I didn't think I knew anyone who would have a gofundme... I was wrong

Re: I didn't think I knew anyone who would have a gofundme... I was wrong

• delujm0 member

  

  March 2014

  themuffinman16 said:

  Ick! I just got a gofundme request on facebook from FIs distant relative. She wants to go to an ivy league school and needs to raise money for her tuition.  Gross.  Yeah, I never was able to afford to complete my degree, but let me make that dream happen for you! It reminds me of when my little sister was 16.  She asked her sisters (3 of us) to buy her a car for her birthday.  At the time, my twin sister did not have a car.  My twin sister said to our younger sister, "I don't have a car, so yeah, I'm not going to give you one before I get one myself."  My little sister said, "It's not my fault you can't save your money to get a car, but I don't know why you should withhold it from me."  We spent the better part of thirty minutes picking our jaws up off the floor.  I'm not going to lie...  I did put a pair of car keys in a box and let her think we got her a new car for her birthday, until she opened another box and it was a hot wheels car. Work your ass off, if your parents have not set aside money for college, a car, etc, it is not appropriate to go panhandling amongst your friends, relatives, and coworkers. SO TACKY... there are no words

  hahaha...i think she missed the point here, which is that if your twin sister couldn't afford to save up to buy her OWN car, she certainly wouldn't have been able to save up to buy a car for someone else!

   

  I'll chock that up to her being 16, but i'll be honest, i wouldn't put this past my own sister, right now, and she is 28.
  

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• chibiyui member

  

  March 2014

  I don't think I could handle it if a FB friend posted a go fund me about needing tuition money. I went to a private art school, took out loans and am busting my ass to pay back that debt, and I'm really only able to do it because I have FI. (And I'm currently fighting with Sallie Mae over a misapplied payment, which seems to happen every 4 months with them). I. I couldn't handle it. I'd flip the fuck out on them.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  

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• delujm0 member

  

  March 2014

  chibiyui i agree with that.  i feel like parents need to sit down with their kids before they start applying to colleges and say "this is the maximum annual truition we can afford to pay for you.  If you go someplace more expensive than thatm you're going to have to work and/or get loans."  For ANY person to think that random acquaintences should be funding their education it completely nuts - especially given the relative ease of securing financing for it.

   

  Clearly this is a "i shouldn't have to work through school or pay off loans, look at me, i got into an IVY LEAGUE school!" sitution, which is even worse.  you'd think that if she's smart enough to get into an ivy league school she'd have the common sense to realize how ridiculous she sounds.  this makes me want to go off the grid and home school my future kids so that they don't wind up having entitlement complexes.

   

  I was fortunate enough that my parents paid for my first 4 years of college (i picked up grad school) but i had to work very hard over the summers and during the school year to earn spending money for myself to do anything other than buy books and eat off of my meal plan.  And then i took out loans for grad school which i had to pay off (and which was super annoing)...so i'd never "donate" to anything like this, in a million years, and i'd probably make a snarky comment about it on the FB post as well.

   

  When i was in grad school there was a "pledge drive" thing going around where the people in my program were like "if everyone agrees to donate $5k within 5 years of graduation (sponsor) will match the donation!"  I went to a private school full of trust fund kids who drove nicer cars than my parents.  When i declined to get involved, one of these peaches badmouthed me and the few other people who didn't opt to donate in front of my now-FI (then-BF) who said "yeah well she has to pay off her student loans before she starts donating money to the people who caused her student debt.  so unless you know someone's personal financial situation, i'd thank you to not talk $hit about them behind their back." her response was "i don't get what the big deal is, i mean my parents are just giving me the money for it."  Sigh.

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• themuffinman16 member

  

  March 2014

  @delujm0 Yeah, my sister is 28, now.  She lives off the government and thinks my mother should give her the social security check she gets every month because "you are supposed to support your children... when you're a mom that job never ends."  (I am pretty sure that part of the job ends at 18). She has never learned that lesson.  I never asked my parents for a thing.  I even had my heat shut off when I moved out on my own, because I was too embarrassed to ask for money.  Instead, I worked 2 jobs and pulled myself out of the red. It's embarrassing to think I came from the same family as her.

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• delujm0 member

  

  March 2014

  @themuffinman16 yeah, i was laid off a few years ago and unemployed for 6 months.  I didn't ask my parents or my now-FI for a dime.  because i had savings to cover me.  because i'm responsible.  my sister threw a hissy fit a year ago because my dad didn't offer to pay for her hotel room at my cousin's wedding, so she didn't bother to go.  her arguement?  "he's paying for (step-sister's) room."  Yeah, she's 15.  So he has to.  Also, i offered to split a room with her and her now-FI, and she wouldn't have it.  She was only going if my dad paid for her hotel room and my mom paid for her gas.  not because she couldn't afford it...but because she felt that they owed it to her.

