How To Avoid Lending People Money

~ Gottfried

We’ve all been there really. Being asked for money and looking for a way out of the really uncomfortable spot. Because in all honesty, lending money might put your own current and/or future financial security at risk. Humans generally are insatiable and are ready to borrow you into penury. You owe it to yourself to make an ‘attempt’ to stop this from happening. It’s always worse if the leeches are members of your immediate family. But there’s hope! Here are a few ways out.

Make it a policy. Before lending out money to a friend, decide which you need most. It’s really not enough to make this policy, you have to enforce it. The policy is really simple, never lend money to family and friends. I’ll tell you this straight up, it’s a lot easier to get your money back from strangers than family and/or friends. With strangers, you can threaten to lock them up. Nobody is letting you lock up your younger brother up. Grandpa will be rolling in his grave. Even though you will be well within your rights…

Don’t disclose your financial details. Feel free to lie about being broke! It’s a necessary evil. No matter how much you’re pressured, never disclose how much you have in the bank to anyone, maybe…other than your significant other. It might even backfire! She might be the one to snitch to the relatives that her spouse is making bank. Next thing you know, you’re carrying the entire extended family on your back and they all ‘promise’ to pay back. Restraining orders are in order!

Offer to help in other ways. There is no practice more dangerous than lending money. Rather than lend money out in large amounts, offer your other services, like exposure. If possible, only lend amounts you could otherwise dash the borrower. That way if they don’t pay back, which is mostly the case, your pockets’ not too hurt. A trick that works is, as soon as they open their mouths to ask, tell them you were even just going to ask them too. Times are hard. Desperate measures call for desperate times.

Ask for time to decide. Tell them you need time off to think about their requests. It could be a week, month, year, decade… take as long as you need! And prayer mixed with faith, they just might forget. This hardly works though, but it’s worth a try. Also, do not make any promises! The harassment that follows making a promise is unprecedented. You can also just gift them a much smaller amount, in the time being. By smaller amounts, I mean little acts of kindness like sending them links to job applications.

If all the above still don’t work, you have to take things up a notch and FAKE YOUR OWN DEATH! Dead men don’t lend out money, because well, they’re dead. But given how desperate people are these days, they might want to show up at your funeral to confirm your demise. Rustling your coffin looking for some change and whatnot. Now if you weigh the cost of funerals(pallbearers and all), it’s much easier to just lend them the money and live!

But of course, the best way to make someone remember you? Borrow money off them…

And travel

© Gottfried. All rights reserved.

 
 
 
 

328 thoughts on “How To Avoid Lending People Money”

  1. ♡ I Gifted My Family $50K EveryOne; now They ARE INSISTING!!! on Paying it Back when it was NEVER!!! a “Loan” only Ever a Gift that NEEDS!!! Paying Forward

    …♡♡♡…

    Liked by 3 people

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      1. It’s uncanny.

        The downside, of course, is that the guy who wants a loan is always asking, “How’s that next lifetime thing going? And, can you start on that novel now? Cos I’m hungry and I need to buy an In-n-Out burger.”

        Liked by 2 people

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        1. Haha, personally feel like loans are a form of slavery.

          Writing the novel is the easy part. It’s the editing that drives me crazy.

          I’m always hungry. Depends on who’s asking though ☺️

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          1. I’m actually going to make an attempt to write one for National Novel Writing Month; the closest I’ve come to writing a novel is a short story that I actually thought worthy of self-publishing. Other than my blogs and some freelance stuff, my best work can be seen on three YouTube video shorts that I wrote or co-wrote.

            And yes…writing the first draft of a story is always the easy part. It’s the rewrites and revisions that get on my nerves.

            Keep up the cool blogging, Gottfried.

            Liked by 2 people

          2. I’m rooting for you. It’s a big step I’ll be forced to take myself. Can’t keep pretending to be great at the art without an actual project.

            We should totally link up for work. Hit me up on IG.

            Cheers and do have a lovely day Alex.

            Liked by 2 people

      1. initially we will pretend to come with the usual NGOs and then … anyway, returning to the subject, I have already tried to make people believe that I am an expatriate and when they saw me in the city I said “how lucky to see you! I’m here just another 3 hours and I’m leaving ! ” – I swear –

        Liked by 1 person

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  7. Great post with wisdom for all. All of us suffer from this issue at some point of time in our lives. Your tips will be helpful I believe.
    On a lighter note, i’d like to know how you develop such thoughts and concepts to write.

    Liked by 1 person

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