I have a strict policy about loaning money that can be summed up on one word–DON’T! I avoid doing it in most cases. Loaning money creates problems if the person isn’t able to pay it back on time, or forgets to and you have to go through the awkwardness of reminding them they the money is overdue. You can be made to feel like the bad guy for staying on the person.

Very little good can come from loaning money!

There’s a philosophy about it that says you shouldn’t loan any money that you can’t afford to lose, since you might never see it again. As a DoorMat, I loaned money frequently and hated asking for it back. I shudder to think of the money I’m still owed and will never see. I tried my best to get some of it back but in my DoorMat days I was too insecure to push anyone for it. I’ve come to terms with that by forgiving myself for being too weak to demand my money back and with the knowledge that the Universe has taken care of them for me.

All excuses aside, not repaying money owed to you  is stealing in my book. The Law of Attraction will bring the results of stealing back to them.

But, I prefer to avoid that messiness in the first place. If my best friend or close family members needed money from me, they’d get it in a heartbeat. I know they’d never ask unless it was a true emergency. But for most other people, my answer to a money request is simply, “I have a policy of not loaning money to anyone as it causes problems I don’t want to deal with.”

There are exceptions and you have to take each request individually.

A good friend was on the brink of losing her business if she didn’t pay a lawyer to take care of an issue immediately. She was completely tapped out, but expecting money a few weeks later. I knew her as a person of high integrity. She never asked me for money. I actually offered to loan it to her to save her business. Though I have the no loan policy, I knew she was good for it. Before I could suggest it she insisted on signing a written agreement. When the money she expected arrived a few weeks later, she repaid me in full and gave me a lot more to cover the interest than I’d ever get from a bank, despite my protests. And she took me out for dinner. But she’s a big exception.

Unless you’re so solvent you can afford to lose the money, think many times before loaning money.

If you decide to do it, write up a detailed agreement showing what you loaned, if there’s interest to be paid, and when they need to repay you. But I highly advise avoiding it if you can. Loaning money hurts friendships and causes a lot of stress if the person you give a loan to isn’t reliable or just can’t pay you back. Trying to get the money from some people can be very unpleasant. That’s why I prefer not to put myself into that position in the first place.

DoorMats loan money to please others and buy friendships. They often must take it as a loss when the person doesn’t repay it.

In my DoorMat days, I’d actually loan more money to someone who still owed me some from another time, even though I whined about it. DoorMats deprive themselves to loan money to others. Nice People on Top know they work hard for their money and don’t want to put themselves into the uncomfortable position of bugging someone to repay a loan. If you choose to be the latter, set strict boundaries on being a money lender, limiting it to only folks you trust implicitly. If others don’t like it, too bad!

Love yourself enough to understand that you don’t have to fix other people’s problems at your own expense–literally!

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