   

  I do have some hope though.  She finally figured out what she wants to do for a job and just got out of grad school.  She's engaged to a very responsible guy now who should be able to get her under control - though she has been living with him rent-free for the past two years.  So at a minimum he's willing to financially support her.  But all that doesn't mean my mom doesn't still pay for her cell phone (she does).  I have no idea how we came from the same parents. 

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• flyingfoxes member

  

  March 2014

  Ew. 

  It took me forever to graduate (just finished my MBA last year at the age of 36) because I worked and let my employers pay my tuition.  So -no student loans, but it took years to be done.  Nobody owes anybody anything - I have 6 siblings and my parents couldn't afford to pay any college tuition for me, so I figured it out on my own (I've lived on my own since I was 19 and have never had to ask for help, but I for sure worked 3 jobs and went to school to get through).

  
  
  
  

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• JellyBean52513 member

  

  March 2014

  @delujm0 It's great that your sister has found someone good for her, but if he's willing to support her financially, what is that going to teach her? She's just going from one source of financial support to another. That's the very source of entitlement issues, the fact that people have always had support around them so they feel that they can do whatever they want, because they'll always have someone to back them up.
  
  I don't mean to harp on your sister. I just see her, as you've described her, to be an example of this generation of entitlement. I went to a private college just like you did and while I'm in the midst of student loan repayment hell (although I DID have several grants and scholarships to help), manyyy of my classmates went on their parent's dime with no thought of the financial responsibility that is a higher education.

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• s-aries8990 member

  

  March 2014

  A girl I worked with asked me about how to go about getting money for college - she asked me about doing this and I told her that it was a bad idea - that people probably won't donate because they have their own stuff to pay for. I suggested working hard, researching and applying for ALL sorts of scholarships, to start off at a CC and to look into loans, going part time, or both.
  
  Crisis averted.
  

   

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• theartistformerlyknownas member

  

  March 2014

  Yeah, exactly as soon as I'm finished paying off my own student loans in 15 years, I'll get right back to ya. 

  
  

  
  

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• PhoneCardLady member

  

  March 2014

  OMG!  I thought you were referring to this:
  
  http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/grooms-best-man-raises-7-000-replace-stolen-013005706--abc-news-topstories.html
  
  
  
  

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• Bubblegum5586 member

  

  March 2014

  JellyBean52513 said:

  
  
  I don't mean to harp on your sister. I just see her, as you've described her, to be an example of this generation of entitlement. I went to a private college just like you did and while I'm in the midst of student loan repayment hell (although I DID have several grants and scholarships to help), manyyy of my classmates went on their parent's dime with no thought of the financial responsibility that is a higher education.

  Ugh everywhere I look everyone is asking for a handout ..... It makes me feel so old to keep saying "these kids.. blah blah blah" but c'mon! 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  

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• Angusaur member

  

  March 2014

  The ONLY gofundme I approved and actually donated to was someone I knew from high school that lost their 4 month old suddenly and couldn't afford a proper viewing and burial. I was more than happy to donate to that. At 4 months old nobody is thinking about life insurance or putting up money for an emergency like this. Next day I get ANOTHER gofundme invitation for a friend looking for help with replacing his car engine. Really puts it in perspective, and I couldn't help but cringe.

  
  

  

  
  

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• KryssiW member

  

  March 2014

  My parents told me when I was in high school that if I didn't get a scholarship somewhere, I wouldn't be able to afford to go to college.  It sounds harsh, but my sister was already well into college, and I was at a rather expensive private boarding school myself.  But, I knew going in that if I wanted to go to the school of my choice, I needed to perform well enough to do so.  And, that I needed to be realistic about which schools I would choose.

  
  

  That said, though, I would understand a gofundme in certain situations.  I happen to have a huge, close-knit family, and education is very important to all of my relatives.  (We have a scholarship fund now set up to help out my younger cousins as they graduate high school.)  If something like this had been available when I was younger, I have no doubt that a lot of my aunts and uncles would have poured money into it for my generation.  They ended up pouring a lot of money into all of us anyway, this is just a more organized way to do it.

  
  

  I don't approve of soliciting strangers or acquaintances through facebook, though.  That seems tacky.

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• mcgarci2 member

  

  March 2014

  Wow.  The only GoFundMe I contributed to was for a friend who lost three family members at once in a car accident.  I can't imagine paying someone's school when I, too, have a lovely pile of loans staring at me.  This entitlement thing is killing me!
  

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