How much do you sacrifice for money?

[Eriottosan]

I find myself in a rather tricky dilemma, and this community is usually rather good at being level-headed.

I live with my mum and younger brothers. We don't have much money, at all. Our only income is child benefit and the scraps (which are at most the bare legal minimum) that my father sends us once a month. My mum is unemployed, and actively looking for work, but she can't find it. And she has too much pride to sign on to unemployment benefits while she is looking for a job. Because I finish full time education in 2 weeks, the child benefits she receives drops and my father can reduce his 'support' to 50%. All in all, we would be loosing about half of our current income. That being said, she has just had a promising interview, but if she gets the job, the pay is crap and she will only be earning the equivalent to what we will be loosing in 2 weeks anyway, so nothing will really change.

My problem is thus: I start uni in September. Although we don't have to pay our fees upfront like I believe is the case in America, there are costs to consider: accommodation, food, travel, books, technology, &c. And although there is financial support available to me, it does not cover all the expenses that I need to meet.

The dilemma, however, comes from a possible solution.

My father earns a rather large amount - at least, he did when I last spoke to him, and his job puts him rather easy to track, so I know he has had a few promotions since then. Theoretically, I could approach him and ask if he would fund/give me money/buy me whatever for university. It's a big step in my life, I'll be living halfway across the country, really I should be getting something from him.

However, I cut him out of my life almost 3 years ago, after an illness made me re-evaluate my life and I decided I didn't need his shit anymore. He and I never got on, especially after he left, which was about 10 years ago. He was very mentally abusive, and shoved me around a few times as well, but mainly it was mental abuse. For the last few years before I cut him off, I went only to protect my brothers. They stopped going to see him shortly after I did. I don't want to get into what he was like, but the long and the short of it is that he was never a nice man.

Yet he has a lot of money. And I might need to tap into that resource, but doing so would be a massive deal for me, reopening that door. I don't know what I should do. I've been grappling with this for a few months, and I'm at a stage where I need advice, but don't want to ask anyone who actually knows me, if you know what I mean.

tl;dr My dad is a bastard who I've not spoken to for years, yet I may need to reopen that door as I need money for uni. I just don't know what to do.

[Husbag3]

I think the first thing you need to do is NOT be upfront about the fact that you would like some money from him. I'd approach him as if he was a complete stranger, get to know him better and nurture a relationship.

[Eriottosan]

I think the first thing you need to do is NOT be upfront about the fact that you would like some money from him. I'd approach him as if he was a complete stranger, get to know him better and nurture a relationship.

Haha, man, that's the complete opposite of what it needs to be, I'm afraid. I would not be able, in any shape or form, to maintain a relationship with that man unless he has had a personality transplant.

[Gargantuan_Penguin]

Gut reaction here. don't let bastards ruin your life. I say go to him for money. But don't let him mess with you. I find the best way to deal with people who are asses is to be the good guy. Don't let him have any reason to fault you. I don't have a lot to say on the matter other than If you can get money with minimal emotional stress do so. Don't let him ruin a dream of yours without him even having to lift a finger. eh, I am running out of ideas on how to put it. good luck.

[Eriottosan]

Gut reaction here. don't let bastards ruin your life. I say go to him for money. But don't let him mess with you. I find the best way to deal with people who are asses is to be the good guy. Don't let him have any reason to fault you. I don't have a lot to say on the matter other than If you can get money with minimal emotional stress do so. Don't let him ruin a dream of yours without him even having to lift a finger. eh, I am running out of ideas on how to put it. good luck.

Thanks, man. In an ideal world, that'd be the way it would work. But even the very thought of talking to that man again has had me on edge. I'm on a thin wire mentally at the best of times - it's a tough one: if I see him, I might be too much of a wreck to get prepared in time for September, but if I don't, I might not be able to get financially prepared.
Life is rarely easy. That's what makes it worth it, I suppose.

[Gargantuan_Penguin]

I wish I could help more... but I have so little experience in situations like that that I am useless here. the best of luck to you my friend.

[Eriottosan]

Don't worry about it, man. I posted to see what people thought. Husbag and your conflicting views (yours coinciding with my ideal situation) are exactly why I posted. You can't work out the best way to do something without considering all the options, and sometimes you need people to spell your options out for you, y'know?

[redrew89]

I personally can't provide much advice, but I can offer a few articles that are relevant.

How to Manipulate People without Abandoning Your Ethics - Lifehacker

To Get What You Want, Ask For it First and Save the Pleasantries for Later - Lifehacker

[morvelaira]

I get the feeling there's a lot more to this than you're saying here, and that's perfectly acceptable and understandable. Given my read of what you've presented, here are my general impressions:

1. Your situation is the exact reason tuition waivers and scholarships exist.
2. It may sound harsh, but your mother has already done one hard thing to protect herself and her children. You would think bending her pride for sake of her children would not be as difficult.
3. Money for college is not worth indebting yourself to a man you've described as a monster. Some of the most talented, and successful individuals I know never acquired a college degree. Not to say you should not go to university if that's your path - it can certainly ease your way in life. But - really - you don't /need/ it. All the drive for success in your life will come from inside of you, and not from a piece of paper.

