Lending someone money can be a slippery slope. There’s the risk that, once the floodgates open, they’ll never close. What’s worse, if they’re lazy in paying you back, it can make things awkward or even end relationships.
One woman has had it up to here with her neighbor, who is always asking her and her husband for cash but never paying back what she’s borrowed. After months of this, the woman has stopped lending, but her hubby doesn’t seem to be on the same page. She turned to netizens to rant.
More info: Mumsnet
Lending someone money comes with all sorts of risks, as this woman is finding out the hard way
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She made the mistake of lending her neighbor cash once, and now the mooching has been going on for months
Image credits: Samuel Peter / Pexels (not the actual photo)
If the woman doesn’t respond to her begging, the neighbor just texts her husband and asks him instead
Image credits: Liza Summer / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Having now put an end to it, she expects her hubby to do the same, but he’s still handing over cash whenever the neighbor asks
Image credits: Mikhail Nilov/ Pexels (not the actual photo)
Furious at both the situation and her husband, she turned to netizens to ask if she was being unreasonable to find it cheeky of the neighbor to borrow money and never repay it
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After getting feedback from the community, the woman complained that she was getting nowhere with her husband on the touchy topic
OP begins her story by telling the community that this all started a few months ago when her neighbor hit her up on Facebook asking if she could transfer her £10. She says she got along well with her, so she sent the money, expecting to be paid back.
Ever since that fateful day, however, her neighbor has been asking her for small cash loans almost daily, leading OP to eventually decline. But the neighbor doesn’t seem to want to take no for an answer and just switched to asking OP’s husband, who happily helps out.
The straw that broke the camel’s back arrived when the neighbor messaged OP at midnight asking for £20, then messaged her again twenty minutes later, waking her up. OP says she thinks it’s getting to be a bit of a joke, but her hubby has no issues with it and keeps forking over cash, sometimes several times a day.
In an update to her original post, she says she told her husband that, from now on, the neighbor wouldn’t be getting another penny from her, and she would appreciate it if he followed suit, but she’s since found out that he sent over even more cash and is obviously still waiting for repayment.
If you’ve ever lent someone money and never seen it again, you can probably relate. So, should you ever do it again? And how can you protect yourself if you do? We went looking for answers.
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In an interview for AARP, Nate Towers, director at Five Pathways Financial, says, “One of the most common mistakes people make when lending money is expecting to get it back. If you're going to lend, you should assume that you might not be repaid.”
You should also be cautious about how much cash you lend someone. While it might be nice to help someone cover the entire cost of whatever expense they’re facing, limiting the loan to what you can reasonably afford is crucial.
“This is one of those situations where you need to ask yourself, If I don’t get paid back, will I be OK? " Towers says.
If you do end up lending someone money, get the terms and conditions of the loan down on paper. The contract “should include key details, like whether you’ll charge interest, the repayment schedule, due dates, and any consequences if the loan isn’t repaid,” says Towers.
OP and her husband might as well assume that the money they’ve loaned so far won’t ever be coming back. Now, if only OP’s hubby would also turn off the taps, their neighbor might not be able to spend cash so irresponsibly.
What would you do if you were in OP’s shoes? Do you think there’s any way she can get her husband to stop coughing up cash? Let us know your opinion in the comments!
In the comments, readers suggested the woman ignore any further requests for money, while another said she should start pestering the needy neighbor for cash herself
