Your Hard Earned Cash

One of the quickest ways to flush a friendship down the toilet is by loaning out money. You want to do the right thing, you want to be there when your friend is in need, but unless your middle name is MoneyBags and you don’t care whether you ever, EVER seeing that cash again, like crack just say “No.”

Life does toss us curve balls sometimes and emergencies do happen, but chances are when you loan money to a friend you are enabling the irresponsible financial behavior which led them to you in the first place. So you can count on them being just as irresponsible when it comes to paying you back. They’ll tell you they can’t pay until next month, but you’ll watch in amazement as they go out to dinners, go camping for the weekend, buying round after round of Yage

r Bombs at the bar. The worst part is you’ll feel guilty interfering with their good time, and since you don’t charge interest or harass them with letters or phone calls, you’ll drop to the bottom of their priority list. Months will go by, you won’t see a dime, and the resentment will grow inside you like a weed, until finally you’ll just want to drop kick the head off that dandelion and watch the white liquid ooze out.

Not Convinced?

So, you’ve decided “to hell with sound advice” and that your friendship means very little. Well, even though you’d be better off lighting the money on fire, if you choose to loan it to your friend there are steps you can take to help get it back without having to call Johnny “NoThumbs” to help you out.

Get it in writing

Even if it’s a small amount (small loans are easy to forget), write down how much they owe, and when they expect to pay it back. Let them see you mark the payback date on your calendar. You might slip to the backs of their minds, but it’s a good place to pick at them when you’re out of sight.

Charge interest

You know your friends. You watch how they conduct their daily affairs. Are they constantly late paying their bills? Do they always complain about being up to their eyeballs in debt? There is a word for these types of borrowers, and it’s a word that brought Bear Stearns, the 5th largest investment bank in the US to its knees: subprime. Sure you love them and they’re hilarious at parties, but these friends are high risk borrowers and you should treat them as such when loaning them money, within reason of course.

Suggest an alternative source:

If you’re really worried about never seeing the money again but you still want to help, send them to Prosper . Let people who don’t know either of you dish out the cash. Your friend will avoid ridiculous bank loan interest rates, and you don’t have to kiss a friendship goodbye.

Your Pride and Joy

Never a good idea. No matter how good a driver they are or how hot the date they want to take out is, pay for the taxi before you hand over your baby to a friend. This is of course assuming that your car is your baby and not some clunk-box you’d rather see orphaned. The problem is with the word “accident”. Should your friend bring your vehicle home with a dented fender you aren’t allowed to get angry because “it was an accident.” They will also be shielded from your wrath with statements like “it’s just a car, what matters is that you’re okay.” So you bury your fury, sort of glad your friend walked away unscathed, making higher insurance payments for the baby your friend broke.

Not Convinced?

Also, did you know that in certain States if you lend your car to a friend who becomes involved in a felony where someone is killed, you are held responsible and could go to prison for murder? Check out this article and think twice before handing over the keys to your trouble- making buddies.

Your Girlfriend

This one’s simple. Never lend your girlfriend to anyone, especially if that someone owns a yacht.

Your DVD collection

The two main reasons you will never see your favorite DVDs again are pride and memory.
Pride: In the same way lawyers show off their knowledge by surrounding themselves with entire walls of leather-bound books, we like to show off our cinematic knowledge with extensive and colorful DVD collections. Like the peacock, the more colorful the DVD display the faster your friends are drawn towards it. Don’t expect friends to ask to borrow DVDs, expect them to tell you which ones they are taking. They haven’t even removed their coats off yet and they’ve already built a pile of DVDs they intend to “borrow”.

Memory:

Assuming you have more than one friend and a semi-decent DVD collection, you can expect to have multiple films loaned out at the same time. There is a reason Blockbuster uses a computer to track its rentals: humans forget. A typical movie is about 2 hours long, but by the time your friends get around to watching it, scheduling a time to see you again, and actually remembering the bring the movie with them when they do, you won’t be seeing your DVD for about 6 months. Of course by then you will have forgotten you even lent them Reservoir Dogs in the first place. Pretty soon your alphabetized collection is missing movies F through K and you have no idea who has what.

What to do…

Hide your DVDs. The best way is to buy a large storage binder for the disks themselves, and to lock away or bury their colorful cases in the backyard. If you know a friend is coming over to watch a movie, try to pick one before hand so you can have it in the player when they arrive. If they are already over ask them what they would like to watch, and then disappear into a room with a lock to get it. Never let them see your DVD binder. If they do, they will borrow disks without cases and will surely end up scratching your Snatch.

Not Convinced?

Should you decide to lend out your DVDs make sure you write down who and when you loaned what to. Keep a database in your computer. Every time you see them sneak in comments like “So what did you think about 21 Grams?” or “Wasn’t Old School hilarious?” Become so annoying they’ll think twice about borrowing from you again. Then they can just go to a Video Store (the businesses that used to exist to rent dvds and videos).