Hahahaha. My husband went with, "I think you may have miscalculated..."
Seriously though... We tread carefully now with our generosity within the family.
Indeed. How exactly did that play out, if you don't mind my asking?
He told the BIL that they would need to figure out another way to make it work, because it was never our intention to be included as a revenue line item in their budget. He said... a little tongue in cheek, that we aren't Uncle Sam, we don't give you more money the more kids you have. My husband said we wouldn't leave them hanging at Xmas time (when we normally gave them a sizeable gift, and it was about a month away), but that due to our economic situation, there wouldn't a similar gift the following year, nor would there be ongoing support.
It all went over pretty well.
A few months later, the BIL totalled their car and he asked for $5000 to buy a new one. My husband gave him $2500, primarily because we didn't feel right about our SIL being at home with three kids, one a newborn, with no transportation. That really was the end of it though. My BIL got a decent job and they have not asked for money since.
Teresa: There was no promise to give them money. It started with us giving them $1000 per year for the first kid's college fund. We upped it to 2k when the second kid came. We didn't realize at first that it got sucked into their budget. So one year they asked if we could give a little more, since they were going through a rough patch. And we did. Generally in emergencies. So they were assuming that it would go to 3k plus emergencies. We don't even do the college fund thing now (there are no college funds, so it would just be giving them money). We did not understand how integral it had become to their budgeting process until that day.