Quote: (06-17-2017 10:23 PM)SlickyBoy Wrote:  

Bear this in mind the next time someone wants to borrow money from you.

This is good, but you are not a bank.

Generally the rule in my book is this:

1) It is cash that you care to lose, even give away, give it the same way that you give it to family and friends where you simply don't expect it to come back - if it comes back, then be happy, but don't expect it - that also means that you don't give more than you cannot afford to lose

2) Anything that you cannot afford to lose - well in that case you have to treat it like a business investment or it would have to be under truly terrible life-threatening circumstances to your friend. You would have to act and behave like a bank, just without the ability to spread risk or collect on it very well.

I would personally avoid to give any 2) category loans. There are well-off people who can easily lend others 30.000$ and will not miss it if they are never given the cash back. But those people would already miss 1 mio. $.

Many Lotto millionaires were made bankrupt by "loaning" money to friends and family.

As for your friend - you gotta write it off, it is not necessary to keep a grudge over it.

I don't know about grudges but I believe in tit-for-tat. If your friend is willing to repay you with disrespect like that he's a write off and I'd just avoid him.

Yeah exactly I dont want to be walked over but at least now I know not to loan out money (especially not my own), it wasn't a lot but like you all say if it was huge sums I would have big problems, just gonna tell my dad I fucked up and thats it.

#VictimsOfFyreFestival

Quote: (06-18-2017 02:54 AM)booshala Wrote:  

Quote: (06-18-2017 01:26 AM)CaptainChardonnay Wrote:  

This is really easy. I give them 3 nice chances to pay me back over the period of several weeks. I always have a record if I lend out money. After 3 chances I tell them I'm taking them to small claims court if they don't do it formally through a letter delivered by registered mail.

If they still don't pay you back, you'll go to small claims, make your case, present your evidence and then the court will appoint a bailiff to hound them down until you get your money back. The bailiff will also take some money on top of what your friend owes because he did the work.

It will end up costing your friend a lot more than if he were to just pay you back.

Usually if it comes to that point, that person really wasn't my friend to begin with.

Jeez man, that sounds like a lot of work on your end, especially if you're willing to blow them up in small claims court. Why not just refuse to loan money out in the first place? It doesn't seem like you mind being confrontational and a quick "no" seems much cleaner.

Yup avoiding the whole situation to begin with would be the easiest thing to do but it doesn't always work like that.

Recently I had someone who was suppose to be a very good friend caught me off guard. I went to a store and bought something but used his card because the store only took a certain card. I paid him back the next day because I understand that he did me a favour by lending me his card to use and because it's his money.

A few week or so goes by and I end up returning the item with him on his card and I expected him to pay me back like I did him. Instead of paying me back though he doesn't saying that he's putting it towards the fees of a organization we both belong too.

I ask him multiple times over a period of a month. After I send him a demand letter and then he pays me back immediately. I obviously didn't want to take him to court and go through all the bullshit but at the end of the day I'm getting my money back.

You cant be willing to take Ls from people. Other people will see and they'll walk all over you.

I see him a few weeks ago and he comes up and gives me a hug because he knows he was in the wrong.

I think most people will understand that if you take them to small claims, it will end up costing them more and the bailiff WILL get you your money back either way.

Another reason why he felt like he could take that money from me was because I made some Trump winnings and he knew that. The principle is still the same though, it's not his to take.

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Are you lending large sums of money to your friends(why are you lending large sums to your friends)?

If not, you must know you are a gigantic prick.

The situation above was around 1k and I didn't actually lend it to him. He took advantage of a situation and leveraged the fact that he held something that belonged to me over me.

I would do the above for any sum above 100 bucks.

I go out of my way to avoid lending money to people. I've been burned twice before and won't let there be a third time.

Quote: (06-17-2017 06:38 PM)Jeptomf Wrote:  

I have lost a lot of friends loaning money. And good friends are hard to come by. Over the years I have adopted a new policy. I say, "I am uncomfortable loaning you money but I can just give it to you". If your friends value is higher than the dollar amount, I just give it to them. I actually make a stipulation that they are not allowed to pay it back. You would be surprised. Every single loan I have made in the manner, the recipient has tried to pay me back. For which they were denied. Now if we are talking big money then it is a business transaction for which I will profit for the loan and there will be binding legal documents and/or collateral. Just my 2 cents.

This is a good policy. Every single time I've loaned money to a friend it's led to the end of the friendship, sooner or later. No exceptions that I can remember.

Never loan money, if the person doesn't have the money to start with, they probably won't have it later either.

That being said, I often pay for friends for food and drinks, because they're my friends and they pay for mine. There's no real ledger to keep because we all are just having a good time

There's always this option:

Quote: (06-18-2017 02:47 PM)CaptainChardonnay Wrote:  

You cant be willing to take Ls from people. Other people will see and they'll walk all over you.

