I got a hospital bill I'm slippin on getting paid. I owe my homeboy $60 dollars from a trip to Cedar Point like almost a year ago, lol. He hit me up and asked me for a ride a couple days back and I carted that fool around a good 70+. He offered me money and I just told him to take 20 off what I owed him from the trip from last year. I'll get you the other $40 once I can afford to hand it out. Right now I'm living basic as hell- food and bills is about all I can afford. He was like "damn, I forgot all about that shit. Good lookin', I wouldn't have even remembered". I spent about 12 bucks in gas to do all the driving, then there was like four hours of us going here and there, him picking up other money (dude was on some loan shark shit for a while, he's got some cousins that are straight Italian mob types). So I figure I actually put back a little more than I asked him to take off. Boy got all kinds of court shit going on and lost his license so this is maybe the 4th time he's hit me up needing a ride.
I fucking hate being in debt though. I've borrowed 20 bones here and there in the past to get me through until pay day, but I always pay it back as soon as its in my pocket.
Far as money and friends/family goes- that's almost never an issue. If they're your family/friends, money shouldn't matter at the end of the day. Unless you're hitting people with loans of $500 or more. My dude is selling commercial insurance in L.A., and he recently came back for a visit. I let him know I can't afford to be out every night, but he didn't care. Insisted I roll with him while he's in town. We hit the casinos and bars, a few house parties for 5 straight days. He spent a minimum of $400 each night. Two nights I know for sure he dropped at least a G.
He flew back to L.A. and never mentioned anything twice about money. He's getting plenty of it right now and told me before hand "don't even worry about paying me back for any of this shit. I'm just here to have fun". No doubt I'll be caked up in the near future, too many people have that expectation of me and there's not even an option to fall short of those expectations. The day I'm hittin' six figures a year, I won't be trippin over no bullshit borrowed money. I won't mind buying my friends tickets for the ride either, because its not about the value of the ticket- its about the value of the fun y'all are having while you take the ride. You can be stingy and ride by yourself, but shit isn't as much fun that way. Motherfuckers lose some valuable ties over money. There's been times I've loaned out money and never seen it again, there's been times I straight gave my people money when they were having hard times, or sometimes refused when somebody wanted to pay me back. I'll give it when I have it without any expectation of being paid back. There's been times people get me when I don't have it. Sort of like financial Karma.
Now if you're loaning out cash and its affecting your day to day by doing it, you shouldn't be loaning it out. Like a lot of people say though- don't expect to get it back.
I never get mad over money, because I always end up getting more. There's too much money floating around in this country to get your stress levels up over fifty or a hundred bucks. You can sit there bitching and worrying about what you lent out, or you can use that same energy to go out and get more.