<prompt> Human: EDIT: The response to this seems pretty unanimous. Dont loan money to friends or family expecting to get it back. My fault, lesson learned. Thank you all for your help and advice.I 27 M will marry my fiance 27 F, after dating 10 years and being engaged for 1, this coming March. Weve been saving for our wedding and to buy a house for about 3 years.Her little sister, still living at home and being supported by her parents i.e. my in-laws, is studying university and had accrued a debt with the school for unpaid tuition equivalent to about 1 month of my fiances income. A month ago, little sis was told she could not enroll for the upcoming semester until the debt was paid. Fiance asks me to take money from our savings to loan it to in-laws for paying the debt.For background, they have been struggling with money for a while now. During that time, I who make significantly more than fiance have loaned them from my personal money twice. Small amounts, a couple hundred USD at a time. First time I was paid several months after agreed. Second time Im still waiting to get paid after more than a year.I was of course hesitant to loan them the money, told fiance this, citing prior experiences of loaning them money and expressing concern that this is a hefty amount and my fear that we will never get paid. She insists, says she cant allow herself to stand by while little sis education is put in jeopardy. She figures out a payment plan with in-laws and promises they will pay according to plan. We loan them the money.Come yesterday, when the first installment was due. I ask fiance if in-laws have given her the money. She says no, they are in a tight spot right now and cant afford the installment. She says she will get the money off them as soon as they are able to pay, cannot give a date for when that will happen. I say this is not what we agreed, we knew they would have to make sacrifices to make the payments, same as weve made sacrifices to be able to have savings all of which was discussed prior to lending the money, and potential future hardships should have been considered when designing the payment plan. She maintains her position that they cant make it right now.We have now reached a stalemate and Im at loss as to what to do. Please help, Reddit.tl;dr: We loaned a bunch of money to my in-laws and are not getting paid.  <response>: Welcome to this lesson: any money given to family or friends should be considered a gift. If they pay it back, great, its a bonus. But consider the money youve already lent gone. I hope the lesson wasnt too expensive! 