I actually agree with this. I've only had to take someone to small claims court once, and I went in so hard that his office manager went into a visible panic in court when she saw the evidence I'd put together and realized that two of their recent layoffs were there to testify on my behalf. I found several statutes that provided for attorney's fees and hired an attorney just to generate attorney's fees to sue for. All told, it ended up costing them three times what I had asked for in my demand letter and eight times what I would have settled for.

With that said, it was a metric fuckton of work to put together that kind of unconditional victory and I could have lost the time and money I spent. However, the guy's behavior was so outrageous that I felt I had no choice but to respond with the maximum brutality the law allowed just to make a point:



When he realized I was willing to put in work to bully him like it was a part-time job and wasn't ashamed of it, he actually screwed over other unpaid judgment creditors to pay me off with what I can only describe as alacrity.

However, this is exactly why you never let friendships go down those dark alleys. Making it a gift prevents you from playing yourself and ending up in a difficult situation you just didn't have to be in. If your friend turns out to be an ungrateful prick, it's better to be able to cut him off in peace instead of having an outstanding score to settle. Going to court is for situations that would almost justify righteous violence. If that's the only leverage you have to make someone honor their word, it's probably a bad idea in the first place.

People who borrow money to buy things they dont need to improve their financial situation will never have money to pay back.

Very few people in life will ever have the privilege of getting no questions asked loans. Be one of them and stick to the likes of you.

The price of a concert ticket is cheap if you get the lesson.

Do pay your dad back from your own pocket. Dont tell him its from your friend. Suck it up and show him youve learned.

Quote: (06-18-2017 11:31 PM)germanico Wrote:  

Do pay your dad back from your own pocket. Dont tell him its from your friend. Suck it up and show him youve learned.

There's been some good advice in this thread including the above. I'd recommend you start reading as many finance related resources as you can because you'll learn many lessons without having to learn them the hard way. Here's a few additional thoughts:

You're upset because you probably think you helped him out and now he thinks so little of your friendship and you it's like he's spitting in your face and turning his back on your friendship. This hurts and it can be immensely frustrating, but consider that he was never really a good friend to begin with. I've essentially lost a lifelong friend to this situation. Trust me when i say it's not worth it. Sacrifice and save to pay your dad back and make sure he knows you've learned a hard lesson and that you appreciate his support. Show him.

This is a hard lesson to learn because friends should help each other, but the earlier you can change your mindset to understand this, the earlier you can identify leeches and never let them befriend you in the first place.

Some wisdom from learned men on the subject:

"You can't solve a money problem with money" (think of a bucket a hole in out. Pouring more water into it is only going to delay the inevitable)

"You're not the bank" (consider how many thousands of lending institutions there are...why can't they get a loan through them? There's probably a damn good reason. You are not a bank so don't be one)

Am I saying not you lend money out to anyone? No. However it should be rare and only out of true necessity with people you know will pay you back. I've got easily 6 or 700 dollars owed to me right now from a shorttrip where I arranged everything. I know as soon as I send these friends a total I'll get it sent over straight away. However they are an exception and I always think seriously before loaning anything out at all, much less hard earned money.

I have a good friend that I have loaned money to a few times when he asked for it. It was only small amounts never more than $300. I never had to remind him or ask him for the money back, because as soon as he had money he would come and pay me back. If he didn't pay me back I would have cut him off as a friend. I do not think it's a big deal to lend people (who you think are trustworthy) small amounts of money, I agree with the old wisdom that if they don't pay then you rooted out worthless person from your social circle for a small amount of money. I have lent more substantial sums to family members and have always got it bat (sometimes a little bit late though). That being said not all families are equal and some are so dysfunctional that I would advise against it.

Barely more tolerable are the assholes that pay you back but act like they're doing you a huge fucking favour.

I once loaned a guy I knew a few hundred bucks to get a new graphics card for his PC. We were friends but somewhat competitive with each other so I kept him motivated by holding it over his head as a sort of a joke.

So one day roughly six months later he coughs up the cash and there's this awkward silence afterward where I was expecting him to say "thanks for the loan, and sorry it took so long to repay you", while he was expecting me to say "oh thank you so much for handing over this fat stack of cash for no really important reason whatsoever..."

The awkwardness literally went on for so long that in the end I nodded politely, patted him on the shoulder like a small child and said "well done".

He took it poorly, but for some reason had a little trouble explaining why I should have been grateful to him.

That's why we still employ "enforcers".

Be the ((( ))) , not the >>> <<< .

Quote: (06-19-2017 03:27 AM)AneroidOcean Wrote:  

There's been some good advice in this thread including the above. I'd recommend you start reading as many finance related resources as you can because you'll learn many lessons without having to learn them the hard way.

