It’s hard to accept when your financial situation has gone downhill big time.

But living within your new means is often a really positive thing.

See why the parents in this story disagree and are giving their daughter a hard time about that.

AITA for telling my parents we aren’t giving them money and they need to humble themselves?

My husband and I have been stressing over my parents.

They took out of their pensions at 55 and have only about $100-130k each left.

Their house has some equity but not as much as you would think as they have withdrawn from their equity line of credit several times.

The disaster was brewing for years.

My dad has a $100k truck and a vintage Porsche, and my mom has a 7 -seater when they are the only ones now.

My dad is very proud and refuses to take anyone’s advice so it was a shock when they came to me and asked for money.

He has had a lot of health issues and told me he is going to be taking social security now (he is 68) and quitting his job.

Which means they cannot afford their mortgage or car payments.

They totally blindsided me.

I had no idea how bad it was until now.

Thinking back I guess I should have known as they buy so much unnecessary stuff but my parents always acted they were rich.

I told them point blank I wasn’t funding them until I could see all their accounts and assets.

This caused a huge fight but they eventually relented.

I went through what they have and they really don’t need my help.

They just need to downsize dramatically.

My husband is a CPA so he knows this stuff and we went though and told what they needed to do.

They need to sell all the vehicles and get a reliable sedan.

They need sell their 3400 sqft home and buy into a single home with a basement suite or an apartment.

I think the apartment is better as my dad struggles to mow the lawn and hires someone now anyway.

But my mom insists she needs land for a garden.

After that their social security payments would be enough and they would still have a small nest egg.

But they won’t budge.

Then they complained would be living like prisoners.

My parents were angry if they got a small single family they would need to rent out the basement.

My dad insists the basement, which he has as a man cave, is necessary for life.

My mom refuses to downsize as she has a whole room full of clothes at their current home that can’t fit in a smaller house.

I got mad and told them they need to humble themselves since they are the ones asking for money.

They yelled at me for how ungrateful I am over the phone until I hung up.

I told them they have to do this because I’m not helping.

They still have more assets than my husband and I and we have a son to save college funds for.

They have been trying to guilt me by saying they gave me great Christmas presents and a college fund so I owe them.

I feel like that was a tiny proportion of their spending and it didn’t put them in this position.

But am I obligated to help support them when they can support themselves if they downsize?

Here is what people are saying.

If they wanted to get out of crisis, they would do that. But they only want to go on as if nothing is wrong.

It’s strange to me that they don’t see how bad that looks.

This will be a reality show. Mark my words.

It was wild of them to suggest that. It’s also emotional blackmail.

Definitely. No kid asks to be born or asks to have needs. They just do.

They sound like awful parents.

She’s already going above and beyond.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.