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.Establishing afirm financial foundation ensures that your job is notyour master and that you re free to decide for yourselfwhat s most important to you.Friends, Family, and Lending MoneyAsk yourself this: Do you like your mortgage company?Do you have a close, personal relationship with yourcredit card company? Do you love the loan officerdown at the bank?Most of us would be quite happy to not have to dealwith these financial entities.These financial arrange-ments cost us thousands of dollars in interest anddeliver a nice healthy bill to our doorstep to be paideach month.There s little love lost between most bor-rowers and most lenders.Look at it from their perspective.If you pay yourbills on time, you re nothing more than a useful numberin a database.If you don t pay your bills on time, theyhave to start harassing you in various ways to get themoney that is theirs.From the Library of Wow! eBook 176 The Simple DollarDoes this sound like the type of relationship youwant to have with your family and friends? In its sim-plest terms, this is the exact arrangement you agree towhenever you make the choice to loan money (or toborrow money) from someone you have an establishedrelationship with.Your relationship goes from a famil-ial bond or a friendship into a lender-borrower relation-ship, with all of the negativity that goes with it.If you lend someone money and they fail to pay itback, you begin to feel some serious strain in the rela-tionship.Should you confront them or should you justlet it slide? The pressure builds up over time and theacid corrodes the previously-existing good relationship.The same thing happens for the borrower they beginto feel guilty about the money left unpaid and begin toavoid the lender.There are three simple solutions to this conundrum,as follows:1.If someone you care about owes you money, for-give that debt.Do it right now, before it has thechance to damage your relationship even more.Ifyou re still left with hard feelings, chalk it up to anegative experience and move forward with life.2.If you have a desire to lend money to someoneyou care about, make it a one-time gift.Yes, weall want to help our friends in need, but lendingthem money often results in damage to that rela-tionship one that s obviously valuable enoughthat you re willing to lend money.Find ways tohelp them that do not result in a lender-borrowerrelationship, because that type of relationshipends in heartache.From the Library of Wow! eBook The Personal-Financial Boundary 1773.Don t borrow money from family or friends.Ifyou re in a financially difficult spot, it s fine toask your friends for advice, temporary livingspace, or a helping hand.Just don t ask them tolend you money because, merely by asking, youput them in a difficult and unfair spot.Instead,seek their advice and help in other ways.Five Steps to Getting Your Relationshipson TrackThere is no better day than today to get the importantrelationships in your life in better shape.These relation-ships are central to who you are as a person and form abig part of the foundation for your personal success.Here are five steps to get started on right away:1.Set aside some time to talk to your partner aboutmoney and about life.Set aside an hour oneevening to talk about the goals you share, then gothrough your entire financial state and determinewhere you are and what you need to do toaccomplish those goals.Don t be surprised ifsuch discussions bleed far outside this hour andrelish those discussions, as they ll become thefoundation of your financial future together.2.Recognize that your partner is human and makesmistakes, just as you do.We re all human.We allmake mistakes.Getting enraged at your partner smissteps does nothing at all to solve the problemit just makes it worse.Put yourself in your partner sshoes if you had made a financial mistake, wouldFrom the Library of Wow! eBook 178 The Simple Dollaryou want to admit it if you knew your partnerwould go into a snarling rage? Instead of reactingwith pure emotion, react with compassion andlook for solutions to those problems.3.Confess your mistakes to your partner and workwith your partner to fix them.Just as your part-ner is willing to admit mistakes and seek solu-tions, you should be willing to do the same.Admit your mistakes, bear the emotionalresponse to them, and work with your partner tocome up with a solution to these mistakes.Onlyby working together can you come up with atruly effective solution.4.Forgive the debts and misdeeds (financial andotherwise) of those who we care about andattempt to re-establish a connection with them.Apast mistake (often on both of your parts) is notworth destroying a valued personal relationshipover.Step back and ask yourself what s reallyvaluable here.5.Set aside focused time to build (and rebuild) therelationships most important to us.Call yourparents
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