Dear Life Kit: How much advice is too much advice?

0:00Tiffany Camhi:This message comes from Charles Schwab with their original podcast, Choiceology. Choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind people's decisions. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash podcast. I tell them once, I say my piece once, and after that, that's on you. Because when you start nagging them, it's not your job to nag them. You told them, you led the horse to water. Will the horse drink it? I don't even know how the idiom goes, but you know what I'm talking about.

0:28Annie Correal:Or will the horse die of thirst? Let the horse, let that money go. Let the horse die of thirst. You stopped short of saying, let the horse die of thirst, I want to say for the record.

0:37Tiffany Camhi:Did I say that or Andy said that? I'm throwing Andy under the bus.

0:40Annie Correal:Is that the end of the idiom? That is so dark. Hey, it's Marielle Sagara and welcome to another edition of Dear Life Kit, where we answer your questions with help from the collective wisdom in our Life Kit archives. Reporter Andy Tegel is here. Hey, Andy. Hey, Mariel. And we've also got our digital editor, Malika Greve here. Hey, Malika. Hello. So I'm going to get right into it. Our first question is, dear Life Kit, I work in unclaimed property for the state. I have several friends who have unclaimed funds. How many times am I allowed to remind them of this before it becomes overbearing and instead of being a welcome surprise, it becomes an undue burden?

1:23Annie Correal:I truly want to help them reclaim the funds. Over$5 ,000 for one of them. But he actually thinks it's a scam. It is not. How can I help my friends get their money back without being annoying? Okay, have y 'all heard of unclaimed funds? I have not. Okay, basically, this is when the state or federal government collects money that you forgot about. That could be old bank accounts or uncashed checks, stock certificates, unused gift cards. And those things are available to you through the government. If you search your name, you can see if you have any money there.

2:00Tiffany Camhi:I'm sorry. I have to do this right now. I'm looking it up. You guys keep talking and I'll let you know if I have free money. Okay.

2:05Annie Correal:And is it like every state, like everywhere you've lived? So you'd have to look up California and like D.C. I think there are websites where you can check across the country. You can check all the states. I have no money. Well, that's the Tennessee one. But you might have unclaimed money in another state. All right. All right. Stand by. Stand by. So, yeah, I mean, I get how frustrated this question asker is because they know all about this. And they're like, hey, I want you to get your$5 ,000 back. But this person is like, I think it's a scam. And the thing is, you can't really convince people otherwise.

2:37Annie Correal:And it's not your job to. You know, we know this at LifeKit. We've done a lot of reporting, especially on money and how people can optimize their spending, their savings, their investments. but you can only tell someone so many times to like, you should really invest for retirement and get your employer a match or get a high yield savings account. Like you can't literally make them do it. Oh yeah, I feel that so deeply. How much? I have$50. What is it from? Does it say?

3:07Tiffany Camhi:Wait, first of all, it says owner name Garib H.

3:10Annie Correal:That's not you. That's not you.

3:11Tiffany Camhi:Oh, dang. It's sad though, but I could see how this would work. I would be instantly claiming it. I don't know what this person is thinking. They need to go right now and like look up their information.

3:21Annie Correal:So this is how our letter writer feels. Yeah. Seeing your friend's name and being like, you have$5 ,000. What are you doing?

3:26Tiffany Camhi:This is my rule with adults. This is my rule with adults. You cannot tell another adult what to do. You told them once, that's on them. You know what I mean? Yeah.

3:34Annie Correal:Yeah. I mean, like working for LifeKit, I feel this person so deeply. I feel like I'm brimming with information so often, you know, like we'll be talking about whatever. I don't know. For me, it's parenting stuff. I feel like I'm like the actually person, like actually, you know, or like I was working on this episode. You know, like I get a lot of eye rolls. Yeah. Yeah.

3:52Tiffany Camhi:There's not a good way to give unsolicited advice to people.

3:55Annie Correal:Yeah.

3:55Tiffany Camhi:There's never a good way. Yeah. Here's what I would do. I would get everybody else in the group to do their claims and everyone's getting money. And everyone's like, oh my God, I got$50 in the mail. What about you, Hal? Oh, Hal, I thought you had$5 ,000. You didn't apply for it. What a dummy.

4:09Annie Correal:Negative peer pressure. Yeah. That's what I would do. I like it. But I think what this comes down to is that this person is trying to show love to the people in their lives. That's the most charitable way of seeing this. You could see it as they're trying to control other people's lives. But I want to see the charitable way that they're trying to show love to other people. And that doesn't always mean fixing something for someone. And it doesn't always mean optimizing their life. I mean, it came up in our cancer support episode, how to support someone who's going through cancer. Like the answer isn't usually to try to fix it for them.

4:47Annie Correal:How could you fix it for them? It's too big, you know, but it's to say, how are you doing today? Where are you with this today? And you can show that kind of love to people day after day, like check in on them, but you don't have to get involved in their finances. You can tell them about the five grand the one time, maybe twice if it's your sibling, but after that, love them in a different way.

5:09Tiffany Camhi:Let go of the reins.

5:11Annie Correal:Let the crumbs fall where they may. You have done your part. Yeah. We'll have more Dear Life Kit after the break.

