My neighbour has a cat called Stevie. Stevie hangs out with us a lot and we look after him when my neighbour is away.
Yesterday we found Stevie very unwell in our garden. We took him to the neighbour and she immediately rushed him to the vet.
She mentioned the vet was 200 dollars which was a big unexpected expense for her. Her son’s birthday is on Monday and she won’t be able to do anything for his birthday now.
My wife and I are fortunate enough for 200 dollars to not be a lot of money for us and we want to help, but I’m unsure how.
One option would be that we leave her a little card with 100 dollars and write that we wanted to help because we care about Stevie too.
Another idea is we ask her to do some gardening for us (that’s her job, and we’re too busy to do it ourselves right now).
I don’t want her to feel patronised or awkward about any of this… Happy to take insights.
Yeah, imo the way to handle it is to be straightforward about it, but ultimately leave the choice to her. Something like, “We love Stevie too and want to help any way we can, and we know how hard an unexpected expense like this can be, so if you’ll let us, we’d love to pay for the vet bill so you don’t have to worry and can have a nice time on Monday with your kid.”