I mean… I hate to ask and all that…but I really need it for this thing that is really really important. I promise you I’ll give it back ‘cos look I’ve made out a plan of how I can pay you back by next month. I really, really, really need this, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and if I miss this it will NEVER come around again!
Have you heard the schpiel before? Indeed are you the one with the schpiel?
I’m going to tell you straight. I never loan or borrow money from friends or family. Period.
The quickest way to gain an enemy is to loan money to a friend or family member.
If I have it and want to give it, you can have it. If you have the manners to pay it back, however slowly or in whatever amounts (within reason) then you can come back and ask again any time you need help. If you are a pig and don’t even get back to me, just try asking me again.
But I will never chase that money because I would never give what I cannot afford to lose.
Them’s are my rules. I’m interested in yours?
I was once helping out someone who I was really impressed with. They’d spent quite a bit of time in prison and having come out had put together a show and tell highlighting the stark negatives of prison life which they had begun touring schools with.
They had invited me to go along and tell my story as (hopefully) a counter balance to their own and as I had done the school tour motivational speaking thing many times before I was happy to freely give my time.
The problem
Then very early in the relationship I got the knock on the front door…
‘Um …can I come in? Sorry to bother you…um…I don’t like to ask…’
Me in my head: ‘Oh here we go!’
The story was they needed to pay a bill – it was very urgent…blah blah… can’t carry on with the tour unless it’s paid… yadda.
I knew that they were being backed by people who were handling the monies and other aspects of the whole ‘prison tour’ concept, so I asked why they hadn’t gone to the backers as it was in their interest to keep them on the tour. To be honest I can’t remember the answer because I knew it was BS. My brain has an auto-filter for BS.
The Solution
But just in case their issue was genuine I told them that this is what I’ll do. The bill was £200? Fine I would help them with £80. They should then go and find the remaining £120 and hand it to me and I will ring the company and pay the whole of this bill via credit card then and there.
Strangely enough they never came back.
😯
As well intentioned as they might have been I could see from this and other things they had told me that they were not listening to their own motivational messages about falling back into old habits and avoiding prison.
Judge Judy
Having been accosted only recently for large loans (plural) that ‘Honestly I can pay you back end of the month’ for complete and asinine frippery my gears have been grinded…. (ground?) I’ve watched many an episode of Judge Judy where countless friendships are trashed in court because people who thought they were helping out friends in dire need were flippantly told later in litigation that their savings or hard earned cash handed over to help their friend was a actually a non reimbursable gift i.e a legal get-out not to pay them back.
You know how when they’re begging for help it’s a loan and their generous friend is the GREATEST person on earth, but when it comes time to pay the money back their kind friend suddenly becomes Satan to them?
It actually disgusts me to see it, because the lender, albeit a little dim, has helped out of the kindness of their hearts and 99% of the time could absolutely not afford to lose the money.
Never a borrower or a loaner be the saying goes.
SO WHAT SAY YOU?
I wanna hear your experiences and what you learned from loaning money or your car, or your phone, gadgets or other things, because many people either return things broken and disrespectfully try and pin the damage on the lender or lose the item then go into hiding.
Plus what have you told your little’ uns about loaning money and things…if anything?
Or are you the borrower? Do you see money given to you as a gift or do you prioritize paying it back?
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Lol. Really?
You got me worried when I saw the headline on my phone…
Pffff. 🙂
Agree 100%. I never lend. Sometimes I give “forward”. (Don’t pay me back give to someone)
Though once, a CLIENT asked me for a loan. Can you believe that? I lent the money. On company accounts. (It was my company) figuring: cost of doing business. He swore he would pay back end of month. (Which month, man?) Then projects started to be postponed. And postponed… And the guy didn’t “come from the gutter”. Marketing research director at a large multinational. Good family, good background. I think this was a psychological condition. Gambling maybe? I ended up paying the loan back. (To MY company! Don’t mess with IRS)
😉
Never lend money to a client! Or anybody else for that matter. Giving is OK. On your terms.
Ha! You’re a marketing man (if I remember correctly?) – You should appreciate my headline! 😀
Also I’m defo with you on the pay it forward thingummy. Loaning to a client though??!! *She says, hunting for her shocked smiley – ah there it is…* 😯
The client thing? I know… I had bad feelings about it. (Always listen to your bad feelings. Turn out right 99% of the time!) (Business was slow. I was thinking of my staff… Won’t do it again.) 😉
I know…it’s never just black and white is it? – i.e This bad idea. This good idea.
Employers have to think about and juggle so many things with many nuances and pressures can make us all do things we wouldn’t do in hindsight. And you’re spot on with the gut feeling thing. I learnt over time to trust mine for better or worse.
It’s called experience I think. 😉
Hey Madam Ed! It’s so cool to get a post from you again! I was just about to ask you for…….😂
Ok seriously. I’ve fed mouths that have spat at me. I’ve housed other people’s kids to be told they hate me, years later. In fact, I could write an essay on what a “giver” I was, and actually still am, Still to be trashed by many of those that came begging. I don’t mind, simply because I won’t give myself that much importance.
