Mel Abraham says helping family is noble, but draining your own finances to do it backfires. Set boundaries before requests come, build your foundation first, and give only from surplus, not from what you need.
Helping the people you love is not a mistake, and that's not the mistake we're talking about. Wanting to take care of your parents and give your kids a real start is one of the most beautiful things money makes possible. I get it. The instinct is good, and I'd never tell you to kill it. This mistake, though, is doing it in a way that drains your reservoir literally dry and calls it love. Because here's the hard truth nobody says out loud at, at, at the dinner table. You can't pour from an empty reservoir. If you fund everyone else's life and you torch your own future while doing it, you don't end up as the family hero. You end up as the next person who needs rescuing 20 years from now with no machine of your own and nobody behind you to catch it. So you build the boundary before the requests come, not in the emotional heat of the moment when they do come. Decide in advance, what can you give without wrecking your own plan? Fund your reservoir first, the same way that they tell you to put your own oxygen mask on first before you help the person next to you. Then you can help with the overflow instead of from the foundation.
