'My mom keeps asking for money and it bothers me, but I can’t say no to her'

Dear Celebritist,

Ever since I turned 18 and started to earn my own money, my mom keeps asking me now and then for money, and I wouldn’t be that bothered if it was for her or her needs only.

But, to put an example, the other day she asked for my credit card because my aunt needed to pay some bills and didn’t have money, and my mom’s card was allegedly maxed out.

The worst part is that I was fired from my last job three weeks ago, and she knows this but keeps on asking me to lend her money for the most incredible things. Yesterday she asked me $20 for her boyfriend’s daughter’s boyfriend gas…why is she taking care of someone’s else businesses? Why isn’t her boyfriend paying for the gas in any case?

I can’t even say no to her because since I live in her home for free, I feel like an ungrateful brat by denying her anything. She knows I have money saved up because my father sends me an allowance every month, that’s why I can’t even lie to her and say I don’t have anything.

I want to save up so I can hopefully move out on my own by next year, but she keeps taking my card and making big purchases, promising she would pay me in a few weeks. But every time she’s close to paying up her debt, something pops up, and there goes the money again, even if it's not for her but her neighbors’ grandmother’s ex-husband’s third cousin. I’m rolling my eyes right now.

Anyway, I know she’s probably not doing it with bad intentions, she’s just messy and doesn’t have her priorities right, even at her age. She had me at 18 and married my dad two years later, but their relationship was toxic, not in an abusive way but more in an “I don’t love you anymore, but since we have a kid we should stay together and be unhappy” kind of way.

My father’s been telling me to move with him, but he lives in another state, and I don’t want to start from zero, at least not right now. I’ve been thinking that, to set some boundaries with the money, I could offer to pay “rent” to my mom, in that way, she can get an “extra” income and leave my money alone.

I have already mentioned this to her in a subtle way, but she doesn’t want to spend my money on bills because I “have the rest of my life for that.” Do you see the irony of the whole situation?

Anyway, I could use some advice on how to approach this issue. Is the paying rent thing a good idea? Or should I think of something else?

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