Hi - I have a dear friend who is really struggling financially. She works hard at a decent job, but her prospects for making money are limited and her cost of living is high (she is in the UK). She is very frugal, to the point where it's injurious. Yesterday, she learned that she needs to have some teeth pulled, and implants put in, due to decay; had she visited the dentist earlier, this might have been avoided, because they may have caught it earlier, but she was trying to save money and skipped the dentist for several years until the pain forced her there. There have been other similar incidents (not repairing a roof problem until it was dire, which ended up costing more than it would have). In both of these cases she has called me in tears, and I gave her the money to fix the issues (she is a very close friend who spent significant time/resources taking care of me when I was younger, so it was a no-brainer for me).
I am thinking of trying to make her a larger gift, somewhere in the ballpark of $30,000, which I can afford. My thinking is that she will then have a pot of money to draw from so that she can try, as she's able, to take actions to prevent problems, and spend money sooner to protect her from having to spend MORE money later. I think I could talk her into taking the money, especially if I pointed out that having this would prevent the toll it takes on her mental health (she shame-spirals every time she has to ask for money).
I'm wondering two things. First, are there unforeseen potential consequences I haven't considered to making her a gift like this? I have never gifted a large sum to a friend before, and I am nervous about ways that it could impact our very close friendship. I do not believe that she would ever start to view me as a walking ATM or feel entitled to my money, but I'd love to hear from other people with experience who might be able to advise me about whether there are certain guardrails I can put in place to make sure that this doesn't impact our relationship.
Second: When I give it to her, I am thinking of saying something like "While this money is a gift—it is yours now, not mine—I hope that it will function as a pot of money that you can use to handle problems and issues sooner rather than later, so that you can do things like visit the dentist regularly. I know that there will always be unexpected costs that pop up throughout life; but as much as is doable, I'd love for this money to be spent on preventive things." I'd also offer to sit down with her and work on some basic finance/budgeting things, like making a list of priorities for spending; she has been living paycheck-to-paycheck for so long that I think she hasn't thought about this kind of personal financing for a while. Do people think this sounds like a good plan, or should I refrain from offering up such a stipulation? I don't want her to feel like she has to check with me on every expenditure, but I do want to steer her towards financial prudence.
Any and all advice welcome. Thank you in advance!
Ed. 5/18 Thank you for all the advice everyone! I really appreciate it, especially from the people with personal experience in this realm. I think I will hold off for now (after paying for some dental work) and, next time I see her, try to have a frank close-friend-to-close-friend conversation about finances. She might already be trying to budget for priorities a little better; this dental issue might have been a wake-up call, and the offer of a gift might make her feel less-than and mess with her self confidence. When we talk, I might say that it was a bit of a wake-up call for me as well (which is true), and I've looked up some advice on how to make sure house and health are in order to, as much as possible, prevent problems before they become hugely costly. If she wants an accountability partner in making sure all check-ups happen when they're supposed to happen, I think that's a concrete way we can actually help each other rather than me doing something that positions me as "above" her in some way.
I'm not ruling out giving her a gift down the road; I know from my own experience that having enough money so that you don't count every penny really does help. A $25 copay isn't so much to me that I'd skip a checkup over it, but it has been for her, and if I have the power to change that for her, I'm not ruling it out just yet. I would probably start with a smaller amount, as people have suggested, to see how that goes, and to keep it within the tax limit. Maybe 15k.
Thanks again - I won't be checking in again anytime soon, but I will periodically in case there are more people with personal experience who want to post. Appreciate it all! Also, my pronouns are she/her. (Which reminds me: Get mammograms, my 40+ sisters!)