MONEY MANNERS

DEAR JEANNE & LEONARD: A college roommate I remain close to has a daughter going to college in Boston. So when I recently was there on a business trip and had a free evening, I invited her to dinner. In extending the invitation, I told her if she had a boyfriend or roommate she'd like to bring along, that would be fine. But to my surprise, she arrived with a posse: three girlfriends, who were completely uninhibited about ordering the most expensive items on the menu. My question is what do I do now? Let it go? Say something to her mother? Or lightheartedly mention in an email to the girl that I was surprised to find myself buying dinner for five? I feel someone ought to explain to this otherwise nice kid that what she did wasn't cool.

-- Claire

DEAR CLAIRE: Send her a bill. That should turn on a few lights.

Kidding aside, you'd need to have a remarkably good relationship with your old roommate for her to welcome your criticism of her daughter. And you'd need a remarkably deft touch as a writer to send the daughter an email to which she didn't take exception. Perhaps you have both. Otherwise, set aside your concern for this young woman's social skills, and file what happened under "not my problem." It's not as if you discovered that she's doing drugs.

DEAR JEANNE & LEONARD: My sister had two financially disastrous marriages. So to help her stay on her feet, my father left her his mortgage-free home, while leaving his stock portfolio to me. At the time of his death, which was eight years ago, the house was worth around $250,000 and the stocks around $175,000. I didn't complain about the uneven split because I knew my sister wanted and really needed Daddy's house. Fast-forward to the present. The house is now worth around $285,000, while the stocks I inherited are worth close to $500,000. (Daddy had some Apple, Google and Amazon shares.) My sister thinks this is unfair. She says Daddy never intended for me to inherit so much more than she did, and she thinks I should give some of the stocks to her. Should I?

-- Little Sister

DEAR LITTLE SIS: How much do you think your big sister would be offering to give you if those stocks had lost half their value instead of going up?

Look, regardless of what she now chooses to believe, your father's wishes were met when his estate was divided as it was, and so were hers. She got what she wanted, and what subsequently happened to the value of the assets you each received is irrelevant. Especially since your sister's inheritance was 40 percent larger than yours, she has no business complaining about your later good fortune.

Could there be just reasons for you to share that good fortune with her? Of course. But your sister's sense of entitlement and her too-ingenuous-by-half assertion of unfairness aren't among them.

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Family on 09/20/2017

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