DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My roommate travels extensively for her work. The upside is that I generally have the apartment, which I own, to myself. The downside is that she is often late with her rent payments, and although she has never yet stiffed me, sometimes the payments are late enough to make for a tight squeeze on my budget to pay my mortgage.

The other thing is that she breezes in and breezes out, uses a lot of my food and other stuff, and never seems to get around to replacing it, because she’s off on the road again.

While I like the time without her around, do you think it’s worth the stress of her late payments and disappearing food and supplies? --- LIVING WITH AN INVISIBLE ROOMMATE

DEAR LIVING WITH AN INVISIBLE ROOMMATE: You’ve already clearly figured out it comes down to balancing your preference for time alone in your place against a better peace of mind financially.

Since your roommate does pay, even if it’s just under the wire, my vote would be to put up with her for a while longer, but make it clear that you need the money sooner in the month, and that you’d like her to include a little extra to cover the food and supplies she’s used that didn’t belong to her.

If she doesn’t comply after a couple tries on your part to work with her, you might want to think about replacing her sooner rather than later.

If you do terminate your agreement with your current roommate, please give her a reasonable period of time to find alternate arrangements. That could mean waiting a little longer, but it’s the decent thing to do.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: About six months ago my younger brother borrowed $500 to buy an impact driver so he could work on his sunroom he is building for his family. We had no problem loaning him the money, because he has always paid us back in the past, usually with interest we never ask for.

This time, though, he decided to pay us back not in cash, but by getting my husband and me tickets from Raleigh, NC to Burlington, VT, where he and his family live. We were planning to drive there this summer, which is how we usually get there, but he thought it would be nice for us to not have to do the 14 to 15-hour trip.

It is a nice gift, but my husband and I agree we don’t mind the driving, even with the cost of gas, because we make it a mini-road trip. It also struck us as odd that he decided how to repay the loan without consulting with us first. He said he figured out what our gas, tolls, and hotel (if we do it in two days) would cost, and it was almost the same amount, and by flying, we get to spend more time with him and his family.

We do look forward to this trip, which we make every couple of years, but doesn’t it seem like he should have given us the option to decide how to be repaid? How did he know we don’t need the cash more than the airline tickets? --- LOOKS LIKE WE’RE FLYING

DEAR LOOKS LIKE WE’RE FLYING: It does seem a little unusual, but it also appears that your brother is trying to give you what he considers is something of a treat. He may not realize you and your husband enjoy the time on the road, especially if he’s not inclined to travel that way.

Given the rising cost of fuel and the expenses of at least one overnight trip in food and lodging, he might easily be saving you more than $500, which certainly makes it a generous, if somewhat unorthodox payback.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: This year will be the first time we’ll be able to take a vacation since we took our oldest son to visit my parents in Wisconsin four years ago when he was almost one. Since then we’ve had a second baby boy, who is now nearly three.

This year my wife wants to take our boys with us when we go to visit some college friends in Savannah, where neither of us has ever yet been. Our friends want to take us around to some clubs and blackwater kayaking, and other kinds of things that are not at all for young kids like ours, which means we’d have to find a sitter down there for them, and I don’t think my wife realizes that as clearly as she should.

My mother-in-law has already said she would be very happy to take her grandkids for the whole week, but my wife is resisting.

We both really need this time away from all the usual routines. I work from home half the time, and my wife is home fulltime taking care of the boys.

What can I do to convince her we can have a perfectly good vacation without the kids in tow? --- LEAVE THEM HOME

DEAR LEAVE THEM HOME: I’m able to empathize with your wife’s reluctance to leave your children behind for the first time. In her case, it’s probably particularly difficult because she’s usually with them all day long.

Maybe you and her mother can sell the week away for you two as a chance for the kids to have their own vacation at Camp Grandma. It might tip the balance in convincing your wife if she knows that not only will your children be in good and loving hands, but that they’ll have a few fun adventures of their own, while you and she take advantage of an opportunity to recharge and refresh yourselves, which generally is to everyone’s advantage in the long run.