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Putting Myself First (cont.)
By Jay | December 8, 2007
Yesterday M’s cellphone got shut off. He got a new plan with Verizon a few months ago with 300 free minutes. Somehow he didn’t quite get that it would start costing money after 300 minutes and, within 2 months, had run up a bill of $500. He asked me several times last week to lend him $500 to pay off the bill, but I held fast and said no. It’s his phone, he ran up the bill, and it’s his responsibility to pay it off, not mine. He tried the “we’re partners” crap several times, and finally I told him to save it, that I am not made of money, and that if he wants a sugar-daddy he’ll just have to find one somewhere else.
I wrote yesterday about my self-sacrificing personality type. In the past I would have paid off his phone bill for him. In fact I paid off about $15,000 of credit card debt for him. In so doing, I enabled him to not face reality and to keep spending money that he didn’t have. Now he’s sweating his financial situation, and this is good because it’s motivating him to think of ways to make money. He’s a licensed massage therapist, and has already put some flyers up around the neighborhood to get new clients. I did all the sweating a couple years ago for him, which wasn’t helping me or him; rather, it was setting up an unhealthy dynamic that has left us both poorer today.
It’s hard to watch the people we love struggle with money. But often when we help them we simply “protect” them from facing hard financial lessons that they need to learn.
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Stumble it!
December 12th, 2007 at 12:28 am
good for you.. a bunch a years ago my partner kept borrowing money from me and I finally said no more. I told him he could barrow from his parents, but I wasn’t giving him any more. He never asked again!! Sometimes people take the easy way because they can.