The Cost of Friendship
Good friends are priceless. They provide the emotional support that keeps us going and they give us a sense of belonging that makes life more pleasant. A good friend will help us move, take that 1:00 AM call when we’re troubled and pick us up when the car dies. Everyone should have one or two really good friends.
Of course having really good friends means helping them move, taking their 1:00 AM calls and picking them up when their cars die. It is much easier to have good friends than to be a good friend. Still, that is the price of friendship and we should all be prepared to invest in our friendships. That brings up the very uncomfortable question of what to do when friendship costs more than we can afford. For example, what do we do when our best friend asks us to be a bridesmaid and buy a $500 dress that is magenta with a large bow in back? Or a good buddy suggests he’d like us to throw a bachelor party in Vegas when we live in Bangor?
This problem is very complicated and requires some careful analysis.
The Budget Doctor’s Analysis for Friendship Costs
1. Determine the financial cost of any requested friendship gesture.
If it is a modest cost and for a good friend, assume that it will happen. If it means missing a house payment it can’t happen and you need other options. If it is any amount that makes you uncomfortable, it needs to be discussed with your friend.
2. Tell your friend about your financial concerns if you have them.
You can be honest with friends and if you can’t tell this person that $500 is more than you can spend, that person is not really a friend. Suggest dresses from an on-line catalog of a department or discount store. Suggest a bachelor party at the local casino.
3. Consider the depth of your friendships.
If you have fifty close friends in twenty states, you need to log off Facebook and rethink friendship. There might be twenty people you would loan $10 to and ten people you would loan $100 to, but there shouldn’t be more than three that you would consider loaning $1,000 to. Friendship should be reciprocal, so always ask yourself if this person would do the same favor for you.
4. Consider non-financial alternatives to requests.
Maybe you can’t lend a friend $200 for motel costs, but you can offer your couch. Maybe you can’t cosign for an auto loan, but you can provide transportation for a couple of weeks. Maybe you can’t afford to buy a gift for a party but you can offer to take photos or bring food or do the clean up.
5. You can’t buy friendship.
Is some relationship all about the money? Is an investment in time enough to maintain friendships? Are you judging friends, or are friends judging you, by amounts exchanged?
It can be quite awkward to have friends who have financial circumstances vastly different from yours. If you’re at their house every weekend because they have a pool or ping pong table, you can both feel that things are unbalanced. If couples go out to eat and the wealthier one always picks up the tab it can feel quite uncomfortable. Sometimes friends move apart because they have less in common as their financial conditions differ. That is unfortunate, but one rule of friendship is that it takes two people who care more about each other than they care about the things that make them different.
People who will not have friends who are different from them in wealth, race, religion and political affiliation are probably people looking more for reinforcement than for friendship. Choose your friends carefully.