It is the unstructured yes that damages both the money and the relationship. With no fixed capacity, every request becomes a fresh referendum on whether you love the person asking, and every refusal reads as a verdict rather than a limit. With a number, the conversation changes shape entirely: not whether you care, but what is available and when. That is honest, and it is far kinder than disappearing.

Decide an annual figure, usually five to ten per cent of income, convert it to a monthly amount, and fund it like rent. When it is exhausted, the answer is not no, it is not this month, here is the date. A date is not a rejection. Keep it in its own account so the limit is a fact rather than a feeling, and separate the recurring commitments, which should be planned, from genuine shocks like a hospital admission, which is what your emergency buffer is for.

Then say the number out loud to the people it affects. This is not an imported idea about boundaries: extended family support is a real and often beautiful system, and it deserves a budget line for the same reason your rent has one. Notice which requests recur - paying once for a skill or a stock of goods often ends an obligation that would otherwise run for a decade.