How To Avoid Lending People Money

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