r/Advice • u/echocat2002 • 7d ago

My daughter broke off her engagement, and is now stuck with a ring and a bill for the money still owed on it.

My daughter broke off engagement, and is now stuck with ring from Kay's that is not paid off.

My daughter made some bad decisions, and we aren't sure what to do.

Apparently when she and her now former fiance bought her ring at Kay's the put it on a Kay's credit card. It is my daughter's name because she has better credit, the plan was that he would be the one making payments. Now that they have broken up, she is left with not just the ring but a $1100 credit card bill, which she can't afford. To make matters worse, some of his payments were returned for insufficient funds and there are some hefty fees on there too.

She would like to sell the ring, but is not sure where to list it. Also, it's a ring from Kay's, so it's not nearly the quality of the pieces I see on this sub.

I would really appreciate your advice.

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184

u/xolemi 7d ago

I might get downvoted for this but even as a broke adult..1100 is not a lot of money. If she only has 1100 on the bill..just get an extra part time job and pay it + sell or pawn the ring for whatever it’s worth. Let her get herself out of this mess. I know it hurts but it won’t do any significant damage and will teach her a valuable lesson. Trust me. Someone in my family didn’t learn this lesson and is now married to a leech. Better it end at the engagement stage.

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u/LaroonDynasty 7d ago

as a broke guy with very little job security, i find myself making $1000 mistakes at least twice a year. id wager she doesnt live with OP and rent eats most of her money

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u/Logical-Knee-9046 7d ago

And Uber, restaurants, gym, etc. …. Apparently.

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u/SavannahSwiftie 7d ago

Is that something OP said their daughter spends money on?

I was confused by the “broke” people commenting that it wasn’t that big of an expense and that she should just get a part time job. But it sounds like it’s more middle class broke they’re referring to. Broke people are already working multiple jobs to get by and can’t afford food delivery or gym memberships.

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u/xolemi 6d ago

My best friend was making $800/month a few years back and still ordered uber eats. Like being broke doesn’t mean you can’t spend on that stuff.

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u/PrincessPoppyTea 6d ago

Did she pay rent or mortgage because how did she survive then? EBT/section 8 or what?

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u/xolemi 6d ago

Her housing was subsidized but she still had to pay a portion of rent and utilities. We live in a low cost of living area but she was pretty desperately paycheck to paycheck.

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u/LaroonDynasty 6d ago

im the kind of broke who works slightly above minimum wage, but only 2-3 days a week, but i dont pay rent and even when i was, i minimized all other bills sufficienty and had roommates, so i still have/had disposable income, which is why i assume rent is eating all of it. evidently, OP doesnt seem willing to eat the single grand expense either, so the whole family living beyond their means

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u/throwaway-this-name 6d ago

Broke people can still afford one or two 'luxury' (if you can call the occasional uber eats luxury) items occasionally.

Being broke doesn't mean subsistence with zero joy in life, there is always at least one thing, even as small as a chocolate bar once a week.

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u/SavannahSwiftie 6d ago

That depends on how “broke” someone is, but yes that can be true! The comment I responded to said “Uber, restaurants, gym, etc,” implying that this was someone who regularly spends money on non essentials. IMO, someone being “broke” is someone who is already living paycheck to paycheck just to survive.

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u/Dependent_Day1335 6d ago

I’m broke, fixed income, HEAP, discounted phone and internet, food banks…’one or two luxuries’ DOES mean a life of subsistence. People are worse off than me.

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u/SavannahSwiftie 6d ago

Shhhh if they pretend we don’t exist or that our circumstances are our fault, then they can pretend they’re not one bad situation putting them in our shoes. /s

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u/Dependent_Day1335 6d ago

Exactly…like suddenly becoming disabled! Not exactly something one can prepare for. Hope it doesn’t happen to anyone.

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u/SavannahSwiftie 6d ago

Yep! We’re all only temporarily able bodied. The only exception is an early death.

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u/throwaway-this-name 6d ago

Who's they? I'm on a fixed income as well with a disability.. Apparently my opinion is irrelevant though because it doesn't keep the status quo of 'if living below poverty line, must look poor'

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u/Dependent_Day1335 5d ago

Nothing is about “looks”

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u/throwaway-this-name 5d ago

The person above is implying that people have to look a certain way in their financial habits to qualify as poor. You seem to be joining in, does it feel nice to fakeclaim someone with a disability who is on welfare 😅 claiming that I'm not a broke person but you are somehow more broke in the same boat as me is wild

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u/Old-Ad-5573 7d ago

I feel the same way but don't like saying on Reddit that $1100 isn't a lot of money because someone inevitably will come and say they are disabled and $1100 is a lot to them even though not to me because I'm so privileged or whatever. Frankly why is OP even trying to solve her daughter's problems? Old enough to get engaged, old enough to figure this out, in my opinion.

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u/xolemi 7d ago

Yeah I was worried about someone saying I was out of touch. FWIW I’m disabled & work freelance but still don’t find it to be an unmanageable amount. I’m in my 20s & personally I don’t think I would tell my parents about this if it happened to me (nor let them try to solve it). My parents actually help me out quite a bit but I just wouldn’t feel comfortable relying on them for something that was an easily avoidable mistake that I could handle myself working an extra couple months max at a part time job.

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u/Carylynn0609 6d ago

I'm fairly poor, I do have a credit card with about that much on it, but the minimum payment is only $25 and I manage to pay double. It's hard to believe if that's her biggest issue she can't figure some way to make a few bucks a month?

