Planner —that is, someone who is certified by the CFP board. That means they’ve taken a fiduciary oath to act in your best financial interest, and they aren’t allowed to be sneaky and sell you financial products for kickbacks. A solid CFP will have this information on their website or online profile. You’ll also want to dig into how your financial planner is paid. Look for a fee-only advisor, which means they only earn their money from fees paid to them by clients. This is opposed to fee-based advisors, who can also earn fees from selling certain financial products, and commission-based advisors, who earn their income entirely through these products (think mutual funds, annuities, insurance policies, and so on). The CFP website has a search function where you can look for some planners in your area, but you can also use resources like the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors. Most planners offer a free initial consultation call to see if they’re a good fit. Use that opportunity to ask questions, make sure you feel heard, and confirm how they’re paid. Finding a good financial planner can be a daunting process, but it’s worth the legwork to make sure your money is in the right hands. —K.W. From: My Friend Gave Me A Free Cruise Ticket. Then Came Her Conditions. (September 4th, 2024). More Money Advice From Slate I am very close to my only niece. My brother divorced her mom after he had an affair. It was a total mess and my niece came to live with me for a year. His current wife has two kids in college and one in high school. They have only been married for about two years. My niece graduated this spring from college and as a gift, I gave her a large lump sum after I sold some property. Apparently, word got back to my sister-in-law and now she thinks I will give similar gifts to her children. 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. 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