Would you be pissed at a friend who owes you a significant amount of money but is always spending money on things other than paying you back?

I would learn my lesson. Never loan money to someone that doesn’t put my friendship above things/stuff.

Then, I would tell said “friend” that I expect a weekly payment of “X” dollars beginning now. And, I would type up a document stating how much was owed/how much had been paid (that way I’d have a record with a signature for small claims court…should I need it in the future.

Yes. That is why you never lend money to friends. You either say no, or give it away as an act of love.

I would be pissed.

I’m owed a substantial amount of money & yes these actions piss me off! :-/ quite frankly. But it’s family……………………………Different ball game……

@SpatzieLover @josie But not all money is loaned – it might be a roommate who moved out because he/she couldn’t keep up on the rent, and still owed you a few months of rent.

Doesn’t sound like much of a friend. imo :(

Then a trip to small claims court is necessary. PERIOD! Friendship done.

EDIT: And I would learn that roommates are not worth the possibility of tarnishing my reputation or credit. says the property manager that sees almost no benefit from roommate arrangements

Again a lesson learned so many times. Do not lend to family/friends unless you decide that you will not get it back and that it doesn’t matter. You are the easy target and way to often suffer from lack of Integrity.

Sorry YOU (Being the person that lent the money not anyone personally but those that have had to learn). So many take things we say way to personal and it was never meant that way SORRY SORRY SORRY.

@Summum You are the easy target and way to often suffer from lack of Integrity. Me? That seems a bit personal – what the hell have I done to make you think I’m an easy target and have a lack of integrity?

The only thing worse than friends doing that, is customers going to trade shows and take vacations while they have invoices over due 90+ Days

@Cruiser Why is that worse? Walk me through the though process there.

If the person is a friend, you could probably just talk to him/her. Everyone has different thresholds for what counts as frivolous spending. Presumably the lender doesn’t want the borrower to be living on ramen until the money is paid back?

I owe a friend a lot of money right now, and every time I do something like buy new mascara I feel like I should call him and ask if its ok. he has made it clear that he trusts my judgment and isn’t in a particular hurry to get the money back. But for all I know, he very well might consider mascara a total luxury and think I’m a jerk for buying it.

@MyNewtBoobs Sorry for the misunderstanding I will not respond to you anymore if that is okay with you. Thanks and sorry…

@Summum I wasn’t trying to be mean, I’m just so confused.

@nikipedia For this question, we aren’t talking about not living on ramen, but rather going from living on ramen to spending $15–50 a night out on on the town, several nights a week, or perhaps new cloths from a nice department store, buying salon shampoo instead of drug store shampoo, etc.

@MyNewtBoobs if my customers don’t first give me the money the owe me, then I don’t have money to loan my dead beat friends who will then more than likely not ever pay me back. I have to have it first to give it loan it away!

@MyNewtBoobs but you see my point, right? Does the lender expect the borrower never to go out until the money is repaid? Only once a week? A month? Everyone has different thresholds. As someone in the borrower’s shoes, I would rather know if I was doing something that pissed off the lender.

@nikipedia Ooooo. Ok. Now I see your point.

I don’t lend money expecting to get it back. If I am repaid, that’s excellent and I’ll be more likely to lend to that person in the future. But I learned a long time ago never to lend anything with expectations of ever seeing it again.

In the case of an ex-roommate still owing rent, if they showed signs of being able to pay (like going out several nights a week, buying expensive brand names, &c.) and they still weren’t, that’d be a trip to court if just mentioning it didn’t solve the problem.

For some reason people never feel like they need to pay back rent once they’ve moved out. I’m a property manager too and I have seen more than a few friendships destroyed by roommate situations.
I know it’s going to be bad when two happy moms come in to co sign for their “perfect” kids. It’s only a matter of time before all hell breaks loose.

@nikipedia I certainly wouldn’t expect someone to not spend any money on themselves. However, when thousands are owed and a payment plan is not in place there is a boiling point for the relationship and for the need to have an authority mediate towards payment.

@SpatzieLover I think the problem is that it assumes that both parties have enough money to pay for authorities and mediation.

Yes.

@MyNewtBoobs Very little money is needed for small claims court filings…
How is she paying for these nights? Credit cards?

@nikipedia I think in this case (perhaps not the most hypothetical of questions), the person in debt is rather consistently advertising how much they are spending by checking into various places on FourSquare – so everyone knows just exactly how often they get sushi, Starbucks (or expensive, independent coffee shops), eat out, get drinks at a bar, etc.

I’ve learned my lesson on many fronts. One, I had a roommate, years ago, and she skipped out on the rent. I got stuck with the balance. I could have sued, but that would be more money I wouldn’t see. Second, I loaned money to a friend and then watched her buy new clothes, earrings…the works. Along with necessities. As my mother so gently pointed out, let it go, it’s not coming back.

I don’t loan money. If someone truly needs the money, I give them money. I don’t expect to see it again. I guess now, I look for what is more important. The friendship or a few less dollars in my wallet. Usually my friendship means more. It doesn’t mean that people can walk all over me, though. I do know how to say no.

It depends on your tolerance to the amount. There’s a classic lesson in the film “Mean Streets” where (I don’t recall the characters or actors) the younger “apprentice” is owed $20 by one of his counterparts. He wants to take some kind of action, but is advised by his “mentor” of sorts (these people are all criminals) to view it as a small amount to lose to learn that his counterpart is a loser and bad partner material.

On the other hand, I personally found satisfaction by being aggressive in collecting a larger debt that was once owed to me by a friend who asked if she could rent from me as part of a move back to my town. She ended up owing me around $1,100 and more or less snuck out the back door without leaving a forwarding address. After unsuccessfully trying to locate her (she was still in town) for a few months, I found her mother’s address online and knowing that her mother knew how to push her buttons wrote her mother a six page letter detailing all the things I had done for her daughter over the years and the debt she owed with a request that the mother buy out the debt.

I was paid in full a month later and not without “how could you do this to me!” kind of commentary. I rationalized that her actions forced me to be a dick, so I did not feel bad about being a dick. I got my money, which was helpful because that wasn’t (and still isn’t) an insignificant amount for my budget, but more than that I didn’t have to do the whole emotional process of getting over being sucker punched.

I would say there’s a third path if you are truly an enlightened sort of being and that is to recognize and identify with your “higher Self” (for lack of a better term)—your Self that comes before your consciousness. That higher Self is not diminished by unreturned money or by your friend’s folly.

I helped someone else on Fluther recover more than $10,000 from a working attorney(!) friend who was being a douchebag by advising her to resort to shaming him (although she did it by sort of threatening to make the debt publicly known among his attorney peers through legal action) much like I shamed my friend. It’s a useful lever.

I try very hard not to judge people by what they (apparently) spend money on. Without knowing for sure, I give the benefit of the doubt. Checking in from coffee houses/restaurants/bars? Maybe she’s with someone who’s picking up the tab, or she’s just along for the ride. New clothes? Maybe her mother bought them for her. Salon shampoo? I don’t know, that just seems kind of silly to be upset about.

If I knew for certain that she was actually spending money on all of these things, I might mention that I could really use the money she owes me, depending on the level of our friendship. However, when I loan money to a friend, I sort of write it off in my head right away, as if it were a gift.

Shakespeare had it precisely right many years ago.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for a loan oft loses both itself and friend.

@Buttonstc
Never a truer word spoken, my mother in fact always says this! I should really have listened more…. GA :-/