What's in it for you?

Make sure you get something out of it today that makes it worth your while and don't assume it will come back to you someday and she'll be grateful and yada.

I knew that doing nice things for my sister wasn't going to enhance my resume or lead to a real career for me.

My sister paid for groceries when I visited her. I and my kids ate for free. She could afford that in part because I helped paint and wallpaper which increased the value of her house and I supported her career. Me adding value to her life meant she had it to spare and could pretend to herself she was generous when she's really not.

I took care of her following her first mastectomy. This was like a month-long trip to the East Coast from the West Coast and in exchange I borrowed her car for the trip up to Boston to attend a Beyond IQ conference. 

I think I borrowed the car and went to Boston first before her surgery. Pro tip: When dealing with narcissists, get yours FIRST.  The minute they have what they wanted, they lose all interest in trying to play nice, pay you, etc. "Cash upfront" so to speak.

She had her only child relatively late in life. She was in a government job, they were downsizing and offering a buyout. In other words, they were offering people a somewhat hefty one time payment to quit so they didn't have to fire people and look like bad guys.

With having a new baby, the buyout was especially valuable to her because working full-time and paying nosebleed prices for daycare isn't good money. They typically charge more for infants.

So the buyout would be more money in her pocket in real terms for not working for the coming year than working and paying daycare. 

Her baby was not technically a preemie but she was born early. A baby can be up to three weeks early and not be classified a preemie. The baby had some problems but not on par with preemie babies.

I'm a good mom and already had experience with difficult kids. My oldest was eight and both my kids were challenging. 

At some point, I told her I would be willing to take care of the baby for the one month she needed a nanny after her maternity leave ran out so she could qualify for the buyout. 

So she called me one day upset. She had probably been interviewing nannies and they really weren't good enough to leave her early arrival baby with and she says to me "I can't afford to pay you on top of paying plane tickets to fly out here."

I said "I never said anything about paying me." She was dumbfounded.

She paid for the plane tickets and fed me while I was visiting with my two sons during the summer when they weren't in school anyway. It was a short-term commitment and other than a month of my time, it didn't cost me anything. I didn't pay the plane tickets.

The last week I was there, a store called Ruby Tuesday opened up. I spent something like $200 there and my sister spent something like $100. I went home with around $2000 worth of my dream cookware and expensive sheets.

One set was labeled Egyptian cotton and was something like 400 or 600 thread count. They weren't especially pretty but they felt divine.

Egyptian cotton is much more expensive than most cotton and up to 90 percent of products labeled Egyptian cotton are fraudulent. I believe my sheets were real Egyptian cotton.

I thought I would never be able to afford my dream cookware. It was enamel with glass lids from a brand called Chantal. Last I looked, they mostly sell stainless steal these days.

It was a discontinued color, a shade of teal they didn't normally sell. I liked it better than the colors they did typically sell.

I don't even like cooking, but cooking with good cookware is a pleasure, not a chore, and the food turns out better. I enjoyed cooking more once I had that and our quality of life went up.

If I had gotten a job at Burger King and paid for childcare for two elementary school-aged kids, I probably would have made less than $2000 in a year. After childcare costs and ordering more takeout because I'm tired all the time and don't feel like cooking, I would have made almost nothing.

Two thousand dollars in untaxable net profit for one month of my time that improved my quality of life for multiple years was a good deal for me. 

But, no, I can't put that on a resume and unlike my sister I'm not making upwards of $100k annually at a job. That's what she got out of it.

Make sure you give what you can afford to give. Don't cut your throat to enhance a relative's career. 

I got my sister's baby off to a good start, taught my sister how to efficiently feed the baby and get her to sleep and put substantial money in my sister's pocket helping her qualify for the buyout. This meant her life didn't come apart at the seams because she had a baby and that meant she didn't impose excessively much on the extended family even though her putz husband spent some stupidly long time unemployed while my sister did the full-time mom thing.

My sister didn't really appreciate or understand what I did for her. She has zero respect for me and loads of contempt.

You can bet I will never do anything more for her. But at the time that I did these things, I got something out of it for me that was important to me. 

In one case, that was planned up front. In the other, I took advantage of unexpected opportunity and she did buy me a few pieces of Chantal because she was flush with money and at that moment did feel grateful though it didn't last long.

In neither case did I fall on my sword. And I made those choices knowing if her life went to hell, mom and dad would feel obligated to step in and that would impact me because there would be less family money to go around.