In all seriousness, this was the best college textbook I ever had:



It's basically the Red Pill for money and is a must-read if you plan to ever own a home and deal with contractors, or even auto mechanics and financial planners.

Quote: (06-19-2017 03:27 AM)AneroidOcean Wrote:  

You're upset because you probably think you helped him out and now he thinks so little of your friendship and you it's like he's spitting in your face and turning his back on your friendship. This hurts and it can be immensely frustrating, but consider that he was never really a good friend to begin with. I've essentially lost a lifelong friend to this situation. Trust me when i say it's not worth it. Sacrifice and save to pay your dad back and make sure he knows you've learned a hard lesson and that you appreciate his support. Show him.

There's a great passage in the Anabasis, too lengthy to quote in full here, about why Persians and Greeks alike loved Cyrus the Younger. Book I, Part IX: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1170/1170-h/1170-h.htm

The sum of it was that he was known to reward strivers with opportunities, punish wrongdoing swiftly, never begrudged talented people opportunities to get rich or fulfill their goals if it was in his power to help, make sure his loyal friends were famous alongside him, and share his favorites of the many gifts he received instead of hoarding them for himself. For this, people would travel the known world to come work for him, backed his plans, and turned in traitors who were plotting against him.

Quote:Quote:

Frequently when he had tasted some specially excellent wine, he would send the half remaining flagon to some friend with a message to say: "Cyrus says, this is the best wine he has tasted for a long time, that is his excuse for sending it to you. He hopes you will drink it up to-day with a choice party of friends." Or, perhaps, he would send the remainder of a dish of geese, half loaves of bread, and so forth, the bearer being instructed to say: "This is Cyrus's favourite dish, he hopes you will taste it yourself." Or, perhaps, there was a great dearth of provender, when, through the number of his servants and his own careful forethought, he was enabled to get supplies for himself; at such times he would send to his friends in different parts, bidding them feed their horses on his hay, since it would not do for the horses that carried his friends to go starving. Then, on any long march or expedition, where the crowd of lookers-on would be large, he would call his friends to him and entertain them with serious talk, as much as to say, "These I delight to honour."

When you give trusted, proven people gifts and come to the aid of their causes, you're an asset to them. There's more where that came from if they keep up the good work.

Once you give people loans, you're now a liability. They're in the hole and know it. Like Sonny says in the clip from A Bronx Tale above, you lend somebody money, there's a good chance you're just paying them to go away. At the more extreme end, if you're a Persian noble in the bronze age, maybe you're paying them to make you go away: it's no longer in your debtor's best interest to foil a coup or assassination attempt.

I think sometimes we tiptoe around our friends about stuff like this, sometimes they are too comfortable with us with issues like this. Have you straight up told him like look dude, right now your disrespecting me. Going out buying a new shirt when you owe me money is basically telling me fuck you. If you value our friendship you need to pay me back right now and if you don't we can go our seperate ways and I"ll look at it as a cheap lesson, kinda like how sonny said

Jamaicabound - I might just message him this today, I wish I could say it to his face but I am abroad so thats why he probably thinks he can avoid me, I told him to transfer me the money he said this week but its been 3 weeks..

Quote: (06-20-2017 04:49 AM)Mikestar Wrote:  

Jamaicabound - I might just message him this today, I wish I could say it to his face but I am abroad so thats why he probably thinks he can avoid me, I told him to transfer me the money he said this week but its been 3 weeks..

Yeah I think you really need to lay it out there for him like that. I had a similar situation going on with a friend. I wanted to be cool so waited a bit, didn't wanna lose a friendship so waited a bit longer.

Finally one night while out with friends he was throwing money around on stupid shit, after having spent a day golfing which I'm sure set him back $100 or more. I finally straight up told him look man your disrespecting me and essentially telling me fuck you we can either fight, you can pay me back or we can go our seperate ways your choice, I said it a bit more diplomatically but thats what it basically biled down to. He apologized and paid me back a few days later.

Don't ever lend people money. If they're your friend it will create resentment.

If they don't have the money it's not your problem, and they probably see everyone around them as an ATM anyway.

I'd never get into the game of lending friends money. It gets really dicey pretty quick.

With my friends on a similar playing field we just rotate buying dinners / drinks etc. I wouldn't have a clue who spent more on who.

With my friends with shittier incomes I'll pay whatever is the more expensive of two things we are gonna do in a night or if it's 1 thing I pay the bill.

Lending money is the worst thing you can possibly get yourself into. You really need to ask yourself why they are in such a precarious financial position that they can't get a Line of Credit or get the money from a parent etc.

The only time I ever remember asking a buddy for cash was to buy another bottle at a night club when we were sharing an apartment in Cuba. I hadn't brought out enough money by accident as I didn't realize how much the cover was gonna be. As soon as we got back to the apartment I paid him back.

