{"id":173774,"date":"2025-06-10T19:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T19:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/173774\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T19:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T19:57:09","slug":"my-parents-are-using-my-brothers-ex-girlfriends-netflix-account-and-she-doesnt-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/173774\/","title":{"rendered":"My parents are using my brother’s ex-girlfriend’s Netflix account, and she doesn’t know."},"content":{"rendered":"

Pay Dirt is Slate\u2019s money advice column. Have a question? <\/strong>Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here<\/strong><\/a>. (It\u2019s anonymous!)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Pay Dirt,\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My parents are undeniably the cheapest people I know, and while not wealthy, they certainly aren\u2019t destitute. They will only visit if they can stay at our house with their unruly dog so they don\u2019t have to pay for a hotel or dog sitter. I agree to let them stay with us, but it\u2019s exhausting spending every waking moment with them.<\/p>\n

Still, thier most recent visit went well until the fourth and final day when I discovered something extremely off-putting that they are doing to save money.<\/p>\n

My dad is using a subscription that my brother\u2019s ex-girlfriend is paying for! They have been broken up for three years and in that entire time, my dad has been using her account. I\u2019m absolutely disgusted by this. Particularly because my brother and I are estranged due to his horrible treatment of the women he dates. I gently voiced my opinion about this and my mom got defensive and said she probably doesn\u2019t even know and besides, she liked my parents.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m considering reaching out to the ex-girlfriend to let her know. We\u2019ve written a couple letters to each other in the last three years. Is this none of my business and something I need to let go? Or should I keep it between me and my parents and how do I talk to them about their cheap antics without them getting defensive?<\/p>\n

\u2014Quit Being Cheapskates<\/p>\n

Dear Quit,<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not to downplay your feelings about the Netflix piggybacking, but this sounds like\u00a0more of a \u201cstraw that broke the camel\u2019s back\u201d kind of situation. It sounds like the Netflix thing might be a reminder of how frustrating this situation has become for you.<\/p>\n

The bigger issue is that you don\u2019t want to host your parents every time they visit. It\u2019s totally reasonable to set this boundary with them, and you can do it in a way that will minimize defensiveness. When you talk to them about this, focus less on how cheap they are and more on how that cheapness affects you and your life. Maybe come up with some solutions, too. Are you willing to chip in for a hotel? Could you put a limit on their stay? Could they find a dog sitter while they\u2019re visiting? It doesn\u2019t have to be a perfect solution, and you might very well know they\u2019re going to veto it. The point is, you\u2019re not just coming to them with a problem \u2014 you also want to solve that problem.<\/p>\n

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    Once you lay it on them, give them a chance to speak their mind, too. For example, \u201cI love when you visit, but it\u2019s also exhausting to play host for so long. I have some ideas of how to make it easier on all of us. What do you think?\u201d At some point, you may need to set a firm boundary with them and tell them your rules for their stay. But the goal right now is to have a conversation without them getting defensive about it.<\/p>\n

    As for telling the ex about their use of her Netflix account: Your mom might be right in that it\u2019s harmless and she may not even have a problem with it, but \u2026 wouldn\u2019t you want to know if someone were using your Netflix account? If you do feel ethically obliged to tell her, maybe start with a gentle nudge: \u201cBy the way, you might want to change your Netflix password.\u201d You don\u2019t want to throw your parents under the bus\u2014 though if they do lose access, they\u2019re probably going to know you\u2019re the whistleblower!<\/p>\n

    Hang in there. These conversations aren\u2019t easy but you also have every right to not want to feel stressed and overwhelmed when your parents visit. Being frugal is one thing, but when that frugality starts to negatively impact other people\u2014you, and arguably, your brother\u2019s ex\u2014 it crosses the line into downright cheap.<\/p>\n

    \u2014Kristin<\/p>\n

    More Money Advice From Slate<\/p>\n

    My husband and I got married at the turn of the century and recently found out that we are an anomaly among our peer group because we have merged finances. We have our own retirement accounts, but all of our income otherwise goes into shared accounts. Our friends\u2014some who married earlier than we did, some at the same time, some later\u2014have one joint account for agreed-upon shared expenses, and then their own individual accounts for everything else. When our first couples-friends told us this, we thought they were out of the ordinary\u2014all of our expenses are shared! We don\u2019t get it. We started asking our other friends, and it turns out we are the outliers! We have opened a can of worms: Our friends are universally appalled that we share everything and have \u201cnothing\u201d of our \u201cown.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

    The latest sex, parenting, and money advice from our columnists delivered to your inbox three times a week.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pay Dirt is Slate\u2019s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[4376,51,390,474,2499,17966,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-173774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-advice","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-family","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-slate-plus","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114660838169376860","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}