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<div align="center">I'm talking about both kinds here. The ones that won't put money out if their lives depend on it, and the one that will harrass you for months for a minute amounts of money to be repaid..
</div>I have a friend that is both, although she goes both ways with it. If you lend her 3 dollars she will make a mental note and make sure to repay you, and expects the same from you. She does the same if we're out and i'll pay for (for example) a chocolate bar for her. Aparently that 70 cents is very important to me and she'll pay me back as soon as she can. She's also cheap in general, although has very minimum to pay for in life (she still lives at home and such and works 40 hours a week). I don't make nearly as much as she, and have two children, and yet SHE sill can't ever seem to find the money for things. It's driving my complete circle of friends beyond nuts with her keeping tabs all the time. To me small change like that between close friends is nothing, but she makes it a huge deal and tells me that's how the "real world works."
Where do you draw a line between a friendship exchange and a loan? How do you deal with these kind of people? What do you consider a cheap friend? And does the real world have to be involved in a friendship?
Hm. Money's always a hard subject when it comes to friendships!! In my circle of friends, we just pay for our own stuff. Once in a blue moon we'll go to a diner, and if everyone's eating and one person just wants a Coke, that person won't have to pay, someone else will pick up the dollar and change it costs. At some point down the line (could be months lol) she'll buy a Coke for whoever bought hers. KWIM? If it's anything over $10 I'd make sure to pay it back on time, but even something like $5 wouldn't bug me. I'd honestly tell a friend not to worry about it, if she forgot her wallet and needed $5 to get into the movie; whatever, my treat.
In general, I think it's just best to keep money out of the friendship, though.
I don't know why, but I do make sure I pay that 70 cents you lent me. If I don't I feel like I owe you something, and I hate nothing more than the feeling of owing something...
but as a friend, why would you feel you owe something so small?? This is what i'm not understanding, what is your friendship based on if small change is a big deal?
What is your friendship based on if small change is a big deal?[/b]
To some people money matters a lot. Obviously it does to your friend. To some people money doesn't have a huge meaning.. sounds like you. We are all different and bring those difference to the table. Your friend just brings this aspect to the table for you both. My advice would be to accept this part of your friend. Hopefully she'll accept parts of you she doesn't understand. If in doubt, talk to her about it.
If someone loaned me some change.. I would feel I needed to pay it back. I feel like a bum, I hate borrowing, or accepting money. Plus I don't know if the other person is thinking-- "Man! I had to buy her a candy bar again!" hahaha.
On the other hand-- If I buy someone something small like that, it doesn't bother me. I pay for it, and forget that it even happened within minutes. haha. I dont expect them to pay me back!
Also-- about the cheap part-- DF and I "pretend" that we're poor. We have this mindset that-- "Oh, I would love these pants, and I need them-- but it can wait because we dont have the money." This is not to say we go without alot. Not at all. But it helps us save money! Even though we may have thousands in the bank.. we pretend we dont.
i have 2 friends (they are sisters) and we go out all the time, one of us always picks up the whole check... we dont keep tabs of who paid last or anything, i guess it just depends on who has the money to pay for us all. if i wanna go somewhere and they are broke or just dont have the money for THAT, then i pay.. and vice versa. we've been like that for the last 10 yrs.
i have another friend, who i have nearly broke the bank over. she always wants to go out, then informs me that she is broke... umm ok y didnt you tell me ahead of time?? i never ask her to pay me back tho. i just cant do it. now i just make the point of saying, "well im short on cash, all i have is $___" to show her that i only have enough for myself... unless its something that i WANT to do, then ill cover her if need be.
with my older sis, we change up too. i GAVE her a good bit of money at a time, but she had just gone thru a divorce and i did it gladly. NOW she has money and even offered to cover my $600 plane ticket to come home n visit, but there is no way i could have let her do that!!!
im not a cheap friend lol but ugh, i do get tired of the ONE friend that mooches CONSTANTLY.. (the one i mentioned above), i even had to pay for her to get her hair colored cause the check card machine didnt work! she never even offered to pay me back! DH keeps threatening to start keeping a tab for HER lol.
meh, My friends and I buy stuff for each other all the time, and pay for each others meals all the time. To me, I don't care for a bit of money between friends. We never assume the other will pay, but if the other one does, eventually it will get repaid.