I once borrowed $1000 (AUD) from a close friend. I paid him back in two weeks when I originally told him I would pay him back in a month. I hate the feeling of owing other people money, its a horrible feeling (its different when its a bank loan for investment though).

I'm not sure where I'm going with this exactly, but I think it's sort of an insight into how some people see money vastly differently than others. Not just from fiscal responsibility on a personal level, but moreso about small (or at least short-term) debts:

I've got friends who are in the professional/high stakes poker scene. I've been fortunate enough to witness more than a few interesting aspects of that world:

Example 1: I've watched a poker pro come in to the cash game section of a high stakes tournament with his pretty girlfriend and announce that he wants to either win 10 grand or play a small stakes (under 1k buy-in) single table tournament (where the prize is a buy-in to the main tournament).

He spots a guy who he's obviously gambled with before and they make a prop bet on the color of the flop (it's either majority red or majority black as there are 3 cards). They are literally betting even odds for entertainment. The flop comes black card, black card, red card. "YES!" he exclaims, then quickly "shit! normally I go black but I forgot I took red this time...damn" as he fishes ten $1,000 dollar chips out of his pocket, hands them to the other guy and drags his girlfriend by the hand over to play the single table tournament.

He didn't argue over the debt, he corrected himself immediately, and he didn't make excuses about having to pay the guy the next day or next week. It was done.

2. Another time I asked if I could help the people running the tournament (I was getting to come visit the tournament location for pretty cheap thanks to the organizers) and they said no, but actually maybe could I help with the satellite tournament? Of course. I get introduced to a film crew. I figured I'm going to go bring people coffee or help move something or some other simple but helpful task.

They don't explain what I'm going to do, but they tell me they're waiting on something to arrive and then I'll be able to help. Cool. Turns out what they were waiting to arrive is cash. Cash for the prize pool shot. It's supposed to be about a million dollars but of course they aren't going to risk that much actual cash for the video shoot. It's "only" well into 5-figures of cash in wrapped $1 bills. My job is to unwrap the stacks, slap a $100 bill on top/bottom and then re-wrap them with nice "$10,000" wrappers.

So I'm sitting here and thinking to myself "these people really live differently" as I handle more cash than I've ever seen in one place in my life. Now, sure, there are cameras around the event center but we weren't even on the main floor or anything and nobody is watching me. I realized they knew I wasn't there to take advantage of them and they treated me as one of them. It wasn't even their money, it was on loan from the casino!

3. This isn't one particular case, but many times over the experiences I've had in that world I'd see players run into each other, chat/catch up a little, decide they were going to play a certain tournament or a certain game last minute and instead of going to their room safe or wherever they get money from, their semi-friend/acquaintance would offer up stacks of $100 bills (or large denomination chips) to play with and they'd have long-running or short-running debts just depending on when they ran into each other next.

This would include to people who had run out of money/were near broke. They trust that they are good enough players to grind back into profit and pay them back. It would be more about how that person viewed/treated money/debts than whether they were a multi-millionaire business man/casual player or a just grinding it out semi-pro college kid.

Most people would find the above a little insane, but it's fairly normal in those circles. There were of course people that wouldn't get money lent to them, but they seemed to be much fewer and further in between.

Recently I was reminded of this at a local monthly relatively low-stakes poker tournament when I laughed to myself that I'd forgot to bring ANY cash, so I turned to my much older friend who owns a successful business and asked him to borrow some money so I could play instead of having to drive to find an ATM and then I laughed again later when he got knocked out and had no cash for a re-buy so he came back and I gave him some back.

These days there's next to no excuse to not pay someone back. You could jump on PayPal or Venmo or other alternate services and pay someone back a set amount each month or something, ANYTHING to make progress towards paying back a debt.

People that act like they're doing you a favor by paying their debt back and act indignant when you ask them about it (as if they are 100% on top of it) are some of the biggest shit-stains you'll meet in life.

This thread has made me remember how differently borrowing/lending money is seen in different cultures and different socioeconomic classes.

During my decades in the US, I had never borrowed money from friends/family, nor had I been asked to borrow money from friends/family.

But here in Latin America, borrowing/lending is a way of life for many and is seen as completely natural. I have loaned money to friends here many times. And, perhaps surprisingly, I've borrowed money from them (sometimes the very same friends to whom I'd previously loaned money). This hasn't caused resentment. On the contrary, it's strengthened our bond. (Except for the one who skipped town.)

On the other hand, borrowing from banks/stores here is a terrible idea (endless payments, insane interest rates, no culture of waiting to buy until you have the money). Keeps a lot of collections call center employed.

I lend money to friends and borrow all the time. None of my friends have credit cards or any real support network when things get bad except their friends. They're my friends for a reason, never been burned yet