Submitted by Maazypaazz t3_z4z7kv in personalfinance
I’m 27(M)and I have a decent job making 75k as an analyst. My parents have been struggling to have a home or keep one since the day I was born. My parents came to the US very poor with 0 English and had me and my 2 sibs with my mom. We lived in apartments most of our lives, and growing up my father had a bad habit of biting off more than he could chew in terms of buying capacity. He finally bought a 500k townhome back in 2008 while he made 45k and my mom made 60k. I was barely 13 and had 0 clue or awareness on finances at the time. Other than that we grew up poor in a roach filled apt and we had a home finally in a nice neighborhood.
Ofc our luck was cut short during the recession, my parents had on and off govt contract jobs, to which he couldn’t pay the mortgage payments. We sold the house and moved to a rental townhome where our luck grew more grim as our 2 new cars got repossessed due to lack of payments made. This cycle continued with my dad moving us in an apt and bought a house he couldn’t afford again, to which he lost again due to payments. He filed for bankruptcy twice.
Fast forward to now, me and my sister finally had stable careers, my eldest got married off and now lives her own life. We lived in a rental sharing payments with dad to support them as we made more than him at the time. My dad was stuck with a $65k salary in 2020, almost for 10 years, which he blames for a lack of college degree. My sib gets paid $90k with my 75k, we decided with my dad that we’d help him get a house.
Ofc AGAIN, we decided to buy a home in 2022, during the worst housing crisis of our lives. We had to move an hour away from my hometown. Our lease was up in a few months and the owner wanted to sell, so we had to scramble to buy a space before the interests got too high. We were able to secure a home during the scramble, it’s a 2700 sqft home we got for $490k at 4% interest. So our mortgage was $3200 monthly, which my sib and I signed with a pit in my stomach, my sis and I coughed up the 45k down payment from saving for 2 years.
We currently split the mortgage 3 ways between us. But me and my sis pay for all other bills as we had the capacity. We had to fix and renovate the house which costed around another $17k. My savings are currently $2500 and I’m rebuilding again. My dad unfortunately still commutes an hr away to his job and my sib and I remote work.
I met someone in that time who I wanted to spend my life with. And I told her of my financial situation, she is understanding but wants to move in to a space with me and knows it would be near impossible to have a family and move if I’m paying off my parents home forever, even if I got a higher paid job.
She is willing to split everything and more to help me but I don’t think it’s would be enough. I dont know what to do about my dad being self sufficient, and my sis wants to move out with her spouse as well. I feel like I’m trapped at the mercy of my parents lack of capacity or guilt of having them pay for my college. I need help on what I can do.
Edit: I still only get paid $75k due to my recent promotion and can’t start hunting for a new job with more pay till 6-12 months so my resume doesn’t look whack on why I left after a 3 month promotion. I’m also enrolled in grad school which I’m also paying myself at $800 a month. I’m paying a plethora of bills such as credit cards, water, utility, HOA, electric, security, cars, and Wi-Fi.
I haven’t had a normal loving relationship like this one ever in my life. But I don’t want her to run away due to my responsibilities of taking care of my parents finances.
Edit2: My mom no longer works as she has been in a constant struggle to maintain a permanent position in the contracting world since the Recession(Yea that long) while going thru some mental issues. She no longer has the capacity or social awareness to maintain a job or communicate in the corporate environment. She pretty much forgot how to use a gmail account or knows how to drive a car again, so she remains at home taking care of the house. We had her apply to a community college to get her bachelors during Covid when all classes were remote, and she couldn’t get thru the orientation zoom course without losing her shit on what she was looking at or what the professor said or which notes to write down or how to break down a simple analysis. After that one class session she didn’t want to pursue the degree.
Update: Sorry I knocked out, and woke up to a lot more attention than I expected. I’m still taking the time to read all the comments, I really do value and appreciate all the advice you all are giving me so far. I definitely need to have a convo with my sibs about all this.