I reckon, that if someone is in need, and I have a way to help them I will. It doesn’t always have to be monetarily. This stems from personal experience of growing up in abject poverty. Many times, as a child, I went to bed as well as to school, having eaten nothing. So I developed malnutrition as a small kid and I could go on, but you get the picture.
So due to coming from a place of honestly being in dire need, and often not rescued, I formed a bond with my poverty stricken African friends, and I learned about suffering. I witnessed real suffering, and went through it too.
So when anyone approaches me for something, no matter if they’re lying or not, they are living in a sad, scary lonely place, and if I can, I help. If I can’t I won’t. I used to borrow against my home to give so called friends money! One woman, who seriously broke the camels back, was someone I’ve known for over 20 years. Many years ago, she begged me to help her with 35K. I had to borrow against my home for her, only to never hear from her again! Even when the shit hit my fan, no email or phone call from me to her asking for just a little back, ever came. She’s literally disappeared!
So the lesson for me, is to simply never give what I do not have, and if I choose to give, I give without expecting any back. I’ll only give if I have to give, and never borrow from someone else to help a friend. If I have it, you can share it, if I don’t have it, I’m sorry, but I know churches give. Been there.
I think the moment I allow money to run my emotions, I’m screwed. I got really hurt and upset, and felt betrayed by the so called friend, but hey, there’s so many of them, I feel zilch now.
Lastly, my long essay should just finish with this from experience “if you want to be hated, lied about, spat on, gossiped about and slapped in the face, then be a giver”. Just don’t take it personally. 🤗🌺❤️🦋
‘Many years ago, she begged me to help her with 35K. I had to borrow against my home for her’ 😯
Lol your last line is on point m’dear as in ‘no good deed goes unpunished.’
Hey, that’s what I say! NO good deed goes unpunished. LOL, also, ‘It’s never so bad that it can’t get worse!’ x x
Ha ha! Like it! 😀 Never heard that one!
We borrowed money from family to start my husband’s business several years ago. While returns were made and our relationship never suffered (that I know of), after living through the extra stress and the awkward holiday meals, borrowing from family is not something that I would ever recommend or agree to do again.
Ouch! The awkward family meals. I’m actually giggling nervously as I write at the thought! Super-awks!
Another thing your comment reminds me of is that even when you THINK everything is up to date and above board with repayments there is some resentment simmering below the surface from some misunderstanding that no one has bothered to address, so you’re not even aware of it until it comes out in a blazing row! Money just seems to do that to people.
Nothing says Happy Holidays like “about that last check…”
Loool! 😀
I’m the generous one and if I can afford it, it’s yours – I don’t look to be paid back. If I can’t afford it (and that includes retirement funds &tc.) too bad. It’s not worth losing peace of mind over money or ‘things.’
I’d say a big amen to that Mel.
Likewise I won’t lend or borrow to friends. The only time I lend is to a daughter and a learning mechanism. We draw up an agreement and a schedule. It works well. I’ve seen a friend with a gambling problem borrow money from another friend and it ended badly. Almost violently. It’s not worth it if you want to keep friends.
You’re so right some loans have gone as far as violence. It’s just not worth it. Say ‘nope!’ and it’s done. Over.
Or loan to people who you can trust will respect your relationship enough to want to keep it. Thanks Gazza! 😀
This is so true. I’ve lost a friend through the very same way. Loaned them cash they promised to pay back within a specified time. They never did, kept coming up with excuses. Went on like this until we stopped communicating altogether.
Which they will be happy about because they didn’t have to pay you back. I’m guessing that they managed to pay all their other bills though and are not homeless in the street.
My mum told us over and over, ‘neither a borrower nor lender be’. Out of four kids my parents produced two savers and two spenders. She was never as good at following that advice when it came to her denying her own kids a loan.
My younger brother in particular was (perhaps still is) a borrower. It created friction between us (can I borrow…, will you lend me…, when will you pay me back…, how come you’ve got money to spend on that but needed me to lend you…). When I finally stopped lending him money, he stopped asking, and our relationship improved.
I don’t lend money. It’s not worth the stress and heartache. I don’t think that makes me selfish – it’s just hard-won wisdom.
Absolutely. It just takes away all that stress and they soon forget that you refused to loan money to them certainly a lot quicker than if you had to keep chasing them for the repayment.
Like you, I don’t loan money. Too easy to ruin a friendship. I have given money on more than once occasion to people who needed it, including to people who haven’t asked for it, with the understanding that it is not a loan. The most was several thousand dollars – but the other person needed it more than we did.
Sometimes the requested money has been repaid. Maybe every time – I haven’t kept track when it is one of my wife’s friends on the receiving end. In those cases I don’t know how much was given either; I have no need to know.
I have borrowed money from family members three times. The offer was made and it was better than going to the bank. Once there was no paperwork. When I repaid it the person didn’t even remember the loan The other times we had a formal loan agreement, interest and a repayment schedule. We both profited – a lower interest rate for me than the bank would have given, and a higher rate of return for them than they were getting in a savings account. Since we had other financial options it wasn’t ever an issue and no chance of hard feelings.
Lol at the people who didn’t even remember, but like you that wouldn’t matter to me I would pay back eery penny for my own sake!
Thanks Lorne.