What do you do when a friend or family member continues to ask to borrow money from you?
It’s a great question and one that causes much guilt and sometimes hurt feelings on both sides. One thing I have learned is that if someone is continually asking to borrow money from you they are most likely asking others as well. Personally, I don’t lend money to friends or family, it changes the relationship. “The borrow becomes slave to the lender” Proverbs 22:7, and that is so true, it gets uncomfortable sitting at the dinner table next to someone that owes you money.
With that said, I am all for helping others in a wise way. If you are financially free and have the ability to help a family member or friend out of a tight bind and know they are good with money and are not in the financial situation due to their own stupidly but rather because they just happened to be put into some bad situations, such as a home fire, car accident, serious health issues, etc. then yes, by all means help, but don’t loan the money, give it to them as a gift.
If you know that friend or relative just can’t seem to get it together financially due to their own bad decisions and habits then I agree with and recommend you answer that friend or family member similar to how Abraham Lincoln answered his brother when he asked to borrow money. I have included that letter today.
“Dear Johnston:
Your request for eighty dollars, I do not think it best to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little, you have said to me, “We can get along very well now,” but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now this can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether since I saw you, you have done a good whole day’s work, in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly wasting time, is the whole difficulty; and it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break this habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it easier than they can get out after they are in. You are now in need of some ready money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, “tooth and nail,” for somebody who will give you money for it. Let father and your boys take charge of things at home, prepare for a crop, and make the crop; and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get. And to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of next May, get for your own labor either in money or in your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this, I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines, in California, but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can get close to home, in Coles County. Now if you will do this, you will soon be out of debt, and what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But if I should now clear you out, next year you will be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in Heaven for $70 or $80. Then you value your place in Heaven very cheaply, for I am sure you can with the offer I make you get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months’ work. You say if I furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and if you don’t pay the money back, you will deliver possession– Nonsense! If you can’t now live _with_ the land, how will you then live without it? You have always been kind to me, and I do not now mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eight times eighty dollars to you.
Affectionately your brother,
A. LINCOLN.”
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Tags: borrowing, lending, lending to family, lending to friends, Money
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Wow! What a great letter. That is very cool. I agree with the giving money as a gift idea when appropriate, and I very much like the offer to give if the person will take some action to better their situation. In fact, I know someone dealing with a similar situation now so I will pass this along.
Hi FinanceAndFat – Thanks for your comment and for reading, I am so glad you will be able to pass this on.
Hi. I have a “Lending Money” story. I’ll make it as simple as possible.
A disabled relative of mine went on a cruise and almost died on the last day of the vacation. She ended up in a hospital for 6 weeks before being able to fly home.
Since I’m the only relative that could help her, I ended up spending almost $3,000.00 getting her home. And, of course, it was on a credit card.
It took her over a year to pay me back, which really set me back, as I had no other outstanding debt.
And to be honest, it wasn’t the money that upset me. It was her attitude about paying it back. Her comment, “What do you expect me to do – get a cash advance?!” And to that I replied, “Yes, what do you think I did?!” Moron!
Never again! If she ever takes another vacation, which is highly doubtful, I already told her not to call me. I’ll be financially unavailable.
Hi Lisa – Thank you so much for reading and your comment. Funny how some can afford vacations but don’t plan for or can’t afford it when it goes wrong, which means they really couldn’t afford the vacation in the first place.