[Eriottosan]

Redrew, those links are lighthearted and informing, thank you :).

Morvelaira, thanks for your feedback. Of course you are right that there is stuff I'm not saying, but it's one of those things that I find hard to think about, let alone type. In response to your impressions:

1. The uni I'm going to had, until recently, grants for people who achieve three As at A-level, but it got removed for some reason ... Which is one of the reasons I've got to try to find other ways of getting some money :/.
2. Don't get me wrong, I think my mum should bend her pride, especially as it would be a temporary thing until she gets a job, but I can't tell her to do something she doesn't want to do - and even if she does, it wouldn't be enough to give me the money that I need. I know every little helps, but a miss is as good as a mile. [/overusing cliches]
3. I know that degrees aren't needed to be successful, but I really don't know what I want to do as a job, and the only thing I can consider at the minute for a job is teaching (I've helped out a lot in classes &c), for which you need a degree. I'm not saying "I only want to teach", there are probably careers I have never even considered that I would enjoy, but the only thing at the minute that I know I would enjoy is teaching. So yeah, I sorta need that damned expensive piece of paper.

[morvelaira]

3. I know that degrees aren't needed to be successful, but I really don't know what I want to do as a job, and the only thing I can consider at the minute for a job is teaching (I've helped out a lot in classes &c), for which you need a degree. I'm not saying "I only want to teach", there are probably careers I have never even considered that I would enjoy, but the only thing at the minute that I know I would enjoy is teaching. So yeah, I sorta need that damned expensive piece of paper.

I can tell you from personal experience, then, that if you don't know for sure what you want to do, the degree won't be woth the money no matter how you acquired the funds.

[Eriottosan]

Reading it back I was a little unclear. I would love to teach, but I'm going to keep my options open as you don't do teaching stuff until after you've acquired a degree - I might well find something else in that time. In other words, I want to teach. What's more, I really want to go to uni. It's the first time since I was ill that I've been excited about something. In short, not going is not an option.

[morvelaira]

Gotchya. In that case I would just very much suggest checking out EVERY alternative option before going to your father. I wouldn't say if he was your only option, don't go to Uni, but if you do need to go to your father, make sure he's really the only option first.

[Eriottosan]

Gotchya. In that case I would just very much suggest checking out EVERY alternative option before going to your father. I wouldn't say if he was your only option, don't go to Uni, but if you do need to go to your father, make sure he's really the only option first.

Yeah, I'm with you on that one. It's just so ridiculous. I mean, I should, in a perfect world, get support from him - I'm his son. The joke of it all is that mum was earning unbelievable amounts in a job that let her work school hours, which she had to give up when we moved to support his career. Then he left. I should be able to get money from him in a karma way if nothing else haha. But he holds such power over me from the mess my head gets in thinking about it all that I think I'll follow your advice and double check and exhaust every other option before biting the bullet.

The greatest thing about advice from you, though, morvelaira, is reading it in you soothing tones :P.

[redrew89]

If you live in the States, there are a number of website for organizations (state-run and otherwise) that can provide you with financial aid. You may have to pay the money back after graduation, and the debt can get pretty massive if you study for a field where it may take a few months to find work after graduating, but it seems like you might have to consider that route.

Let me know, and I'll PM you the links.

[BinoAl]

The greatest thing about advice from you, though, morvelaira, is reading it in you soothing tones :P.

Aha, good, so it's not just me reading all of her posts in the soothing, GLADoS-esque voice. xD

[tedium]

write him a letter explaining what you have explained to us, and then leave it at that. if he is man enough contact you back, then it's worth re-connecting with him and seeking his help. if not, then nothing lost. no matter much easier money can make your life, i'd rather be poor than under the thumb of an asshole. good luck with the decision :)

[Horizon]

It sounds more like a feline-esque voice.

[Flesh_Engine]

Like Morv said, get some good advice regarding scholarships, even if it doesn't cover the whole amount, it's a start.

IF you absolutely have no other choice, get help from your dad yet give him little leeway to perform emotional blackmail, also don't loan money from such a person.

While it's true that a college degree isn't the end all be all, it does give more job oppertunities than without, a fact which (depending on your industry) becomes painfully clear later on...

Maybe you should take up a weekend job to help out a bit and put yourself through college? If you can't get a job in the uk, maybe somewhere close to it in europe. Might sound strange but it is a possibility depending on your skils & what's available (maybe through some sort of school programme?).

[Mason11987]

And she has too much pride to sign on to unemployment benefits while she is looking for a job.

I'll be the first to say this. She should get unemployment. There is nothing about "pride" here. If you're children need you, you ought to do what's best for them, and if it's signing up to receive the benefits from your unemployment insurance (as that is basically what it is, since it was paid into while you were working) then you ought to do that. Doing any less is foolish.