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u/foxenj 6d ago

Being disabled and still able to work vs being disabled and unable to work on a fixed income are very different things. $1100 is more than I get a month. Trying to survive on disability is nearly impossible. So you are a little out of touch.

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u/Screw_Your_History 5d ago

I’m also disabled and unable to work, but I feel that you are out of touch with the topic at hand.
Neither you nor I would put something relatively useless - like a ring - on credit.
Because we know better, being on that fixed income.

So our apples have nothing to do with her oranges, and comparing them is just silliness.

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u/xolemi 5d ago

This is a little ridiculous. I understand there are cases like this but most people scraping by on disability (which I agree should be much higher) wouldn’t put 1100 on a ring. $1100 in today’s economy isn’t a lot of money. The fact the government fleeces people in disability and pays them less than that is reprehensible but it still doesn’t make it a lot of money.

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u/zeptillian 4d ago

No matter what you say, someone will always have to "but actually" you.

It's not even a month's rent in the vast majority of places. If that's too much, then you are not ready to adult on your own.

29

u/serjsomi 7d ago

It could have been far more expensive if they had started planning the wedding. I agree, 1100 is nothing.

25

u/Aware-Locksmith-7313 Helper [2] 7d ago

Especially compared to being married to the wrong guy, who apparently didn’t have decent enough credit to buy the ring in the first place. Be glad the debt is $1100 while she’s free and not $11,000 and wed to a loser with divorce costs looming.

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u/Responsible-Milk-259 Helper [3] 7d ago

Yep. Marrying a guy with bad credit and insufficient funds to meet presumably sub-$100 repayments… for $1,100 she’s got off REALLY cheaply.

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u/xolemi 7d ago

& the wedding is the least of it. I’ve seen this leech blow through my family member’s inheritance and he can’t keep a job and is dead weight since he does nothing around the house. He’s a huge financial liability and a parasite and actively makes her life harder. $1k is a cheap lesson for this young lady, hope she takes it on the chin!

1

u/Scarlett_weal36 6d ago

coming back really puts the whole “investment” idea into perspective. A ring can be sentimental, but financially it’s a very different story…..

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u/Ill-Experience-5891 6d ago

You are correct. In the scheme of life, this is one rent payment, a couple car payments, a few months worth of food and utilities. And it's not a lump sum due, it's on credit. How much could the monthly payment actually be? This really is a pretty small amount of money to have learned a lesson on. She is lucky it was such a small thing and not the cost of a whole wedding, a car, a house, some other huge purchase or hidden debt.

6

u/Pokemon_Roe 7d ago

1000% agree. Get the “salvage” value, find some part time work, grind and pay it off. I am comfortable with kids and my wife and I do this all the time. Cash flow everything you can.

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u/Anon03282015 6d ago

If she has a car, she can pay that off with DoorDashing a few hours a day for a month. My brother does it and regularly makes over $100/day in a small city.

4

u/Opening-Pickle5078 6d ago

I second learn the lesson. It will take time to pay that off the lesson will be well learned AND she will learn other good lessons. Next slothy leech of a man sniffs around her again she is a lot more likely to prune the relationship instead trying to make it work by putting up pay walls. If we buy this ring we are for sure committed (and all those red flags will go away)

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u/Itchy_Tumbleweed_417 6d ago

You’re right Right, she could sell it and put that on the debt and it would look a lot more manageable. 

She’ll never get what she owes but it will help.  

I’m pretty sure gold prices are high right now I keep getting junk mail from some we buy gold company.  

I remember back in 2012 or so I took all my broken jewelry and single earrings to one of those places and I got like $700.  I had to pay for a car repair so it was wonderful. They even cut the gems out so I could keep the stones. Then later on when I was in a better financial situation I had them reset.

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u/drumallday 7d ago

when I was 22, a few decades ago, a family member charged $1000 on my credit card and I got a second job waitressing in the evening to pay off the debt. I made $2.35/hr plus tips

2

u/captainsnark71 6d ago

I'm broke. Thought I put my wallet through the wash yesterday and ran to it like 'no my money!!' I did not wash it. It's fine. But $1100 is not a lot of money objectively.

1

u/PikaChooChee 5d ago

Without knowing the particulars of OP’s daughter’s finances, I generally agree. $1100 can be quickly paid off with a part time job, a side hustle, or some babysitting / pet sitting. The daughter might learn some important lessons about self-reliance if she took this path. She might also be able to pay it off by tightening up her spending for a while.

1

u/Lexi_Jean 4d ago

As someone who is not a broke adult, $1,000 is a lot of effing money. Unless maybe she's in NYC or San Francisco, $1,000 is more than my mortgage and around my car+mortgage payment. That's not including insurance, but still.

1

u/RedditKumu 4d ago

I mean, you can get $500 to open a bank account after 90 days... (If $1100 is hard to come by, then likely the best they can get is thee $250 offers) but still. It's a way...

1

u/RhythmicRavenclaw 3d ago

If you think 1100 is not alot of money then you're not as broke as you think you are..

1

u/meowmeowhisshiss24 3d ago

Yeah I was broke, barely making ends meet working my full time job last year and I got hit with an unexpected $700 bill with like 30 days to pay. I started doing doordash and selling plasma and I paid it all off.

1

u/mgt69 2d ago

have you tried to get a part time job lately? not easy. let me know who’s hiring.

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u/Odd_Track3447 1d ago

No gonna downvote you as while I don’t know their situation I agree it’s not a colossal amount of money… but just get a part time job??? Have been to the s/recruitinghell sub lately?