How to Deal with a Friend Who Bums Money Off You

Posted by The Marksman at 11 May, at 07 : 32 AM Print

Last time you checked you were not an ATM machine.  Why does your friend keeps looking to you to pick up the tab?  “Hey man I am a little short today!”, or even worse is the fact that they ordered food they did not have enough money to pay for.  It is easy and quite common to find yourself in a tough spot when it comes to dealing with friends and money.  There are several ways to control these situations as they present themselves, you can be an asshole about it, or you can lend your friend the money and watch it continue to happen.  Here are several ways you can deal with the situation effectively.

When you have friends who may be tight on money they do not always reveal that information to  you, but most of the time you can tell.  This is typically the friend who misses out on all the cool stuff the group does because they are financially strapped, on many occasions they will make excuses as to why they can not participate.  You can leave this friend home and continue having fun with your other friends and tell them all about it later, but if that approach does not work for you there are others.  Pick some activities that do not cost a lot of money that you know your cash strapped friend can keep up with from a financial standpoint, you can always eat at a cheap restaurant and  playing video games with buddies costs almost nothing.  The best part about the second approach is that your friend saves face as they can comfortably participate and money was not an issue.

We all have different types of friends, but some are bolder than others when it comes to asking for money.  We have all been there, it is one of your good friends birthdays and to celebrate you take in an expensive steak house.  The check comes and your friend over indulged and asks can you pick up part of his bill, he will “get it back to you” when he gets paid.  You could have prevented it from getting to this point, you saw that your friend has just been introduced to the word Ala Carte.  You heard him order a steak with two sides (he must think he is at Outback).  You had several ways to deal with the situation, you can lean over and tell your friend that each side costs $15 and is meant for two, or you can let him get sticker shock when the check comes and it’s over $100 for his portion.  If you want to help your friend out, offer to share your side of mashed potatoes with him.  You can take it a step further and suggest it to multiple people at the table, that way there are plenty of sides to go around and your cash strapped friend can save the $30 he did not need to spend.

Many people in this situation will do things to get by until they figure out a way out of their financial strife, or they run themselves into financial ruin.  You can not let it affect your life, offer some advice on how they can improve their financial situation.  Do not get too involved though, if a friend asks you to do a budget for him or help him manage his money give him an emphatic no.  Offer to look at the budget they came up with themselves, and give them a few critiques.  If someone is unable to sit down and make a budget on their own, then how can they ever be expected to stick to it for the long haul?

The reason  you can not get too involved is because loaning money to a pal puts a huge strain on your friendship, not to mention your wallet. So, make this your mantra: If you can’t afford to lose money, you can’t afford to lend it.  Your friend may be on a first name basis at the paycheck advance place, and there is nothing you can do except tell them why it is a bad idea.  They are going to do what they feel is right for them even if it is a bad decision, because if they can not get the money that way they will borrow it from you.

But the most annoying is when they nickle and dime you almost as if you will not notice the slow drain from  your wallet.  You go out to eat, movies, a drink from the corner store, and you even cover them on the fast food run, all with promises that they will pay you back.  You notice after the $5 and $10 loans have accrued you have loaned out hundreds of dollars over months even years, and the good for nothing has not even raise a finger to pay you back.  This is when you either cut them off completely and do not loan them money for anything, or worse yet you start to distance yourself from  your friend.  Tough love has to come in somewhere otherwise the cycle will continue, you have to show that you are not the ATM machine of the group.  That might not fix your friends money issues, but at least it will help them to deal with their problems or find another person to bum a dollar off of.

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