Serious question: If she has nothing right now and probably doesn't even realize she's being wasteful, she's not going to meet your January deadline (Christmas won't help, especially because the kids are only little once! You've gotta understand!). What are you going to do then? Change the locks while she's out? Drive her to the homeless shelter with her toddler? In all likelihood, you're going to face this problem. It'd be wise to consider how you're going to handle it.
I also doubt she'll truly meet the January deadline, but I can sure make it seem like she has to with repeated "So where do you think you're going to move to next month?" type questions. DH and I have already decided she can actually stay w/ us until February, but at that point she needs to go somewhere else. We both work 40 hours or less in the winter, and we all will get tired of each other pretty quickly anyway I think. At that point, I think worst case is we will cobble together a short list of apartments, tell her to choose one and we will pay the deposit/first month's rent. Or she might go live in my parent's house, where she'll have one bedroom and a shared bathroom (but they have a second tv to watch!)*.
Also, with the amount of traveling and clothes buying she's done, and lawyer fees, I'm pretty sure my mom and her mom have paid probably close to rent each month she's been here. So if she has to I think she can get money elsewhere.
So we have thought a lot about this, and thanks for the thoughts MrsPete!
She's also likely still mopey from divorce stuff, as far as job hunting goes. It's hard to balance being supportive and enabling. I do agree with MrsPete: five months is a long time, long enough for someone to get comfortable and not want to leave.
Yes, I agree gimp. However he has been cheating on her for their entire marriage and she knew about it; she finally got fed up enough to leave. If she was my sister, or even closer to my age, I would probably be more willing to support her longer. But she's 5 years older than me, which makes our dynamic a little awkward now that I sort of have the "authority" of the relationship.
As my dad has said: right now other people are paying all of her bills, she gets to hang around an empty house all day with her son and go to the park...why would she think she needs to find work? This is the life! Hence the deadline.
*She almost had my mom telling me that my parents were going to buy a second receiver so she could get separate tv in her room that my parent would pay for because if/when we watch TV at night, she feels in the way in our small living room and she has sports she wants to watch. But she hasn't said any of this to us, so I'm not doing it until she does. Again with the enabling feeling-let's make it nice and comfortable here so you never want to leave...or not.