My mom wants me to take out a personal loan for her - So I’m 25 years old and earlier this week my mom asked if I could take out a $6000 personal loan in my name that would be given to her to help her out with her bills as she’s fallen very much behind. She even said she might lose her house from not being able to pay her bills.

Truthfully, I don’t feel comfortable. I’ve racked up around 7K in credit card debt due to my dumb, younger self and now I’ve been trying to slowly pay it off. My credit score is even 640. On top of that, I have about $36K in student loans that I have to start making payments on soon.

I guess I’m worried about the “what if”. What if I take out this loan and sure, she starts paying it back monthly but then we enter a time where she can’t and it falls on me? I seriously can’t afford another bill like that right now. Also, the whole general idea that, if a bank won’t trust her and approve her for her own loan, doesn’t that mean I shouldn’t trust her either? Doesn’t this just add to the problem by giving her another bill once she’s caught up of her past bills? I’m also worried about how it’ll affect my credit score that I’m trying so hard to bring back up by paying back the credit card debt I’ve accumulated. But the whole dilemma is, she’s my mom and needs help and I could possibly help her in this.

I think I already know I should stick to my boundary and say no, but I guess I just need some advice/reiteration of how this clearly isn’t a good idea? I’m torn.

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UPDATE

Thank you all for each and every one of your comments. You have no idea how much this helped me in feeling more secure in my decision to tell my mom that I am unable to do this for her. I actually went ahead and sent her a text about this now since that’s all I’m mentally able to do. There is so much more to this situation which is why it makes it so complicated and had me feel so torn, but I’m sticking to creating this boundary with her for the sake of myself. Thank you all once again. I appreciate it so much.