Oh dear. I told Terry not to lend money to people. It always causes bad blood, and now the blood is flowing. I hope we can hash this out. It is so true that no good deed goes unpunished.

Comments

[TheQueen]

Mom had a policy of not only never loaning money to friends but not loaning money to family. She made an exception for me when I was in my forties.

If I loan ten bucks to a friend, I give them a day to pay me back, then there is a clearly stated understanding that they nted indentured servitude and I will publically collect. "You owe me ten bucks. Go get me a glass of water."

[TheQueen]

Nted, you say? Entered

[musings]

It's one of the reasons why we try not to mix business with friends. It's really hard.

[Kay Dennison]

Been there; done that. It's never pretty. I hope sanity comes through.

[Hattie]

What I've learned is that it is never too late to learn your lesson. Terry is nicer than I am, and I am apt to complain about the fecklessness of others, and the word gets around,which embarrasses the lendee. So it's partly my fault. I forget that Hilo is small, and people carry tales.
Still, I can't understand how people can live high on the hog and then expect others to lend them money when they can't get regular loans to meet their payments. I also would be less annoyed if they had paid back all the money they owe us. They don't know how to live within their means. What they also don't know is how austere our lives were for years and years. Our current prosperity is a relatively new thing in our long lives, and also we have kids and grandkids to think about and our future money needs as well.
I am aware that many small businesses such as these people have need that credit line, and perhaps the rumors running around have affected them, but the banks are being very stingy with everyone right now.
So I'm willing to take my share of the blame but no more than my share.

[Z]

Live within means, I see that I haven't the faintest idea how. I know how to live without doing more than the things I consider basic, but that doesn't necessarily correlate with means.

My parents always said they did not know how, either. Supposedly we were living on my father's salary and some support from their parents and some credit. This was my mother's version and my father never contradicted her.

But now I've started helping them with the books and I see the truth - they were always well within means, and the extras didn't come from credit or their parents, they came from savings.

Then, until I was 40, I was always exhorted to be in the red to invest in career on the promise it would pay back later. You are supposed to spend whatever it takes to get your research name out there, on the theory that this will get you a well paid job. That does not work out mathematically at all, however, as there are not enough well paid jobs to go around.

Result in my case: the only time I lived within means was in college and graduate school - in college my stipend paid room board tuition books and just a bit more, so that was what I had, and in graduate school my job paid for those things with a little more latitude, so that was it, and there wasn't all this work related pressure to buy things like computers and so on out of own pocket on the promise that it would be what allowed one to keep on earning in the future ("go into debt now, or be on the street later!" was the drumbeat).

Only recently have I realized that part of why I liked college and graduate school as much as I did, and felt so grown up, was not feeling the pressure of debt - which I had always felt at my parents' house (even though it was a figment of my mother's imagination) and in my own after age 35 or so.

So, if these people have been pressured to live beyond means "to save their business and their future" I totally feel for them even though it's irrational to think that way ... I know what it is to have both boss and peers essentially chant, sign that loan, sign that loan.

[Z]

But: I never loan money! Donate it.

[Hattie]

Z: You explain our friends' dilemma quite well. They are in a business that demands a cash outlay to keep up appearances. And I do feel for them. We will talk it out and I hope try to repair the damage on both sides.

[Maria]

I promised myself I was never going to comment on your blog again, although I still read it. Why? Because several posts ago you openly made a statement about where I live, which is certainly not something I expected to see proclaimed on your blog. You must have deduced it from my IP address, which only you would know. It made me angry.

Hattie, you not only have chatted about your debtor friends in your home town, you have written about it in a public forum viewable from anywhere on earth. Sometimes things are better thought about than talked about, and some conversations should be private, not public.

[Hattie]

Maria: It is even worse than you think. However, as I say, I'm willing to take my share of the blame but no more.
I am surprised that you believe that your first name and home town will blow your cover for your "controversial" opinions.

[Maria]

Who said anything about controversial? There are banal reasons for not wanting to be tracked around the internet.

Now that I've vented on you, I will say that I still read your blog because it is interesting. You're smart and you think deeply about things. No doubt that's one reason why you still have good friends.