If People Are Owing You and Don't Want to Pay, Try This

We've all been there really. Being asked for money and looking for a way out of the tight spot. Because in all honesty, lending money might put your own current or future financial security at risk. Humans generally are insatiable and are ready to borrow you into poverty. You owe it to yourself to stop this from happening. It's worse if the borrowers are members of your immediate family. But there's hope! Here are a few ways out.

Make it a policy. It's really not enough to make this policy, you have to judiciously enforce it. The policy is really simple, never lend money to family and friends. I'll tell you this straight up, it's way easier to get your money back from total strangers than family and friends. With strangers, you can threaten to lock them up. Nobody is letting you lock up your younger brother up. Grandpa will be rolling in his grave.

Don't disclose your financial details. No matter how much you're pressured, never disclose how much you have in the bank with anyone, maybe other than your significant other. It might even backfire, she might be the one to snitch that her husband is doing well to the relatives. Next thing you know, you're carrying the entire extended family and they all promise to pay back.

Offer to help in other ways. Rather than lend money out in large amounts, offer your other services, like exposure. Be careful, though: Most of the time, people who want to borrow money from you don’t actually want your advice on succeeding. If possible, only lend amounts you could otherwise dash the borrower. That way if they don't pay back, which is mostly the case, you're not too hurt.

A trick that works is, as soon as they open their mouths to ask, tell them you were even just going to ask them too. It might seem a tad suspicious if you’re rolling around in a range and complaining about being broke though. So if you’re gonna act broke, the least you can do is to look the part. Times are hard, get your acting skills up.

Ask for time to decide. Tell them you need time off to think about their requests. Take your time and with prayer mixed with hope, they just might forget. Do not make any promises! The harassment that follows making a monetary promise is unprecedented. You can also just gift them a much smaller amount, for the time being.

If all the above still don't work, you have to take things up a notch and FAKE YOUR OWN DEATH. Dead men don't lend out money, because well, they're dead. But given how desperate people are these days, they might want to show up at your funeral to confirm your demise. Now if you weigh the cost of funerals, between buying a coffin, hiring pallbearers to carry it and cooking rice for a little over five hundred people, it's much easier to just lend them the money and live!