Have you ever borrowed or let a friend borrow some money? How’d that situation turn out? Most likely it either ended badly or made the friendship uncomfortable to the point where you don’t hang out or get together as much as you want or should. Luckily, I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had to borrow some money from a friend, I just borrow from the many other sources out there (thank you Visa and American Express…). However, I have let friends borrow money and it never ends well.
The biggest problem I believe is the uncomfortable feeling that surrounds asking for the money back or what to do when someone doesn’t pay you back. I won’t name people but I recently let someone borrow a large sum of money, but stupid me didn’t discuss payback times or options. I figured that this friend was a stand-up person and it wouldn’t really come to that. My friend seemed grateful and said they’d get it to me ASAP. There were a lot of things going on in their life but they were adamant about it saying they’d get it to me when the have it. Well, it’s been almost three months and not even a whimper about the cash. Now, I’m stuck in a sticky situation where I have to bring it up and discuss how they plan on getting me the money without ruining the friendship or making our time together uncomfortable after I get the money.
I guess I wouldn’t really be concerned if my friends spending habits hadn’t changed in the past few months. Not only has my friend been on numerous vacations, but they are also planning other vacations for the fall/winter. Now every time my friend opens their mouth and discusses a vacation or new purchase, I just get angry and now have come to the point where I have to be a debt collector and start turning the situation ugly.
My biggest problem with this is really not the money. It’s the common courteously. If I knew I owed someone money, it would be a priority to pay them back. I wouldn’t be out gallivanting around knowing I owe someone a substantial amount of money, I would be figuring out how to pay them back even if it meant paying them a little every week or month. I’m the type of person that if I had to borrow, I would make sure I got them the cash as soon as possible. Due to the friendship, I would want to make it square as soon as I could to avoid killing the relationship or making anyone uncomfortable.
The ultimate lesson in this whole mess is to never lend money to friends but its hard not to in certain situations. Since they’re your friends, you want to “help” as much as possible but at the same time, you can’t just be handing out money all the time. There should a friendship courteously that goes with lending money to friends that the ultimate goal in paying it back is to make sure that no one’s uncomfortable. Maybe it’s me but if you owe friends money, it’s in your best effort to handle the situation as smooth as possible and pay back the money as fast as you can. It’s just the right thing to do…
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