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6:33Tiffany Camhi:Because the monkey pressed the button. Surprising stories every week, wherever you get your podcasts.

7:05Annie Correal:next question dear life kid after a series of clashes with his parents my husband has made the difficult decision to stop contacting them while he doesn't get his parents texts and voicemails i still do the messages are often affectionate or loving usually from his mother should i advise him to listen to these messages or should i keep listening to the messages and ignore how sad it makes me that his parents are trying in vain to reach out i have one big thing to say to this letter writer, this is not about you.

7:36Tiffany Camhi:This is literally this boundary that your husband is holding with his parents is not about you. And I think it's so sweet that you are in there and listening to all of it. But like, I think that you just need to step back for a second. Yeah. And I wanted to share a really great piece of advice from author and therapist, Andrea Bonnier from an interview we did back in 2021 about estrangement. And she says that the challenge of creating a boundary like this is having other people understand it. We can have the best laid plan for why our boundaries are meaningful to us and why we need to assert them for our own mental health.

8:15Tiffany Camhi:But sometimes the people in our lives don't respond as well as we would hope, or they can't really even understand where we're coming from. What it sounds like to me is that the letter writer is having trouble understanding what the boundaries are that their partner has with their parents. Where does that leave the spouse?

8:34Annie Correal:This is a hard one. I think that if your spouse has drawn that line in the sand, then it is your job to hold that line. So if you're deciding to listen to those voicemails, to read those texts, that's still crossing that line. Because they block this person, right? Right. They block them for a reason. They don't want it.

8:55Tiffany Camhi:Here's my question. Should that person go back to their spouse and try to re-understand and have their spouse re-explain the boundary?

9:03Annie Correal:Yeah. Or like if you want to challenge that boundary, if you want to talk to them about it or say like, I think maybe it's time to revisit this. I think, you know, then that's something else. I think also if you were going to challenge that boundary, like you should have a really good reason. There are also scenarios where people basically just ghost their family and they don't ever tell them why. And so if it's one of those scenarios and you think your partner really hasn't communicated with the family or it's something that's like, for lack of a better way of saying this, not that serious, you know, like there's a spectrum of reasons that people can be estranged.

9:38Annie Correal:If you as their partner really think like this is not the kind of thing that you get estranged over or like I don't think your family even understands or this is important enough because we have kids and I think they would really like to know their grandparents. If you feel like you have enough of a stake in it, then you could revisit it with this person. But otherwise, you know, it's not really your choice to make. I think that some of the best marriage advice that I've ever gotten was from my brother-in-law who got it from someone else. I don't know. Just say something or let it go. Like if you're upset, either it's important enough to talk about or just let it roll off your shoulders.

10:16Annie Correal:Yeah. It's one or the other.

10:17Tiffany Camhi:I actually have never heard of that marriage advice before, but I love it.

10:20Annie Correal:Yeah. It's really helpful, I think. All right. Next question. Dear Life Kit, I need help addressing the difference between how my wife and I view food and how this relates to my kids. My wife is a great woman who grew up without restrictions on sweets. She brings donuts and candy into the house and there's too much of it. When I try to tell her that it's too much, that the kids don't have self-control, she refuses to alter how much she brings in the home. I am a broken record player with the eat a piece of fruit or a vegetable response to I'm hungry. Other than bringing in more fruit and vegetables, how do I get my wife to cut back on sweets?

10:59Annie Correal:There are a lot of questions in this question.

11:01Tiffany Camhi:I have a lot of questions in this question, too.

11:04Annie Correal:Well, it's complicated because they have kids. So if it was just the couple, then you got to think about how much control you should really be exerting over what another adult is eating. But because there are the kids, you should be guiding what they're eating and making sure that they're getting enough nutrition and not eating too much sugar. You know what this question is giving for me? it's giving my wife divorced me over a pile of dirty dishes in the sink and i have no idea what's going on you know what i mean like this is a question about sweets but to me it's like really it's about a lot more like there's a lot hiding under this pile of donuts and candy in the kitchen unearth it you know like okay so what catches me here is the phrase she refuses like she refuses to alter how much candy she brings into the home like that's a pretty strong response especially

11:56Tiffany Camhi:if you have children also it sounds a little bit passive aggressive that she continues to bring even though he said.

12:01Annie Correal:That's exactly what I'm saying. You know what I mean? Like I'm assuming this person knows that like donuts and candy at every single meal is a bad idea, right? So like yeah, it's like she's doing it to spite him. Exactly. So I'm wondering like, how are these conversations going? This is like not value neutral. This candy signifies something is what I'm guessing. And you need to get underneath the why is what is my advice.

12:23Tiffany Camhi:Is this more about control? This is the control episode. Yeah. One thing is that like every parent knows that like you can't just tell kids to eat vegetables and fruits, right? You just can't tell them that. It has to be a whole lifestyle. You have to have it readily available. You have to have it cut and ready for them. And they say no the first time, then you have to reintroduce it, keep feeding to it. We have a whole episode on this, how to get your kids to eat veggies, right? And what was the bottom line on that? Do y 'all remember?