He S A Friend Goddamn It

Category: Finance, Credit.

Not long ago a friend of mine came to me with a problem. He was not looking for money, well not exactly.

He had just recently broken up with his girlfriend and was having financial difficulties. He and his ex- girlfriend had taken out a 100 of your net income each month and add this amount to the monthly repayments you make on your smallest loan. Continue in this fashion. Once you have paid down this loan take the amount you were repaying on the loan along with the additional 5% and add it to the next smallest loan. Cut up all your credit cards and operate only with debit cards or cash. After the six months were up I would extend it for another year if he met the criteria I outlined above.

Create a daily/ weekly/ monthly budget. " I said to my friend that I would go guarantor for six months to give him breathing space but I wanted him to change his spending habits. To the casual observer the terms outlined above may seem a bit extreme- some may argue that I should have simply gone ahead and signed for the mortgage and to hell with the consequences. My argument is this- it was this kind of attitude that got us into debt in the first place and I ll be damned if I m going back there. He s a friend goddamn it! I ve had too many sleepless nights for me to go back to drowning in debt. My friend said I was being unreasonable.

So this is how it turned out. I explained in detail the reasons why I wanted him to meet the criteria. He didn t take too kindly to my offer of help on condition. It was for his own good and I had his best interests at heart. He got very offended. I was trying to control his spending behaviour but only because I could see exactly where he was going to run into financial trouble. He said I was treating him like a child and in certain respects he was right.

I tried to remain calm and kept repeating my reasons but as I said before when people are in a lot of financial trouble and the bank is calling it is hard for them to be logical. He couldn t see why I was being so stubborn. It did become a bit ridiculous and my friend became very upset. I pointed out that I felt it was unfair for him to use emotional blackmail on me just so I could click my fingers and his problems would be solved. The conversation went on in this manner for a while before my friend just got up and left in anger. Well at least solved until the next debt threat! We didn t speak for weeks.

We spoke for a while and he apologised for storming off. I sent him an email to see how he was getting on and he called me. I asked about the mortgage and he told me that his brother in law had gone guarantor. We have met up and spoken since but our friendship is damaged probably beyond repair. We pretty much left it at that. Part of me wonders whether the right thing to do was nothing- to make up some wishy washy excuse as to why I couldn t go guarantor and leave him to his own devices.

Now before you start typing that email of bile to me let me explain. I don t know what would have happened but to be honest I think the best thing that could have happened to him was to lose his house- or come close enough to losing it that he changed his ways. I wanted my friend to realise how dangerous debt can be if used without thinking. I wanted to help him realise this but he did not want to listen and certainly not to me. I could see from his" I want it all and I want it now" lifestyle that he was using getting in deeper and deeper in debt. Who was I to tell him he had a problem? Probably not.

If the sheriff had come calling to take his stuff away would that have been enough?

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