Just say no?
During the 80’s and 90’s the phrase “Just say no!” was pushed as the newest idea in drug education. The idea was to teach kids that it was ok to ‘just say no’ to drugs. There was nothing wrong with telling the kid offering you a joint that you were too smart to smoke dope. All in all a very good idea and although I am not sure of the success of the program, there is a very good financial lesson to be learned in that phrase. The lesson? Just say no to things that will cause you financial harm; including other people.
MSN Money has an article titled “How to say no to anything — or anyone“. When trying to get your own finances under control the last thing you need to do is start handing out money to other people. I am not talking about people that really need help, I am talking about the family member that just needs $100 to get their car out of the shop, or the friend that just needs $150 to keep the electricity on. When you are working hard to control your own spending the one thing that is almost impossible to budget for is other people’s bills.
Saying no is essential if we want to stick to a budget, make progress toward our financial goals and protect our credit. Yet we also want to preserve relationships with many of the people, including loved ones, who are trying to get us to say yes.
I know from experience how difficult it is to say no when someone asks you for money. You know they need it, but you also know that one of two things is probably true. First, you don’t really have the money to lend to them, or second, you know that by giving them the money you are almost guaranteed to be setting yourself up to be asked again the next time an ‘emergency’ comes up. Often times the best help you can offer someone is the opportunity to experience a little hardship. Saying no, although difficult and uncomfortable, is sometimes the right thing to say. If you have trouble saying no to people, the MSN article offers three things you can do to help you say no when someone asks you for money.
- Take a minute to think – don’t let the person force you into making a rash decision without first contemplating all the ramifications of your decision. My wife and I have started waiting overnight before we make large financial decisions.
- Don’t make a sucker’s choice – often we are given only two choices neither of which is good for us, and usually not good for the other person. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and come up with option #3.
- Go public – as soon as possible let the other person know what you are not willing to do. We have applied this idea to telemarketers. As soon as we realize we have answered a telemarketing call, we tell them we do not make contributions over the phone. If they would like to send us something in the mail, we will review the information and then make a decision. We often have to state this several times before they accept it, but it keeps us from feeling guilty about not supporting the cause.
I understand that helping people is important, but we need to define what helping people really means. Teaching them to budget their money would be one way of providing long-term help, while giving them $50 for gas money while they are paying $150 a month for cable would not be considered helping. That is called enabling.
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