This isn't really a solution for you specifically, as it doesn't address school, but there are plenty of good comments about that already and I think this idea about have too much pride to take what you earned to help your children is nonsense.

[Eriottosan]

This got busy overnight ... Thanks guys :).

Thanks for the heads up, redrew - unfortunately, I am UK based. Here, the government pay for your actual tuition fees (rather, they loan the money, but you never see it, and you don't get any control on how you pay it back, it just takes dribs and drabs from what you earn after uni for the rest of your God-given days), which is lucky as my extra-year-due-to-being-ill-a-few-years-back-itis means that I'm paying 3x tuition fees as to what my old cohort are being charged. My actual problem is everything else, and although there are little funds here and there, they don't add up to anything substantial, even if you come from a low-earning single-parent, single-adult (seriously, it's just the four of us, no aunties, grandparents, cousins, nothing) family. To be honest, our government lumps families with that sort of background into the same grouping, and thinks we all have nothing better to do than to sit around getting pissed, and that we don't even know how to function, and so we don't need to go to university as, really, we know nothing anyway. The fact that I have been top of my class for everything since the age of 6 means nothing to them.

BinoAl, nope, I can't read anything she types anymore without delighting in it!

Tedium, I think that's what I'm going to do (via email, and minus the bits that are degrading towards him, obviously). Of course, I'm going to let it mull a bit longer as exams are imminent, so don't think that I should give myself the added emotional stress when the exams that decide whether or not I can actually get onto my course are around (that being said, I need 20% in one exam, and about 40% in another to guarantee my place due to modular results and coursework being so highly marked :D ).

Horizon, I have to disagree. It is definitely a Caroline/GLaDOS type voice.

Flesh_Engine, yeah I'm harassing my uni about what help they can give (maybe harassing is a bit too strong ...), but it really is looking as though there is nothing there ... If I'd lived closer to this uni, I'd be eligible for all sorts of grants &c, but unfortunately these aren't available to me :/.
The problem is that it's not an issue of merely giving him little leeway for emotional blackmail: the reason I cut him out completely is that he held such power over me. As much as I hate what he has done, he's my father - it's almost as if it's hard-coded in that I bow to submission around him. It was such a push to cut him out completely in the first place - it's not a matter of emotional blackmail, but emotional torment ...
Yeah, it certainly helps in this day and age, especially in this country. Plus, it provides a networking base that could become useful later in life.
As far as jobs go, where I live, I can't get a job due to, erm, let's call it "village politics": there are few jobs in the village, only available to members of families who have lived here since it was founded, there are 4 buses a day, I can't drive due to money, and the roads out of the village are deadly to cycle on. I did have tutor a few students, but the money from that was used for college equipment, getting to college &c (college and university are different things here), and the people I was tutoring have their exams now, so that's stopped.
When I get to uni, I hope to pick up a weekend job, and I also hope to pick up some tuition up there - one of my tuition students got an A* in maths GCSE last year (the school predicted him a B), and although that wasn't purely down to me, I doubt he'd have achieved it with just the school's support. Also, from helping in lessons at the school I have received a rather glowing reference from an actual teacher, saying I have a better teaching manner than most training teachers, so hopefully I will be able to find some sort of tuition work with students in the uni's city in September. Of course, this is not guaranteed.

Mason, I know, I am 100% with you on that. But I can't tell my own mother to abandon her pride. She has sacrificed more than any mother I have ever met. To ask her to part with anything more would be an insult to her. So while I agree that she should sign for it (because there is a difference between people scamming off of it and people legitimately using it because they are unable to work, or to sustain them while they look for work like she would be), I'm not going to force her to do something she doesn't want to.

[morvelaira]

Mason, I know, I am 100% with you on that. But I can't tell my own mother to abandon her pride. She has sacrificed more than any mother I have ever met. To ask her to part with anything more would be an insult to her. So while I agree that she should sign for it (because there is a difference between people scamming off of it and people legitimately using it because they are unable to work, or to sustain them while they look for work like she would be), I'm not going to force her to do something she doesn't want to.

Yes, you can tell her do this. In fact, letting her know you wouldn't think any less of her if she did this - that you would actually respect her more for it - may be just what she needs to know. I know it probably seems like you are supporting her by letting her live in her own little world, but the ones who suffer for it in the end will be your brothers. There's no pride to be had if you don't take the reasonable options available to you for the sake of appearances. This is why I told you to explore all of /your/ options before even speaking to your father.

Same concept.

[kaspermwh]

Here in Denmark everything is payed for through our "State Education" system. It basically means that we get payed for going to school, and we get enough to pay for food, apartment fees etc. and even enough to get a few beers every once in a while.
If we however don't find the given money to be enough we can get a SU loan (SU=State Education).

So isn't it possible for you to take a loan from some sort of educational support organization? My mother is still paying off her Loan from when she was 20, but it helped her pay for everything for almost seven years. She got a very low (Interest rate, is that what it's called?) 0.5% or so.

It sounds tough, and i wish you the best of luck :)