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~Beth~ Wife to my Airman Chris, and mommy to: Anthony Nathaniel (8/31/04), Anastasia Fae (8/01/06), Baby C (lost on 10/12/07), David Cillian (7/31/08), Charles George (4/29/10), and Alan Christopher (2/22/12)
meh, My friends and I buy stuff for each other all the time, and pay for each others meals all the time. To me, I don't care for a bit of money between friends. We never assume the other will pay, but if the other one does, eventually it will get repaid.[/b]
With my friends we just go back and forth. If someone is short then I will cover them and then sometime in the future I am sure they will do the same for me. I wouldnt expect to be paid back in actual money. But it depends on the price. Once I had to lend my friend 100 bucks to get her car off a tow truck, I expected that back lol
My friends are my family. Namely my sister, her dh and my niece. We pay for each other on numerous things. My sister pays for things for me much more than I for her, she has more money than dh and I. We don't expect this of either one though. We are always buying toys, food, clothing for each others children. I'll buy clothes for Kailey that she is too small in, and I'll give it to Alyssa since she will fit into it and then my sister will just give those back once Alyssa can't fit in them anymore.
I don't worry about small change, unless it matters to someone...because it IS their money. Me personally, I don't care. I've even paid my brothers rent when I was 16....and I paid for him and his girlfriend to go to an Ozzy concert AND buy a t-shirt. They never have paid me back and I know they never will. That irks me, feels like I'm being taken advantage of. That was years ago though....
My best friend has gone through some periods in her life where money was very hard to come by. DH and I paid her rent several months, and when she got married we financed nearly the entire wedding. We don't expect to be repaid for any of it. The thing that gets to me is that her husband seems to have no sense of respect for what we've given. She's extremely grateful, but he's a total pig. He won't even allow her to drive to our house for a visit because he doesn't want the miles on the car! If I want her to come visit me, I have to drive the 150 miles to get her and bring her back down here, then return her to their house at the end of the visit. They both make a lot more money than DH and I do, but you will NEVER catch that guy picking up a tab when we do it quite willingly (for her sake, not his).
I guess it just depends on the friend. If someone calls me and wants me to go do something with them and I tell them i am broke and they will me that is fine that they will buy my lunch, I feel bad about it, but I normally go and hopefully I can do the same for them later. I have another friend who I may owe money for a month, and she may owe me money for a month and it is just not that big of a deal to us. But, I do know about those friends that never pay you back to. My husbands Aunt told me something the other day, and it wasn't about this but it will work here to. A friendship is like a bank account, both have to put in, if any one wants to draw out. I am not going to pour money into someone who is never going to do anything back. I have a friend who spent tons of money on my daughter while I was pregnant with her, and after I had her, I begged her not to, but she did not have any kids at the time and did not think that she would ever be able to, and that is what she wanted to do. Now she is pregnant and although I can't afford to spend the money she did, I hope that I can buy lots of stuff for her baby, not because I feel like I have to, but because I want to, and she did so much for me I will love to help her. Enough rambling for now, I hope this makes sense.
Personally, I'll pay back a friend who buys me a candy bar or something small in the same way I'd pay back a friend who bought me something big. When my friend gets married, you know I'm going to spend a lot of money on her bridal shower gifts and all, because she definitely spent a lot of money on my wedding and baby gifts. I am not doing it because I feel like I owe her (because after all, they were gifts, and not something I should be obligated to pay back), but because she's my best friend and I love her.
I would never take advantage of someone's money, and friends that do irritate me (and I do let them know, nicely). Family members on the other hand, are a different story, and I can't ever really tell them what I feel because I don't want to be ostracized, either.
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Writer, Navy wife, autistic mom of two autistic kids (E is 6, C is 5).
She's also cheap in general, although has very minimum to pay for in life (she still lives at home and such and works 40 hours a week). I don't make nearly as much as she, and have two children, and yet SHE sill can't ever seem to find the money for things. It's driving my complete circle of friends beyond nuts with her keeping tabs all the time. To me small change like that between close friends is nothing, but she makes it a huge deal and tells me that's how the "real world works."
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